Grounation Day
Encyclopedia
Grounation Day is an important Rastafarian
Rastafari movement
The Rastafari movement or Rasta is a new religious movement that arose in the 1930s in Jamaica, which at the time was a country with a predominantly Christian culture where 98% of the people were the black descendants of slaves. Its adherents worship Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia , as God...

 holy day, and second after Coronation Day
Coronation Day
Coronation Day is the anniversary of the coronation of a monarch, the day a king or queen is formally crowned and invested with the regalia.-Coronation Day of Commonwealth realms monarchs:* Elizabeth II - 2 June 1953* George VI - 12 May 1937...

 (November 2). It is celebrated in honor of Haile Selassie's 1966 visit to Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...

.

Visit of Selassie I to Jamaica

Haile Selassie I had already met with several Rasta elders in Addis Ababa
Addis Ababa
Addis Ababa is the capital city of Ethiopia...

, and had allowed Rastafari and other people of African descent
Recent African origin of modern humans
In paleoanthropology, the recent African origin of modern humans is the most widely accepted model describing the origin and early dispersal of anatomically modern humans...

 to settle on his personal land in Shashamane
Shashamane
Shashamane is a town in central Ethiopia. It is located in the Misraq Shewa Zone of the Oromia Region. The city lies on the Trans-African Highway 4 Cairo-Cape Town, about from the capital of Addis Ababa...

.

Haile Selassie visited Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...

 on Thursday, 21 April 1966. Some 100,000 Rastafari from all over Jamaica descended on Palisadoes Airport in Kingston
Kingston, Jamaica
Kingston is the capital and largest city of Jamaica, located on the southeastern coast of the island. It faces a natural harbour protected by the Palisadoes, a long sand spit which connects the town of Port Royal and the Norman Manley International Airport to the rest of the island...

, having heard that the man whom they considered to be God was coming to visit them. They waited at the airport playing drum
Drum
The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...

s and smoking large quantities of marijuana
Cannabis (drug)
Cannabis, also known as marijuana among many other names, refers to any number of preparations of the Cannabis plant intended for use as a psychoactive drug or for medicinal purposes. The English term marijuana comes from the Mexican Spanish word marihuana...

.

When Haile Selassie's Ethiopian Airlines
Ethiopian Airlines
Ethiopian Airlines , formerly Ethiopian Air Lines, often referred to as simply Ethiopian, is an airline headquartered on the grounds of Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It serves as the country's flag carrier, and is wholly owned by the Government of Ethiopia...

 flight landed at the airport at 1:30 PM, the crowd surrounded his plane on the tarmac
Tarmac
Tarmac is a type of road surface. Tarmac refers to a material patented by Edgar Purnell Hooley in 1901...

. The day had been overcast and stormy, but just as the plane's wheels touched down, four large white clouds appeared and sunlight burst through, causing nearly everyone to kneel. After about half an hour, the door swung open and the emperor appeared at the top of the mobile steps. A deafening tumult was heard from the crowd, who beat calabash
Calabash
Lagenaria siceraria , bottle gourd, opo squash or long melon is a vine grown for its fruit, which can either be harvested young and used as a vegetable, or harvested mature, dried, and used as a bottle, utensil, or pipe. For this reason, the calabash is widely known as the bottle gourd...

 drums, lit firecrackers, waved signs, and sounded Abeng
Abeng
Abeng is a novel related to Maroons published in 1984 by Michelle Cliff. It is a quasi-autobiographical novel about a mixed-race Jamaican girl named Clare Savage growing up in the 1950s. It explores the historical repression resulting from British imperialism in Jamaica...

 horns of the Maroons
Maroon (people)
Maroons were runaway slaves in the West Indies, Central America, South America, and North America, who formed independent settlements together...

. All protocol was dropped as the crowd pressed past the security forces and onto the red carpet
Red carpet
A red carpet is traditionally used to mark the route taken by heads of state on ceremonial and formal occasions, and has in recent decades been extended to use by VIPs and celebrities at formal events.- History :...

 that had been laid out for the reception. Selassie waved from the top of the steps; some interpreters have claimed that he shed tears, although this is disputed. He then returned into the plane, disappearing for several more minutes. Finally Jamaican authorities were obliged to request Ras Mortimer Planno, a well-known Rasta leader, to climb the steps, enter the plane, and negotiate the Emperor's descent. When Planno reemerged, he announced to the crowd: "The Emperor has instructed me to tell you to be calm. Step back and let the Emperor land" After Planno escorted the African monarch down the steps, journalists were puzzled by Selassie's refusal to walk on the red carpet [hence "grounation", dialectal equivalent of "grounding" in the sense of "making contact with the soil"] on the way to his limousine. He was then driven to the King's House, the residence of Governor-General
Governor-General of Jamaica
The Governor-General of Jamaica represents the Jamaican monarch, and head of state, who holds the title of King or Queen of Jamaica ....

 Clifford Campbell
Clifford Campbell
Sir Clifford Clarence Campbell ON, GCMG, GCVO, K.St.J was the first Jamaican-born Governor-General of Jamaica. He served in that position from December 1, 1962, until March 2, 1973....

.

As a result of Planno's actions, the Jamaican authorities were asked to ensure that Rastafarian representatives were present at all state functions attended by His Majesty, and Rastafari elders, including Planno and probably Joseph Hibbert
Joseph Hibbert
Joseph Nathaniel Hibbert was, along with Leonard Howell, Archibald Dunkley, and Robert Hinds, one of the first preachers of the Rastafari movement in Jamaica following the coronation of Ras Tafari as Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia on 2 November 1930.In about 1911, at the age of 17, he moved...

, also obtained a private audience with the Emperor, where he reportedly told them that they should not immigrate to Ethiopia until they had first liberated the people of Jamaica. This dictum came to be known as "liberation
Liberty
Liberty is a moral and political principle, or Right, that identifies the condition in which human beings are able to govern themselves, to behave according to their own free will, and take responsibility for their actions...

 before repatriation
Repatriation
Repatriation is the process of returning a person back to one's place of origin or citizenship. This includes the process of returning refugees or soldiers to their place of origin following a war...

". At a dinner held at the King's House, Rastas claimed that acting Jamaican Prime Minister Donald Sangster
Donald Sangster
Sir Donald Burns Sangster was a Jamaican politician and the second Prime Minister of Jamaica. He entered politics in 1933 at the age of 21 with his election to the council of the Parish of St Elizabeth, Jamaica...

 had stamped his foot at Lulu, Haile Selassie's pet chihuahua
Chihuahua (dog)
The ' is the smallest breed of dog and is so named for the state of Chihuahua in Mexico. Chihuahuas come in a wide variety of sizes, head shapes, colors and coat lengths.-History:...

, who, they swore, had responded with the roar of a lion.

Defying expectations of the Jamaican authorities, Selassie never rebuked the Rastafari for their belief in him as the Messiah
Messiah
A messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...

. Instead, he presented the movement's faithful elders with gold medallions bearing the Ethiopian seal – the only recipients of such an honour on this visit. Meanwhile, he presented some of the Jamaican politicians, including Sangster, with miniature coffin-shaped cigarette boxes.

Impact

Rita Marley
Rita Marley
Alpharita Constantia Anderson , better known as Rita Marley, and sometimes called "Nana Rita", is the widow of reggae legend/musician Bob Marley, and a member of the trio the I Threes, Bob Marley's backup singers.-Biography:...

, Bob Marley
Bob Marley
Robert Nesta "Bob" Marley, OM was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician. He was the rhythm guitarist and lead singer for the ska, rocksteady and reggae band Bob Marley & The Wailers...

's wife, converted to the Rastafari faith after seeing Haile Selassie in his motorcade
Motorcade
A motorcade is a procession of vehicles. The term motorcade was coined by Lyle Abbot , and is formed after cavalcade on the false notion that "-cade" was a suffix meaning "procession"...

 en route to the King's House. She claimed, in interviews and in her book No Woman No Cry, that she had seen a stigma
Stigmata
Stigmata are bodily marks, sores, or sensations of pain in locations corresponding to the crucifixion wounds of Jesus, such as the hands and feet...

on Haile Selassie's hand as he waved to the crowd, and was instantly convinced of his divinity.

For years afterward, Planno
Mortimer Planno
Mortimo "Kumi" Planno, was a renowned drummer and Rastafari elder and considered one of the ideological founders of this back-to-Africa movement...

, who became a spiritual guru of Bob Marley
Bob Marley
Robert Nesta "Bob" Marley, OM was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician. He was the rhythm guitarist and lead singer for the ska, rocksteady and reggae band Bob Marley & The Wailers...

, would give out enlarged photographs of himself with the Emperor on the steps of the airplane.

The great significance of this event in the development of the Rastafari religion should not be underestimated. Having been outcasts in society, they gained a measure of respectability for the first time. By making Rasta more acceptable, it opened the way for the commercialisation of reggae
Reggae
Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...

, leading in turn to the further global spread of Rastafari.

Haile Selassie is thought to have encouraged the Rastafari elders to learn about the Ethiopian Orthodox faith while in Jamaica, and in 1970, he dispatched Archbishop Laike Mandefro to establish a mission in Jamaica. Mandefro was formally invited by Joseph Hibbert
Joseph Hibbert
Joseph Nathaniel Hibbert was, along with Leonard Howell, Archibald Dunkley, and Robert Hinds, one of the first preachers of the Rastafari movement in Jamaica following the coronation of Ras Tafari as Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia on 2 November 1930.In about 1911, at the age of 17, he moved...

, one of the original founders of the Rastafari Movement, to teach the Rasta community, and in 1971 Mandefro named Hibbert as a "Spiritual Organizer". During this time, Mandefro pointedly refused calls to demand that the Rastafarians renounce their faith in Haile Selassie's divinity, and some 2,000 Rastas accordingly received Orthodox baptisms.

Because of Haile Selassie's visit, April 21 is celebrated as Grounation Day. The "Abu Ye! Abu Ye Abu ye! Abu ye!" chant is an element of Grounation Day festivities.
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