I-Tal Foodways: Nourishing Rastafarian Bodies Mandy Garner Dickerson Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Master's Theses Graduate School 2004 I-tal foodways: nourishing Rastafarian bodies Mandy Garner Dickerson Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses Part of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Dickerson, Mandy Garner, "I-tal foodways: nourishing Rastafarian bodies" (2004). LSU Master's Theses. 111. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses/111 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Master's Theses by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. I-TAL FOODWAYS: NOURISHING RASTAFARIAN BODIES A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in The Department of Geography and Anthropology by Mandy G. Dickerson B.A., Louisiana State University, 1998 August, 2004 For my father, whose great sadness and bodily suffering I could never relieve, despite every grand attempt. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks and praise goes first to my most treasured colleague and friend, my lion- hearted husband Eric Dickerson. Thanks also to my advisor, Dr. Helen Regis, for her fine example, careful use of criticism, and steady hand in handling my worries as I produced this thesis. Special thanks to Dr. Miles Richardson for all his inspiring, yet sometimes discomforting, riddles and poems. And thanks to Dr. Jill Brody for her sustained interest in me and my project, and for giving my draft a thorough treatment. I would also like to show my appreciation to the Robert C. West Fund at LSU, which made summer fieldwork abroad possible. To my consultants, especially I-nty IIon, Shirley Genus, and Sojie Stewart, you have my I-tinual Ras-pect. You opened up your personal lives to me, and you came through when I needed you most. I only hope I have done the same. To my family, especially my mother Bonnie Garner and my sister Emily Burton, I will forever be grateful for the ways you support my academic work and keep a candle lit for me even through our darkest hours. And to my mother-in-law Virginia Dickerson, thank you for the example you constantly provide for Eric and me, through strong faith and radiant positivity. Last but not least, to all my friends, especially to Travis, my uncompromising vegan comrade, you never let me forget that I must live up and feel well. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................. iii LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................... vi ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................... vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................... 1 Literature Review ......................................................................................... 5 Methodology, Context, and Informants ..................................................... 14 Précis .......................................................................................................... 26 2 "IN THE LEAF WE TRUST": ORIENTING THE TASTE FOR I-TAL ......... 28 Land Rights, Dissent, and the Turn toward Natural Living ....................... 29 Mobilizing History, Imagining Livity ........................................................ 39 Ecology and Cultivating Anciency ............................................................ 41 3 EX-TABLISHING I-TAL CUISINE ................................................................ 49 Culinary Models and Strategies ................................................................. 50 The Purist's Approach: A Composite .................................................. 50 Dietary Dilemma: The Chicken Wings Incident ................................. 56 Soups, Snacks, and One-Pot Dishes ........................................................... 62 Shirley's Pepperpots ............................................................................ 62 I-nty's Rice and Peas ........................................................................... 68 Ancient Snacks: Shem and Popcorn ................................................... 71 Outdoor Kitchens ....................................................................................... 74 Breakfast in I Hills .............................................................................. 74 Supper of Rastafari .............................................................................. 81 Roadside Lunch and Market ............................................................... 90 4 I-TAL FOOD-MEDICINES AND HEALING JOURNEYS............................. 97 I-tal Food-Medicines and Physical Work ................................................... 98 Marley's Big Mistake........................................................................... 99 Maintenance Food: Building and Strengthening............................... 100 Angel Food: Loosening and Cleansing.............................................. 106 The Cleansing Comforts of Zareeba ................................................. 111 I-tal Retreats, Healing Journeys, and Spiritual Work................................ 117 Nyabinghi I-ssembly, Haile Selassie's Birth-Light Celebration ....... 120 Using I-tal Works, or Selling Culture? ............................................. 128 5 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................... 135 REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................140 iv APPENDIX A INTRODUCTION TO THE GLOSSARY .......................................................150 B GLOSSARY .....................................................................................................153 VITA ...............................................................................................................................160 v LIST OF FIGURES 1.1: Tourist map of the Treasure Beach area along Jamaica's southern coastline, borrowed from TreasureBeach.net's website (www.treasurebeach.net), featuring Shirley's Steam Bath among other places to "Eat and Play." .......................................... 19 1.2: Map of Jamaica, showing major field sites. Great Bay is indicated with a red marker, Malvern with aqua, Montego Bay with gold, and Scots Pass with green........... 21 3.1: Kitchen at I-rie Cabins, window looking out toward guest cabins........................... 63 3.2: Sojie teaches Lakita the correct shem posture and method. In the background, Syddie shells cashews....................................................................................................... 72 3.3: Asha, feeding campfire with breath........................................................................... 76 3.4: I-nty stripping callaloo.............................................................................................. 78 3.5: Outdoor kitchen at Kenroy's rum shop, Accompong................................................. 81 3.6: IIon I-tes setting up and planning a kitchen space at the Supper of Rastafari........... 82 3.7: Putting finishing touches on the IIon Spice I-tal Kitchen.......................................... 85 3.8: IIon I-tes open jellies at I-tral I-tes Juice Station...................................................... 87 4.1: View of Zareeba, hut and gardens, looking toward the front door......................... 112 4.2: View of Zareeba, showing pot for preparing herbal incense.................................. 112 4.3: View inside Zareeba, massage table and steam booth............................................ 113 4.4: Altar space around center pole inside Malvern tabernacle, with offerings and left objects – calabash bowl, empty roots wine bottle, orange, corn cob, dried aloe leaf on a chopping block, nail and a notebook of chants............................... 124 4.5: Outside view of Nyabinghi tabernacle at Malvern.................................................. 125 4.6: Raised hearth inside Malvern tabernacle................................................................ 126 vi ABSTRACT This thesis takes a close look at the lived world of Jamaican Rastafarians through the lens of food-related practices and preferences, working to define the group's characteristic strategies for maintaining wellness and illuminating their tastes and sensibilities. It strives to evoke a sensorial and discursive awareness of the activities through which Rastafarians nourish and heal their physical and social bodies, by focusing on ways in which they produce and use I-tal food-medicines. Rastafarian taste for I-tal has developed alongside collective engagement with the valorization and revitalization of traditional knowledge about health and land use. In addition to providing sites for bodily nourishment, food-related practices have become historically, politically, and culturally significant "ways of operating" (de Certeau 1984:xiv) in the Rastafarian lived world. First historicizing the emergence of the taste for I-tal and discussing how this preference has become embedded