The Rastafari Exhibition at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington features art and artifacts from the Jamaican- born sculpture. ‘’Bob Marley, ganja and dreadlocks are still here’’ said Edward Rothstein.

Edward also explained that most of us know Rastafari only through these popular manifestations. But what is really Rastafari? Is it a religion? A way of life? A kind of movement? So all of the above, as ‘’Discovering Rastafari’’ displays.

The exhibition tells the story of the local folk religion that began before 80 years with the main belief- Haile Selassie – the 20^th- century Ethiopian emperor was the living God, the Black Messiah.

The Rastafari beliefs grew out of a particular experience which is slavery and its aftermath in Jamaica, also a view of how that suffering might be overcome. In this case, ordeal was relieved by a hope adapted from the biblical dream of Zion, that someday blacks might return to a land from which they were exiled: Ethiopia.”

‘’These ideas were amplified by the charismatic, Jamaican-born black leader Marcus Garvey, who urged all blacks to see themselves in a common struggle,” writes Rothstein. “When Ethiopia’s prince regent, Tafari Makonnen, who had the honorific title ‘Ras,’ was crowned emperor of Ethiopia, Garvey called on his followers to join together and ‘lift up the hand of Emperor Ras Tafari.

During the years Rastafari belief starts to seem almost sunny. Actually, the history is far darker. Rastafari belief developed partly out of resentment, not just against whites, but against the black middle-class culture of Jamaica. This was one reason the once-disreputable styles of dreadlocks and the ceremonial smoking of marijuana became so important.