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The Kebra Nagast

EARTH

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit together fashioned Zion, which is the Kingdom of Heaven. And they said, “Let us make Man in our likeness.”

The Son said, “I will wear the body of Adam.”

And the Holy Spirit said, “I will dwell in the heart of the righteous.”

And the Father said, “I will become Man and I will abide in everything I create. I will dwell in flesh as well as seed and plant; and I will dwell in air as well as water; and I will dwell in earth.”

Now in the days thereafter, through the pleasure of the Father, there came the Second Zion whose name was Jesus Christ.

But let us speak of how it was in the beginning.

Adam was king of all that the Father created, but he was driven out of the Garden because of the sin of the Serpent, which was the plan of Satan. Now when Cain was born, Adam saw that he was sullen-faced and bad-tempered, and he was sad at the sight of this. And then Abel was born and Adam saw that he was good-tempered, and that his face was also good. So Adam spoke out and said, “This is my son, the heir of my kingdom.”

Now Satan was envious of Abel and he cast this envy into the heart of Cain, where it grew. Cain remembered the words of his father, saying that Abel would be the heir of his throne. And he thought of the sister who had been born with Cain and who had a beautiful face; and this sister was given by Adam to Abel. And he thought of the sister who had been born with Abel and whose face was unlovely; and this sister was given by Adam to Cain. And these things grew like a seed of envy in the heart of Cain. But there was yet another thing that caused him to be angry with his brother, for the offerings that were made by each of the brothers were not accepted equally by Adam; Adam accepted Abel’s sacrifice and rejected Cain’s.

So envy rose up in the heart of Cain and because of this he struck his brother and killed him. Afterwards, however, he understood what he had done and trembled over it, and he was then driven away by Adam and the Father.

Now when Seth was born Adam looked upon him and knew that the Father had shown compassion: “He hath given to me the light of my face.” And the birth of Seth destroyed the name of the one who slayed his heir.

III

From Adam until Noah, there passed ten generations. And all during this time, the generations of Cain also propagated and made of themselves a lawless breed that cared nothing for the grace of godliness, the love of the Father. They lived for themselves and they paid no homage to the Father, and, at length, they put the seed of the ass into the mare, bringing the mule into being, which the Father had not commanded in any way.

Noah, however, was a righteous man. And he was the tenth generation from Adam. He told his children not to mingle with the children of Cain, for these children were filled with exultant pride, boastful speech, and false oaths. And man wrought sexual wickedness with man, and woman wrought sexual wickedness with woman.

Thus did the Father let loose the waters of the Flood, and the children of Cain reaped the fruit of their corruption, and with them went all beasts and creeping things. These had been created for Adam to provide food and pleasure, but they were now, for his sake, destroyed. What remained were eight souls and seven of every kind of clean beast and creeping thing, and two of every kind of unclean beast and creeping thing.

Now before Noah died, he called forth his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. To Shem, he said: “Be God to thy brother.” To Ham, “Be servant to thy brother.” And to Japheth, “Be servant to Shem, my heir.”

Noah’s order was obeyed, but this did not stop the Devil’s hostility against the children of Noah. After the flood, the Devil stirred up Canaan, the son of Ham. And Canaan took the kingdom from the children of Shem; and again brother rose up against brother.

While Noah lived he saw the kingdom divided, and he prayed to the Father, “If you destroy the earth with a second flood, blot me out with those who perish.”

But the Father said, “I will make a covenant with you. Tell your children not to eat the beast that has died of itself; nor one that has been torn apart by wild beasts. Tell them not to cultivate harlotry, and I, on my part, will not destroy the earth a second time with a flood, but will give your children seed time and harvest time, and the four seasons that bring these into being.”

And the Father said further to Noah: “My covenant will be with your children forever because I have sworn it, by myself and by Zion, the tabernacle of my covenant, which I have made for the salvation of all men. And when they see a cloud upon the sky, they will not fear it, nor think it danger unto them, as in the coming of another flood; for they will see the bow of my covenant, which will henceforth be known as a rainbow, the crown of my law. And this crown will remind the children that, even though their sins may multiply, their trust in me will be ever in place, because I shall not be angry with them, but will put away my anger and send them my compassion. So even if heaven and earth pass away, my word shall not pass away.”

Terah, who lived eight generations after Shem, had a son whose name was Abram,1 and on the boy’s twelfth birthday his father sent him off to sell idols.

Abram told him, “These cannot make deliverance.” He took them as he was told, but made no effort to sell them. To those who would buy them, he asked, “Do you wish to buy artificial idols made of wood, stone, and brass?”

And the people, hearing the words of the boy, passed by the idols with disdain. Returning home, Abram placed the idols on the roadside and he spoke to them, saying, “Can you deliver me bread to eat or water to drink?”

None of the idols answered him, and they remained silent. So Abram defiled them with his feet, kicking the face of one and smashing the body of another until all lay in pieces by the road, and he said to them, “If you cannot defend yourselves from harm, how can you defend me?”

Then Abram turned his face towards heaven and cried, “Oh, maker of the universe; creator of sun, moon, sea, and earth; maker of that which is seen and that which is not seen, from this day forth I will place myself in your care.”

After saying this, Abram saw a chariot of fire come into view and he was afraid, and he fell to the ground and shielded his eyes. Then he heard a voice which spoke to him and said, “Give up your fear and stand upright.”

So the Father removed fear from him and the Father placed his blessing upon Abram and said there was now a covenant between them: “I will bring down the Tabernacle of my covenant seven generations after you and your seed shall be the salvation of the race.” Then the Father spoke against the kinsmen of Abram, saying that they were worshipers of idols, and he told Abram to leave the land of his fathers and go to a new land which he would show to him.

So Abram went to the home of his father and he took his wife, Sarah, and they went forth and did not return to his father, mother, or the land of his kinsmen. But he went to the city of Salem and there reigned in righteousness, and the Father blessed him greatly, and he died an honorable man with a large kingdom of his own.

Now it came to pass that Moses, who was of the seed of Abram, was told by the Father to make a likeness of his law as it was brought down to earth. The Father said, “Make an Ark of wood that cannot be eaten by worms and overlay it with pure gold, and upon this, place the word of the law, which is the covenant written by my own hand.”

And the Tabernacle is a spiritual thing, full of compassion; it is a heavenly thing, full of light, it is a thing of freedom, and a habitation of the Father. And the work thereof is marvelous, and it resembles jasper, topaz, hyacinthine stone, and the crystal and the light catch the eye by force; and it astonishes the mind, for it was made by the mind of God. Within it are the manna from heaven that came down to earth and the rod of Aaron that sprouted after it withered, though no one watered it with water.

Moses covered the Ark with pure gold and made poles to carry it and rings to hold them, and he made the people of Israel see it and carry it to the land of their inheritance which was the city of Jerusalem, the city of Zion. When they were crossing the Jordan and the priests were carrying it, the waters stood up like a wall and did not topple or fall.

And prophets were appointed over the people of Israel in the Tabernacle of Testimony, where the priests and the people redeemed themselves from sin by placing offerings. Moses and his brother Aaron were instructed to make holy vessels for the Tabernacle. And these things were gold pitchers, embroidered cloths, candlesticks and bowls, crowns and carpets, hangings of silk and the red hides of rams, hyacinthine and purple hangings, sardius stones, sapphires and emeralds.

And all of these offerings of gold and silver and silk were to be placed in the Tabernacle of the Law, an Ark of wood uneaten and uneatable by worms, and these were to reside along with the two tablets written by the fingers of the Father, which were to have been preserved in enameled gold so that the Law might be protected and carried.

In all of this was Moses commanded on Mount Sinai: the pattern of the tent that would cover all, and how it was to be cut and the work thereof. And

Zion was revered and the Father came down on the mountain and spoke with his chosen ones; and he opened the door of salvation to them, and he delivered them from their enemies. And the Father spoke from the pillar of cloud and commanded the people to keep his law and walk with him in the ways he had set forth.

In Jamaica references to the Bible and the Kebra Nagast can be seen in the patterns of everyday life. Some say the John Canoe or Jonkonnu celebration—part dance and part pantomime—at Christmastime is Noah’s Ark and, at the same time, the Ark of the Covenant. In the Bible Jacob’s ladder refers to the pathway to heaven used by the angels as Jacob slept beneath it and dreamed. The Jacob’s Ladders of Jamaica, however, are cut into formidable cliff rock or clay, and they are reportedly used by fallen as well as risen angels. The wordsJohn Canoemay come from the Ewe language of Eastern Ghana and Togo, wheredzonu kunumeant sorcerer.

The old men walking along the ziggy Jamaican roads, wearing tall black rubber boots, coming home in the evening, fierce-faced and fiery-eyed, remind Ernie that it’s better to be on the move than to be still somewhere. “For, after all,” he comments as we round the turn towards Oracabessa, where he grew up, “a man is like water; if he slows down or stops, he becomes stagnant.” He says this in patois, “Walk fe nuttin’ better than siddung fe nuttin’.” We have a large laugh over this perfect expression of truth, and how it betters the English version by far.

We drive into the little seaport town where the banana was once king and the men of Oracabessa sang original choruses of “The Banana Boat Song” while bearing green bunches on their backs; banana ferriers tossing huge bunches, from man to man, from the shore to ship.

The best of these banana carriers was Ernie’s father.

Ernie stops the car and points out the cliff edge over which we can see the old harbor where the men had once toiled, glistening with sweat.

“Look now, there’s the Jacob’s Ladder,” Ernie says, chuckling. Here on the reef-rock hill, a brave and giant fig tree has made its stand, sending cabled roots to the beach bottom far below.

“Many times,” Ernie says, “I stood at the top of the Jacob’s Ladder, waiting for my father. You see the steps carved in the hill? The men used the vines as ropes and they used the earth steps to steady their feet as they hung in the air and drew themselves up. That’s why they called it Jacob’s Ladder.”

We stare down the hill into the dappled emerald shade, and I remember the story in Genesis where Jacob dreamed of a ladder that extended to heaven, with angels ascending and descending.

Ernie continues ruefully, “My father was a devilish man. He spent his money on gambling, playing poker and bone dice on the dock when he got off work. My sister, Merline, waited all day down there, hoping for sixpence, or tuppence, from our father, who everybody knew as Brother John.”

Laughing at the memory, Ernie goes on, “But he was a trickster, Brother John. He’d sneak through the lines of men with his money in his pocket. Then he’d come up the Jacob’s Ladder before Merline could see him, and he’d sneak away. And for what? To spend the rest of the day gambling. Drinking rum and gambling. I saw him. Yes, I saw him down there, even though Merline didn’t.”

Ernie’s father’s tale is not unusual on an island where poverty destroys more families than the wars of the heart. In Jamaica, hope springs eternal but jobs are few. Ernie bears no malice, however, towards the father who didn’t raise him; for Brother John, who abandoned him along with his two sisters and three brothers.

“It happened in a day,” he explains. “In one day, we lost it all.”

Ernie drops back into patois, as he recalls those long gone days when he was a child. “Him get mix up wid obeah woman. She gi’ de mon a potion a obeah oil, what dey call ‘gone fe good, come fe stay.’ Dat lady live next door to we, so one day Breddah John him go fe her house fe live. ’Im just packed up him ting, and gone fe good. Yes, de Devil took Breddah John.”

He laughs and adds, “It’s really true because he was a John Canoe man. Brother John played the part of the Devil. I, the little boy, was the Devil’s Treasurer.”

The John Canoe is a wild street dance put on at or just before Christmas in Jamaica. It included six main characters. There was the Bosun, a big fat short man, honking and oinking and making people laugh; the King and the Queen, spurious royalty; the Horse, wearing a hobbyhorse headdress costume, rocking up a storm; the Indian, solemn; and the Policeman, foolish, helpless, always asserting his authority. All these people gesturing and dancing.

“The big star of John Canoe was the Devil, played by my father, Brother John.” Ernie says that Brother John took this devil’s work seriously; more seriously than he took his life. He played the role so well, in fact, that, as time went on, he forgot it was a role at all.

“My father,” Ernie remarks, “was really the Devil. Yes, he became the Devil incarnate. Then he didn’t need his costume anymore.”

One afternoon when Brother John got home from the dock, the obeah, or voodoo woman invited him to her kitchen for some callaloo soup. And into that hot, peppery soup, she poured a libation of obeah oil. After that, he was hers. She knew it, and so did Ernie’s family. So it was up to his mother, who had no job, to try and figure out what to do.

The road to Tank Lane where Brother John left his family more than thirty years ago is a short but steep trip up from the harbor road of Oracabessa. The earth is red there, rich and red like blood. The flowering trees that sprout from it are paradisiacal: guinep, breadfruit, grapefruit, june plum, bougainvillea, croton, pimento. The air is sweet with those good-smelling trees, and cardamom-scented, moist earth, and the bittersweet smell, somewhere, of burning leaf trash. The yards are small and clean, the dirt swept to an immaculate patina. The houses, neat and trim, come from the Victorian era. Many of them have rusted zinc roofs and yards where roosters scuttle about monitoring hens. The breadfruit trees hang with bursting fruit and the Jamaican cherries sparkle. Banana fronds, lazy and liquid in their turning from side to side, give the day an idle cast, a falsity that everything is easy.

“Brother John left us to this,” Ernie says, switching back into English. “Somewhere between the Devil and the deep blue sea.”

We laugh at this, but Ernie’s laughter soon fades.

“You don’t see John Canoe dancers like those in my father’s time. That is all gone, along with the banana men, the banana songs, and the shillings and pence of payday.”

In the eighteenth century the John Canoe dancers commemorated Noah’s Flood by transporting a representation of the Ark upon their heads. The Ark itself was a symbol of the world’s destruction and resurrection, a huge and towering commemoration of the ancient myth from the Bible and the Kebra Nagast.

Today the old Ark can still be seen at the John Canoe in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. An old man who wears it is known as “Tree” and he comes down the main street, his head and upper body all but buried in a fabulous ark of green, woven of ferns, fronds, and hibiscus flowers. Some say that Tree is the last member of an old mummer’s group, where the dancer who bore the ark of flowers was a character called Jock-O-Green. Nineteenth-century engravings show this dancer wearing a huge bower of palm leaves, which, no doubt, is something of Solomon’s Ark of the Covenant, Noah’s Ark, and the Christmas mummery of the British Isles all rolled into one.

Ernie reaches for the faded photograph of Brother John that he keeps in the visor of his car. So, here is Brother John: wearing a suit too small for him, his long arms hanging nearly to his knees. He looks awkward and odd, gangly and misshapen.

“I am glad I have this little picture,” says Ernie, smiling. “For that is all I have of Brother John.”

In spite of everything—the suffering his family had to endure without his father, the hard poverty they had to deal with each and every day—Ernie says he still owes his father a lot of respect.

“He put me on the path to Rastafari,” he says. “From the time when I first accepted my responsibilities, I was Rasta. I learned about my faith the hard way, through work and sufferation, and through the help of elders who were not my father. But even from afar, and offering no help at all, Brother John disapproved. This made me stand up for what I believed. And it made me a man, a righteous man, a Rasta. He didn’t try to understand my dealing with Rastafari. Instead, he tried to feed me pork, and other things that we Rastas don’t eat, when I came to visit him. That is what made me strong, that opposition. And, of course, my love for him.” And, in his own way, Ernie believes, Brother John loved him too.

“Would he have let me hold his purse? Would he have let me be his treasurer, if he didn’t trust me? In trust, you know, is love. Yes, Brother John did love his son Ernie. Give thanks and praise to the Almighty for that.”

THE KEBRA NAGAST.Copyright © 1997 by Gerald Hausman. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

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The Kebra Nagast The Lost Bible of Rastafarian Wisdom and Faith From Ethiopia and Jamaica

0312167938

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