I found the video assigned this week to be both affirming and surprising. What I mean by affirming and surprising is that there were elements of this community that worked very closely with the image of Rastafari I constructed from our reading, while at the same time there were also elements that were very different from the image I had construced from our reading.
There were many things that I found to be consistent with the images from the reading and class discussion. The high use of symbols and typical Rastafari language could be seen and heard throughout the video. The symbols seen throughout include the traditional red, green, and yellow colors used by the Rastas, the high use of Biblical reference, and the Lion of Judah. Also, the Boboshanti are highly focused on Africa and more specifically Ethiopia, another aspect of Rastas that I would expect to see.
While there were many aspects of this video that I found consitent with my image of Rastafari, there were some things that I found that were quite different. The first thing that I noticed was as being significantly differnet was their clothing. Many of the Boboshanti appeared to be wearing a similar, traditional type of garb such as the one depicted in the picture with this post. With this outfit came the turban-like hat that most of these people wore. This was unusual to me because my image of Rastas was that they always proudly displayed dreadlocks, but here we see something quite different. More notably than their appearance, the Boboshanti seemed more ritualistic and organized than my previous image of Rastafari. Their structured ceremonies and concious religious movements all gave Rastafari a much more rigid and traditional appearance than I had previously been exposed to.
All of these elements made the Boboshanti a unique group of Rastas to observe because they both confirm and defy many conceptions of a misunderstood religion.
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