xxvii. in which the rastaman says a benediction
In leaving the rastaman bids you
Mannaz and Respeck
Izes and protecshun
Upfullness
He bids you
Guidance and healt
Inity and Strenth
Bids you, Trod Holy
To I-ly I-ly I-ly
Mount Zion-I
Trod Holy.
70
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xxvii. in which the rastaman says a benediction
In leaving the rastaman bids you
Mannaz and Respeck
Izes and protecshun
Upfullness
He bids you
Guidance and healt
Inity and Strenth
Bids you, Trod Holy
To I-ly I-ly I-ly
Mount Zion-I
Trod Holy.
70
Notes
‘Groundation’ In Rastafari religion, Grounation or Groundation celebrates the 1966 visit of His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie to Jamaica. On the day of his arrival, throngs of Rastafarians poured onto the airport tarmac, where they chanted ‘Abu ye! Abu ye! Abu ye!’
‘Establishing the Metre’ As told in Ken Alder’s book The Measure of All Things, in order to establish the metric system, French cartographers Pierre Méchain and Jean-Baptiste Delambre set out on a seven-year expedition to measure the earth.
‘The Cartographer…’, vi. In ‘The True Size of Africa: A Small Contribution in the Fight against Rampant Immappancy’ Kai Krause defines ‘immappancy’ (meant to echo ‘illiteracy’ or ‘innumeracy’) as the condition of having ‘insufficient geographic knowledge’. Krause’s design is in conversation with Mercator’s projection, which was first published in 1569 and is still popular today. Mercator’s projection distorts the size of the African continent; Greenland is shown as similar in size to Africa. In fact, Africa is fourteen times larger.
‘The Cartographer…’, xii. In the Jamaican folktalke ‘Anancy and the Magic Pot’, the trickster spider finds a dirty magic pot that on his instruction becomes full of food. The only rule is that the pot must never be washed. In the midst of a famine, Anancy greedily eats his bellyful from this pot every day, and allows his family to starve, until his wife follows him and finds the pot, but unfortunately washes it, robbing it of its magic.
‘The Cartographer…’, xix. This poem quotes almost verbatim from Lorna Goodison’s ‘Heartease I’: ‘We with the straight eyes / and no talent for cartography / always asking / “How far is it to Heartease?”’; ‘It say / you can read map / even if you born / a Jubilee / and grow with your granny / and eat crackers for your tea’ (from Guinea
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