April 21st - Groundation Day

    Groundation Day: Rastafari Hola day. Visit of H.I.M. to Jamaica. Emperor Haile Selasssie I of Ethiopia visited Jamaica on April 21, 1966, his only visit to the island nation.
    Includes a Nyahbinghi meeting. A Nyabinghi meeting has evolved from early roots into a live music session with music, chanting, and prayer. Dr. Leonard E. Barret, a Jamaican professor of religion, wrote in his book The Rastafarians “The term ‘Nyahbinghi’ comes to use from East Africa and refers to a religio-political cult that resisted colonial domination from the last decades of he 19th century to about 1928. The term might have been the name or title of a Ruandaise royal princess who was killed by colonalist because of her resisteance. After her death cults arose which were influenced by her spirit. The members of the cult experienced spirit possession and the medium of these cults was always a woman.
    “The Nyahbinghi is the most important meeting of the Rastafarians, involving members from all over the island. It is comparable to the movement’s convention and may last from one or three days to even a week. [At one meeting] the air was thick with smoke from the holy herb (marijuana) and the drums kept a haunting beat. … One tune continued as long as an hour and without a break before another was started and continued on and on throughout the evening until the drummer was exhausted and his place was taken by another drummer. …”

Visit of Selassie I to Jamaica - Wikipedia

Haile Selassie I had already met with several Rasta elders in Addis Ababa, and had allowed Rastafari and other people of African descent to settle on his personal land in Shashamane.

Haile Selassie visited Jamaica on Thursday, 21 April 1966. Somewhere around one hundred thousand Rastafari from all over Jamaica descended on Palisadoes Airport in Kingston^[1], having heard that the man whom they considered to be God was coming to visit them. They waited at the airport smoking lots of ganja^[1] and playing drums.