An indigenous Trustafarian gathers spare change in his native habitatPart One: The Odorous Patchouli; Life at a Trustafarian Village
I gasped as I looked up and saw three hulking Trustafarian warriors looking at me down the barrels of their grimy bongs. I had traveled to their physical nucleus, Redwood Park, to become the first participant observer to study their prehistoric society from within. Behind the warriors, the tribe was holding a drum circle, and waves of odor washed over me; hash smoke, patchouli, sweat, dirt, dogshit. Several females where “noodle dancing” in the circle, waving their hands slowly through the air, and their male counterparts swayed back and forth in a hallucinogenic stupor as they drummed on incessantly. Elsewhere they sprawled on the wet lawn, the children running around half naked, with numerous packs of mangy puppies and larger dogs barking, running after strangers, and shitting in various parts of the village. Most who weren’t drumming were squatting or lying on the grass in groups, smoking marijuana and tobacco. This was the land of the Trustafarians; a primitive tribe of nomadic panhandlers hailing from the upper-class suburbs of Massachusetts and Connecticut. Driven from their ancestral homeland by The Man, they wander between villages in Southeast Asia and villages along the Pacific Northwest coast of America, vowing to one day to overcome The Man and bring peace to Babylon.
The warriors were dressed in various mismatched, damp garments, mostly made from the ancient fiber hemp. Giant mesh nets adorned their hair, which was clumped in the unique traditional “shitlock” style. They wore a patchwork of quilted material, ballooning, torn cargo pants and sweatshirts, hemp weavings, tie-dye, and various accessories such as hemp necklaces and bud jars. Their strong odor was a combination of dirty musk, marijuana smoke, and patchouli oil. They lowered their bongs. “Nuggets?” one asked, offering to sell me some of the Trustafarians’ sacred herb. I declined, having learned from experience that Trustafari people are miserly in barter.
The Trustafarians are not skilled in any means of substantial resource production, and their main source of sustenance is the trust fund, accessed via auto teller machines all over their country. Their very way of life relies on this precious resource, yet they seem to take it for granted that Mother Earth will always provide trust fund for the righteous Trustafarian people; indeed, theirs appears to be an attitude of callous disregard for the crucial trust fund. Trustafarians supplement their trust fund by aggressively gathering spare change, a common but unfruitful resource that can be easily obtained by pushy solicitation of alien outsiders who happen to pass through Trustafarian lands. The trust fund is further supplemented by cottage industries that produce innocuous do-dads of all sorts, mainly made of hemp or glass and related to the smoking of marijuana (usual items include pillow bags, bongs, pipes, etc), and intense barter of marijuana and other life necessities. The Trustafarian is especially skilled at moving large amounts of marijuana and marijuana paraphernalia along the coastal corridor between the California Bay Area and Portland, taking advantage of small price variations along the way to cut a meager profit. He is also a cunning trader, always seeking to get the upper hand in negotiations by selling bunk product or running off with his counterpart’s cash before closing the deal. Thus the Trustafarian survives off his land, and his progeny carry the torch of Trustafarianism into the next generation.
The Trustafarian culture appropriates heavily from Jamaican Rastafari culture, but most Trustafarians appear ignorant to many specific elements of Rasta, such as its orthodox Christian theology, betray a limited understanding of Rasta in general, and merely flaunt its trappings. They also worship a different deity, the loosely-defined “Mother Earth,” who is generally seen as benevolent but incomprehensible. Most Trustafarians, while espousing a philosophy of deep ecology and harmony with Mother Earth, would probably die promptly if forced to actually survive in the wilderness. Their conception of the world outside the Trustafarian lands usually betrays a total incoherence of philosophy and a weak intellect. What we in the west would call blatant hypocrisy the Trustafarians do not appear to consider unreasonable. Furthermore, they do not value discourse, instead communicating their views with simplistic affirmations.
The unfortunate dullness of the typical Trustafarian may be attributed to his lifestyle, which usually involves heavy abuse of hallucinogens. Trustafarians believe that the visions they experience while consuming various mixes of powerful hallucinogenic drugs are sacred and offer insight into reality. The Trustafarians like to combine the drug ecstacy, which is derived from sacred herbs by far away shamans, with mushrooms or acid; this is called “Hippie Flipping” and “Candy Flipping,” respectively. Flipping is a religious experience that brings the Trustafarian closer to Mother Earth, helps him battle The Man, and provides him with visions of self-discovery. “Mudflower,” for example, got his name when he came to from a powerful hallucination and found himself wallowing in a trench of mud next to a cow pasture, surrounded by beautiful, blooming daisies. “Purple” got his name when he came to inside the county jail, having been beaten purple by police the night before while on a particularly intense vision quest at the Bus Circle.
The Trustafarians, in deference to Mother Earth, refuse to wash their bodies, their clothing, or their vehicles under any circumstances. Hygiene is seen as a Babylonian perversion of the natural order. Only once a year, during their annual reggae festival, do the Trustafarians and their dogs bathe in the holy Eel River, and it runs black for a month thereafter. As part of their commitment to a hygiene-free lifestyle, the Trustafarians wear their hair in a style similar to, but slightly different from, that of the Jamaican Rastafari. Rastafarians are black, while Trustafarians are a white people from Connecticut, and the two have very different hair structures. Blacks’ hair is usually coarse and lends itself to the development of “dreadlocks.” Caucasian hair, on the other hand, is usually strait and smooth, and when not washed or combed soon clumps into stringy, random clusters that resemble dogshit, described as “shitlocks,” which they anoint with patchouli oil. The Trustafarians bear their shitlocks with pride, knowing that their particular means of sustenance do not require job interviews or any socialization whatsoever with non-Trusties, who sometimes find their dogshit-resembling, patchouli-reeking locks offensive. The pungent odor of bodily fluids which each Trusty cultivates is also bared with pride. Furthermore, the Trustafarian rarely, if ever, wears shoes, and the soles of the feet are black, hardened, and intensely odorous. Though I did not fully grasp the concept during my stay with the Trustafarians, this lifestyle is considered a vague political statement of some sort.
Trustafarians move about their country, especially in the Portland to Bay Area corridor, in everything from late-model Land Cruisers, stylishly dented, to ancient, rusting utility vans, to full-size Winnebago motor homes, mostly built from scratch with the super-resource, trust fund. The vehicles are loaded with hitchhikers, usually unfortunate Trustafarians who, due to western development pressures, have finally lost access to their traditional source of sustenance, trust fund. Any Trustafarian convoy is welcome at any Trustafarian village at any time, and when one arrives, intense barter of marijuana and smoking paraphernalia usually ensues, enriching the Trustafarian tribe. Also, there is likely to be a ceremonial drum circle, accompanied by mass Flipping, and Flipping-induced procreation between random Trustafarians. The next day, the village may be empty as all convoys have moved closer to Portland or San Francisco, depending on the season and its corresponding migration.
The Trustafarian’s natural nemesis is “The Man.” The Man is a much larger, more powerful western tribe, with a geographic territory that completely surrounds the Trustafarian lands. The Man always threatens the Trustafarian with jail time for drug possession and illegal camping; indeed, He threatens the very Trustafarian way of life and culture. The Man wants the Trustafarians to give up their nomadic ways and support Babylon. The Trustafarian, according to Trustafarian theology, must battle The Man by frequently Flipping, moving about the country in an erratic, aimless pattern of evasive action, and refusing to take his offers of employment, which are corrupting and offensive to Mother Earth.
It was at this Redwood Park Trustafarian village that I first met Horseflower and Sativa Seed, who would become two of my most important resident assistants as I carried out my field work amongst the exotic Trusafari people.
Next: Part Two: Travels With Horseflower and Sativa Seed
