The rastacap is a tall, round, usually crochet

Crochet

Crochet is a process of creating fabric from yarn, thread, or other material strands using a crochet hook. The word is derived from the French word "crochet", meaning hook. Hooks can be made of materials such as metals, woods or plastic and are commercially manufactured as well as produced by...

ed cap

Cap

A cap is a form of headgear. Caps have crowns that fit very close to the head and have no brim or only a visor. They are typically designed for warmth and, when including a visor, blocking sunlight from the eyes...

, which is often brightly coloured. It is most commonly associated with the pat as a way for Rastafarians (Rastas) and others with dreadlocks

Dreadlocks

Dreadlocks, also called locks, a ras, dreads, "rasta" or Jata , are matted coils of hair. Dreadlocks are usually intentionally formed; because of the variety of different hair textures, various methods are used to encourage the formation of locks such as backcombing...

 to tuck their locks away, but may be worn for various reasons by Rastas and non-Rastas. The cap is worn mostly by men. It is sometimes erroneously referred to as a "Tam" (or "tam"), a different kind of hat that was loosely ancestral to the rastacap. Other Caribbean

Caribbean

The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

-islander terms for the rastacap include rastafar (sometimes with a silent terminal -r), toppa[h] and simply cap or hat.

In construction, the rastacap is similar to the tuque

Tuque

A – variously known as a knit hat or stocking cap among other names – is a knitted cap, originally of wool though now often of synthetic fibers, that is designed to provide warmth in winter...

, but much larger. Most commonly crocheted, the hat can also be knit, woven

Woven

A woven is a cloth formed by weaving. It only stretches in the bias directions , unless the threads are elastic. Woven cloth usually frays at the edges, unless measures are taken to counter this, such as the use of pinking shears or hemming.Woven fabrics are worked on a loom and made of many...

, sewn, or constructed in a number of other ways. Examples with sun-cured palm leaves woven into the hat exist; this yields a semi-rigid design which a skilled islander can form rapidly. Rastacaps range in size and shape, as well as uses. People with dreadlocks and non-dreaded people alike wear rastacaps for fashion, convenience, socio-political statement, and a number of other reasons. Some Rastas also wear rastacaps and other forms of headdress as a religious headcovering. It may also be worn by health and food service and heavy machinery workers with long hair, for workplace safety reasons.

People of Jamaica and Barbados, as well as some outlying islands, have separately claimed to have originated the cap style, claiming ancestral heritage or even personal invention, albeit without credible, documented proof, relying on un-substantiated drawings or mythical reference.