Original subtitles

I am the first and the last.

I am the honored one and the scorned one.

I am the whore and the holy one.

I am the wife and the virgin.

I am the barren one

and many are my daughters.

I am the silence that you cannot understand.

I am the utterance of my name.

- I can't believe it.

I had no idea.

Cousin Mary.

Praise the lord, Mr. Snead, my dear cousin, Mary peazant.

This has turned out to be a very special day

for the peazant family, indeed.

Viola.

- Pleasure to meet you, Mary peazant.

- Yellow, they call me yellow Mary.

Our fathers were brothers.

Of course, compared to some people,

yellow Mary's not all that iightskinned, but...

Yellow Mary, I'd like you to meet

my photographer, Mr. Snead.

I've commissioned Mr. Snead to photograph

our family crossing over to the mainland.

What's past is prologue.

I see this day as their first steps toward progress,

an engraved invitation to the culture

and education and wealth of the mainland.

Yellow Mary, wouldn't you agree?

My story begins on the Eve

of my family's migration north.

My story begins before I was born.

My great-great-grandmother, Nana peazant,

saw her family coming apart,

her flowers to bloom in a distant frontier.

And then, there was my ma and daddy's problem.

Nana prayed and the old souls

guided me into the new world.

I came in time for the big celebration,

to be among my cousins, my aunties, and uncles.

I can still see their faces,

smell the oil in the wicker lamps.

I can hear the voice of auntie haagar

calling out for her daughters, iona and my own.

And teasing the newlyweds.

- Kalos, beautiful, eidos, form.

Skopein, to view.

If an object is placed between two mirrors,

inclined at right angles, an image is formed in each mirror.

Then, these mirror images are in turn

reflected in the other mirror,

forming the appearance of four,

symmetrically-shaped objects.

Oh, I think it's just a wonderful discovery.

It's beauty, simplicity, and science

all rolled into one small tube.

I think the children will enjoy it.

- Yellow Mary, look!

Uncle spikenard used to live there.

Do you remember him?

Oh, I guess not.

I was just a young miss, too, then.

He was from Africa, and just after the war,

he moved from the plantation to

that little house on the waterfront.

Remember how when uncle spikenard

got excited or angry he'd talk funny

so the children couldn't understand him?

He'd speak in African words and sounds.

You know, just before the war, uncle spikenard told me,

they'd keep boatloads of fresh africans

off on some secret islands around here.

- Viola, our government banned the transporting of africans

for slavery 50 years before the civil war.

- Not back off on these islands, no.

Just before the war, they were still

running and hiding saltwater africans,

pure-bred, from the Yankees.

- "Mistress iona peazant,

"dahtaw island, August 18, 1902.

"Iona, with the greatest respect

"for yourself and the peazant family,

"I beg that you stay by my side

"here on this island.

"Please do not leave me in this flood of migration north.

"I feel if I lose you,

"I will lose myself.

"Consider the memories we share

"of growing up together.

"We are the young,

"the eager up from slavery,

"eager to learn a trade,

"eager to make a better life for ourselves

"and our children who will follow.

"Our love is a very precious,

"very fragile flowering of our most

"innocent childhood association.

"If fear clouds your decision,

"together we must call out to higher forces

"that they might guide us.

"Iona,

"as I walk toward the future,

"with your heart embracing mine,

"Everything seem new.

"Everything seem good.

"Everything seem possible.

"Signed, St. Julian last child,

"son of the cherokee nation,

"son of these islands we call dahtaw,

"coosa, edisto,

"sapelo, dafuskie,

"ossabaw, kiwa,

"wassaw, Paris,

and Santa Helena."

- Iona, you have to go north with us.

Auntie haagar won't let you stay.

We all have to leave.

We all have to leave together.

Who's that?

What's your children up to now?

Get on with you, son, and help me clear away these weeds.

- Just 'cause we crossing over to the mainland,

it doesn't mean we don't love you.

It doesn't mean we're not going to miss you none.

And it doesn't mean we're not going

to come home to visit with you soon.

- Eli peazant, if you don't stop grinning at me...

It ain't right to tease old folks,

especially your great-grandmother.

You're lucky I've got breath in me yet, you old goober head.

Gooberhead.

Your name used to be called goober head, remember that?

Goober means peanut.

- What is this?

Something seems to be stuck in here.

- You know, your grandaddy shad ain't like

to see no woman chewing tobacco.

Ain't that so?

You know that's so.

- No, ma'am.

- I visit with old peazant every day

since the day him died.

It's up to the living to keep in touch with the dead, Eli.

Man's power don't end with death.

We just move on to another place,

a place where we go and watch over our living family.

Respect your elders.

Respect your family.

Respect your ancestors.

You're worried that baby eula's carrying

ain't yours because she get forced.

You won't have no baby that wasn't sent to you.

The ancestors and the womb, they're one, they're the same.

Those in this grave, like those

who're across the sea, they're with us.

They're all the same, the ancestors and the womb.

Call on your ancestors, Eli.

Let them guide.

You need their strength.

Eh, ineedforyou to make the family

strong again, like we used to been.

- How can you understand me and the way I feel?

This happened to my wife, my wife!

I don't feel like she mine no more.

When I look at her, I feel I don't even want her no more.

- You can't get back what you never owned.

Eula never belonged to you, she married you.

- Why didn't you protect us, Nana?

Someone put the fix on me.

Was it the conjure or bad luck?

Or were the old souls too deep in their graves to give

a damn about my wife while some stranger was riding her?

When we was children, we really believed

you could work the good out of evil.

We believed in the newsprint on the walls,

your tree of glass jars and bottles,

the rice you carry in your pockets.

We believed in the frizzled-haired chicken.

The coins, the roots, and the flowers,

we believed they would protect us

and every little thing we owned or loved.

I wasn't scared of nothing and no one

because I knew, I knew my great-grandmother

had it all in her pocket or could work it up.

- Never forget who we is

and how far we done come.

- I have to leave here.

I don't have no other choice.

Eli, Eli!

There's a thought, a recollection,

something somebody remembers.

We carry these memories inside of we.

Do you believe that those hundreds and hundreds of africans

brought here on this other side

would forget everything they once knew?

We don't know where the recollections come from.

Sometimes we dream them.

But we carry these memories inside of we.

- What are we supposed to remember, Nana?

How at one time we were able to protect those we loved?

How in Africa world we were kings

and queens and built great, big cities?

- Eli, I'm trying to learn you how to touch your own spirit.

I'm fighting for my life, and I'm fighting for yours.

Look in my face!

I'm trying to give you something to take north with you,

along with all your great, big dreams!

Call on those old africans, Eli.

They'll come to you when you least expect them.

They'll hug you up quick and soft

as the warm, sweet wind.

Let them old souls come into your heart, Eli.

Let them touch you with the hands of time.

Let them feed your head with wisdom

that ain't from this day and time.

'Cause when you leave this island, Eli peazant,

you ain't going to no land of milk and honey.

Eli, I'm putting my trust in you,

to keep the family together up north.

That's the challenge facing all you free negroes.

Celebrate our ways.

Nana prayed for help.

I got there just in time.

Come, child, come!

Fresh and sweet like a baby's breath.

Eula.

Who done this to us?

- Nothing good can come from knowing!

- Everything good done gone.

Our dreams are all gone.

- God as my witness...

When I leave this place, I'm never

again going to live in your land!

- Oh girl, you're so silly.

What are you looking at?

- Oh, I love you, oh!

Now, this means...

Gumbo!

- Pot called?

Sojo.

Water, water.

Deloe.

- Fire.

Diffy!

Yeah!

Now, that's all what grandma remember.

They the last of the old and the first of the new.

The older I get, the closer I get to the ground.

This was the worst place to have been born in slavery time.

Their hands scarred with blue from the poisonous indigo dye

what built up all them plantations from swampland.

We spirit numb from the sting of fever from the rice fields.

We back bend down while we did planting

and the hoeing and the sea island cotton.

I was an elder, and many, many years back,

when I lay in my mother's arms,

I saw Africa in her face.

It was an age

of beginnings, a time of promises.

The newspaper said it was a time for everyone,

the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless.

Eula say, we the bridge that they cross over on.

We're the tie between then and now,

between the past and the story that will come.

- Old man peazant granddaughter done come home.

- Oh, she got ruined.

Yellow Mary gone off and got ruined.

- What's that she got with her?

- Iona!

Iona!

You go warn Nana peazant.

It'll most likely kill her to see this heifer done returned.

- But ma, I don't think...

- All that yellow wasted.

- Ah, is this the same little girl

I used to rock in gussie's yard?

- The shameless hussy.

- Look, trula, this is eula.

- Eula, nice to meet you.

- What is this?

Store-bought biscuits, haagar.

- Bread from a store?

You know, yellow Mary, they say a woman

who knows how to cook is mighty pretty.

- Ma, can I taste one?

- You know, I don't like messing around in no kitchen.

- I wouldn't eat them no how if she touched them.

- You never know where her hands have been.

I mean, I can just smell the heifer.

- Buzzards don't circle in the air just for fun.

That gal's come back here for something.

Girl, what are you doing with those things?

Just make sure ain't no dead crabs.

Ain't nobody wanna eat no dead crab.

- Why're you making them crawl?

- Girl, you need to be plucking this chicken.

Throw one of them things on haagar.

- No, no.

- The earth, 0 lord, is swelling with fruitage

and reminds us that this

is the seed time of life.

That not today, not tomorrow will come

the true reaping of the deeds we do

but in some far-veiled

and mighty harvest,

not deceiving ourselves with the apparent ease of evil,

looking to that harvest

when the earth belongs to the lord,

not us and the fullness thereof.

Put that down.

Now, you know, when I left this island,

I was a sinner and I didn't even know it.

But I left these islands,

touched that mainland,

and fell into the arms of the lord.

What they got out there, auntie viola?

- Life, child, the beginning of a new life.

- Who's out there?

- Jesus Christ, baby, the son of god.

- Heard you was coming.

I've been waiting to see you since daybreak.

- I heard the drums but I didn't know

they were talking about me, you know.

- I wanted to surprise you, Nana.

It's a hard thing to do in ibo landing.

- No surprises here, yellow Mary.

What's that you wear around your neck?

- St. Christopher's charm, for travelers on a journey.

He protect you?

- I see your family sticks to the old ways.

- Yeah, yeah, we stick to them,

but times is a-changing, and you know, Mr. Snead,

you have to change with the times.

- Mr. Hail, you know any of those old

africans from your plantation days?

- As much as I like to fish,

I'll never put a pole in that water.

That's the spot where the girl got drowned by her owner.

- Isn't this ibo landing?

- That don't mean you can't drown here.

Say again how they say water in Spanish.

- Agua.

- Agua, agua.

My ma came to me last night, you know?

She took me by the hand.

- Your titty's been dead a long time, eula.

- I needed to see my ma.

I want to talk to her.

So I wrote her a letter, put it beneath the bed

with a glass of water, and I waited.

I waited, and my ma came to me.

She came right away.

You're a real back-water geeche girl!

This must be the most desolate place on the earth.

You know, I think what I would do...

No, Mary, it's beautiful.

- Here it is folks, ibo landing,

reflecting the muddy waters of history.

Me, myself, personally, idontlookfor

my reflection in no muddy water, you know?

The only way for things to change is to keep moving.

People sitting still, men sitting still,

don't get it with me, you know?

Wish I could find me a good man, eula.

Somebody I could depend on.

Not that I'd want to depend on him.

Just to know that I could if I had to.

Eula!

Mind now, yellow Mary, you'll be itching soon.

- A little face powder never hurt yellow none, y'know.

It's these blood sucking gnats

is going to drive me back over to the mainland.

You live like savages back over in here.

Oh, you know,

I sure hope they're fixing some gumbo.

It's been a long time since I've had some good gumbo.

I had some in Savannah, you know,

but they didn't put everything in it.

I've haven't had some good food in a long time.

- I found her.

I found her fetching her parasol by ibo landing.

What kind of woman she is?

Yellow Mary's no family woman.

She's a scary woman.

- She's a new kind of woman.

- At the same time, the raping of colored women

is as common as fish in the sea.

You didn't tell Eli who did it, did you?

You've got a good man, eula, somebody you can depend on.

He doesn't need to know what could get himself killed.

There's enough uncertainty in life without

wondering what tree your husband's hanging from.

Don't tell him nothing.

I remember how important

the children were to the peazant family,

and how I had to convince my daddy that I was his child.

- If you want to know about them African people,

you need to talk to Bilal.

Salt water negroes.

- They stole Bilal from Africa

when he was just a little boy.

He came over on the very last slave ship.

Bilal came over on the wanderer.

- My baby was born dead...

And my titty was full of milk.

We needed money, so I hired out to a wealthy family,

some big, supposed to be, muckety-mucks,

off edisto island, high-falutin' buckra.

They go to Cuba, I go.

I nursed their baby and took care of their other children.

That's how I got ruined.

I wanted to go home and they keep me.

They keep me.

So I fix the titty, they send me home.

- Iona, iona!

Iona, iona!

Where's that girl?

I don't know why Nana peazant won't

come sit herself down over here

near where we can watch over her.

Snakes off in that high grass.

- Old people think they have all the answers, you know?

Carrying around that tin can.

I don't think I ever see her without it.

We ought to save this one for eula.

She's about as strange as Nana peazant.

Sometimes, I think that old woman isn't in her right mind.

- Haagar peazant, you're laughing at an old woman,

and just like eula, you married into this family,

but she's our grandmother.

There's nothing wrong or harmful

in that tin can she carries, just some old...

Scraps of memories!

- Now, I'll be the first to admit

that Nana is carrying a lot of luggage,

and she needs to put her soul in the hands of the lord,

but she built her life around this family.

She's old and she's frightened.

What does Nana know about the world outside?

Nothing.

Nana was never educated.

All she knows are simple things,

things people told her a long time ago.

- That's why I say Nana peazant needs to pack

her things like the rest of we and come along.

She doesn't need to stay here like

she's somebody with no people.

- I might not have been born into

this family, but I'm here now,

and I say let Nana peazant stay behind.

That's what she wants.

We're moving into a new day.

She's too much a part of the past.

Don't let daddy Mac hear your mouth!

- I'm a fully grown woman,

and I don't have to mind what I say.

I done born five children into the world

and put two in the ground alongside their daddy.

I worked all my life and got nothing to show for it.

And if I can't say what's on my mind,

then damn everybody to hell!

- Mind now, the lord is listening!

- I'm an educated person,

and I'm tired of those old stories,

watching her make those root potions.

Hoodoo, she be talking!

Washing up in the river with her clothes on,

just like those old salt water folks used to do.

My children ain't gonna be like

those old africans, fresh off the boat.

My god, I still remember.

- And look at that old crazy Bilal.

- Bilal Muhammed is a heathen.

But he does

strange things, just like Nana.

Hush, she's our grandmother!

- Those old people, they pray to the sun,

they pray to the moon, sometimes just to a big star!

They ain't got no religion in them.

No, this is a new world we're moving into,

and I want my daughters to grow up to be decent somebodies.

I don't even want my girls to have

to hear about all that mess.

I'll lock horns with anybody and

anything that tries to hold me back.

Now I say, if Nana peazant wants to live and die

on ibo landing, then god bless her old soul.

- I think it's going to rain.

My time was running out.

The women were arguing and fighting.

I can still see the fear and the

hope in the eyes of our fathers.

They were the sons of drums,

who could only speak of their future.

Everyone was just as scared as Nana peazant.

- Solomon's in town, got a colored lady with him.

Says she's a newspaper woman.

Cousin!

- We're working on the anti-lynching law again.

Maybe you want to be with us.

Maybe...

I still be leaving with the rest come morning.

- Maybe when we go north, you'll take with you

more than eula and your dreams.

I ain't got no more dreams, cousin.

You've been practicing.

In this quiet place,

years ago, my family knelt down

and caught a glimpse of the eternal.

We left our markers in the soil

in memory of the families who once lived here.

We were the children of those who chose to survive.

Years later, my ma told me she knew

I had been sent forward by the old souls.

That's mine, that's me, no wait,

this one, this one, wait, that one's you.

I was travelling on a spiritual mission,

but sometimes, I would get distracted.

- I wish I had this doll, I wish I had this doll,

I wish I had this bed to go inside my house.

- You ain't got no house!

- I wish I did.

If I did, I'd put this bed inside my house.

What'd you wish for, ninnyjugs?

- Everything!

- Ninnyjugs, you can't have everything!

You've got to go like this.

Eenie, meenie, miney, moe, catch a piggie by his toe,

my mother said to pick

this one right over here.

Wish for the one right where my finger stopped.

Now, put that wish book away.

It's time to eat.

I hear they done opened up the old

seminole creeklands for the white homesteader.

The only thing left is scrap iron stills and tenant farming.

Listen to what I tell you, man.

If Roosevelt does anything at all,

it will be for northern industry and not for we.

Supper's ready, Mr. Snead.

We'll be taking our places right up there.

- Wish books, saltwater negroes,

gold earrings, to sharpen your vision?

- Oh, they spoil their children

with dreams, wishes, magic.

But then, they're the most important members of the family,

the children and the old souls.

Come.

Gather up those kids on ibo landing!

Bring them over here!

- Let's go and get them.

Come now, no!

- Hey, yellow Mary, they say you're a rich woman.

My ma said she could feel me by her side.

I remember the call of my great-great-grandmother.

I remember the journey home.

I remember the long walk to the graveyard,

to the house that I would be born in, to the picnic site.

I remember, and I recall.

It's 50 years since slavery, Mr. Snead, but here,

we still give our children names like

my own and iona, unita,

iadora, euadora.

We even have a Pete and re-Pete.

Sometimes, these islanders name their babies

the day of the week or the season in which they were born.

Not to mention, everyone has several nicknames,

goober, boy rat, hail,

harvest, winter, pidgeon, hardtime,

fantee, cudah, ocra, yono,

cish, alexmine, jackiemine,

jaspermine, cornhouse,

binah, shango,

obatala, oya-yansa,

yemonja,

eshu elegba.

- We're here today to show

our respect to our family elders

and to celebrate our family's crossing to the mainland.

But we're also here today to honor the old souls,

many, who from the very, very beginning

of our creation guided our journey

from one world to another.

We're here today because our parent took we by the hand

and teach we to swim the current surrounding these islands.

And they teach we to...

I recollect how we lived in the time

before freedom come, in the old days.

They didn't keep good records of our births,

our deaths, or the selling of the slaves back then.

A male child might get took from a mother and sold at birth.

Then years later, the same person

might have to mate with his own mother or sister

if they was brought back together again,

so it was important for the slave,

theyself, to keep the family ties.

Just like the African griot,

who would hold these records in his head,

the old souls in each family

could recollect all the births,

deaths, marriage, and sale.

Those 18th century africans,

the watchers, the keepers,

the ancestors.

- We peazants, we come from a long,

long line of creation and hope

begun by those first-captured africans.

And Nana, Nana, she carried them with her,

four generations of peazants.

And we, we must carry them with us,

wherever we go.

- It was here they brought them.

They took them out of the boats right here where we stand.

Nobody remembers how many of them it was,

but there was a good few, according to my great-grandmother.

She was a little, little girl at the time.

The ship had just come from the deep water.

It was a great big old ship with sails.

The minute those ibo were brought ashore,

they just stopped and took a look around.

Not saying a word, just studying the place real good.

And they saw things that day that you

and I don't have the power to see.

Well, they saw just about everything

that was to happen around here that day.

The slavery time, the war my grandmother always talks about,

Those ibo didn't miss a thing.

They even saw you and me, standing here talking.

When they got through sizing up the place real good

and seeing what was to come,

my grandmother said they turned,

all of them, and walked back in the water,

every last man, woman, and child.

Now you wouldn't think they'd get very far

seeing as it was water they were walking on.

Had all that iron upon them,

upon their ankles and their wrists,

and fastened around their neck like dog collars.

But chains didn't stop those ibo none.

They just kept walking, like the water was solid ground.

When they got to where the ship was,

They didn't so much as give it a look.

Just walked right past it

because they was going home.

- I'm especially proud today

to bless the coming child of

our Eli and eula peazant.

Our first child that's going to be born up north,

we child of the future.

- Just counting stumps, don't clear the field.

Let's eat.

- Once, I saw a pink satin case,

for jewelry, for rich women in a shop window.

And it had a thing on the side

and you turned it and music came out.

I couldn't afford that case for myself,

and I didn't ask nobody to buy it for me, you know?

But in my mind, I put all those bad memories

inthatcase, and I locked them there,

so that I could take them out

and look at them when I'd feel like it,

and so I could study them when I want to,

and figure it out, you know?

But I didn't want them inside of me.

I didn't want them inside of me.

I don't let nothing in that case

or nobody outside that case tell me who I am

or how I should feel about me.

- Bilal, Bilal!

Bilal Muhammed, come join we.

Come wash away your sins in the blood of the lamb.

- Let him go, Deacon.

He's a saltwater negro.

He has no shame!

He's the master of the sun and the moon.

When I leave here, you know,

I'll be heading up for Canada, Nova Scotia.

I like the sound of it, you know, Nova Scotia.

- No-va scotcha.

- Nova Scotia.

- I never had too much trouble making a dollar.

Never needed nobody to help me do that.

I can't stand still.

Got to keep moving.

New faces, new places...

Nova Scotia will be good to me.

- Come closer together, closer, come on.

- Mind now, Mr. Snead, there's

gators back off in these waters.

- I don't think about those old days much lately,

but when I start to study them,

lots of things come back to me.

- You're a natural fool, haagar peazant.

Nobody ever said that the old souls

were living inside those glass jars.

The bottle tree reminds we of who

was here and who's gone on.

You study upon the colors and the shapes.

You appreciate the bottle tree each and every day,

as you appreciate your loved ones.

- Can you take me to the old man, Bilal?

- That old heathen?

He's not important.

- Is he family?

- Oh, I guess so.

Everybody back off on these islands is family.

Unfortunately, so many like Bilal are so backwards.

They believe everything that happens is caused by

conjure, magic, or their ancestors.

They don't leave nothing to god.

- Where we're headed Nana, there'll be no need for trees

covered with glass jars in our yard.

We'll have gardens of fresh flowers,

vegetables for the dinner table.

Where we're headed Nana, there'll be

no need for an old woman's magic.

- Look, look up!

And remember ibo landing!

- Can't complain none about them horseflies worrying you.

Stop putting that lard on your head.

The lord will carry us through, Nana.

Trust in Jesus.

Nana, we don't need no charms of dried roots and flowers.

- When I was a child, my mother cut this

from her hair before she was sold away from we.

Now, I'm adding my own hair.

There must be a bond, a connection,

between those who go north and those who remain,

between us who are here and those who are across the sea.

A connection!

We are as two people in one body,

the last of the old

and the first of the new.

We will always live this double life,

you know, because we're from the sea.

We came here in chains,

and we must survive.

We must survive!

There's saltwater in we blood.

Mister, for many years,

I've not spoken those words with no one.

What I remember, I'll tell you in

this language that I learned to speak here.

I come here on a ship called the wanderer.

I come with the ibo.

Some say the ibo flew back home to Africa.

Some say they all joined hands

and walked on top of the water.

But, mister, I was there.

Those ibo, men, women, and children, a hundred or more,

shackled in iron, when they go down

in that water, they never came back up.

Ain't nobody can walk on water.

- We'll be fine, Nana.

Now, Nana, don't you go worrying.

We're going to be just fine.

Mind now, Nana peazant.

Don't go work yourself up.

It's too hot out here for no mess.

Get a hold of yourself, viola!

- I remember what my father teach me before he passed on.

It was the same as his father teach

him on the day he become a man.

He said, "women are the sweetness of life.

"They're sweet to the eye because they're beautiful.

"They're sweet to the ears because of

"their lovely voice and the way they sing.

"Woman is the sweetness of life,"

and that's what I remember.

- I've been on my own since I was a little girl.

I've been on my own for such a long time,

I thought I wanted it to be that way.

- Lord knows, you've done worked hard, gal.

- You know, I'm not like the other women here,

but I need to know that I can come

and hold onto what I come from.

I need to know that people here know my name.

I'm yellow Mary peazant!

And I'm a proud woman, not a hard woman.

I want to stay.

I want to stay with you here.

- Oh, now how's she going to come

and put her shame upon mother peazant?

- I can't understand...

How me and peazant put you children

here on earth to fight among yourselves.

How you can leave this soil, this soil.

The sweat of our love, it's here in this soil.

I love you 'cause you're mine.

You're the fruit of an ancient tree.

- Hush, hush, hush!

Hush, all of you.

Some of us aren't forgetting how yellow Mary sent the money

to get cousin Jake out of jail last spring.

- Now, Nana, we aren't talking about no cousin Jake here.

A dog don't get mad 'cause you say he's a dog.

- Say it!

- If you're so ashamed of yellow Mary

'cause she got ruined, what do you say about me?

I'm ruined too?

- Whatever's to be said, just say it now, eula!

- As far as this place is concerned,

we never was a pure woman.

Deep inside, we believed that they ruined our mothers

and their mothers who had come before them,

and we live our lives always expecting the worst

'cause we feel we don't deserve no better.

Deep inside, we believe that even god

can't heal the wounds of our past

or protect us from the world

that put shackles on our feet.

- My god loves me and protects me and watches over me.

- Even though you're going up north,

you all think about being ruined, too.

You think you can cross over to the mainland

and run away from it?

You're going to be sorry, sorry if you don't change

your way of thinking before you leave this place.

If you love yourselves,

then love yellow Mary,

because she's a part of you,

just like we're a part of our mothers.

A lot of us are going through things

you feel you can't handle all alone.

There's going to be all kinds of roads to take in life.

Let's not be afraid to take them.

We deserve them because we're all good women.

Do you understand who we are

and what we have become?

We're the daughters of those old dusty

things Nana carries in her tin can.

We carry too many scars from the past.

Our past owns us.

We wear our scars like armor for protection.

Thick, hard, ugly scars that

no one can pass through to ever hurt us again.

Let's live our lives without living

in the fold of old wounds.

Shad, how can we plant in this dust?

- We plant 'em each and every year, or we're finished.

- My life is almost over,

and yours is just starting.

And I'm not going to live long enough

to see what becomes of all you free negroes.

We're gonna be watching from heaven, Nana.

- No, I'm not going to be watching from no heaven

while there's still soil here for me for planting.

We've done took old gods

and given them new names.

This hand, it's from me, from them,

from us.

Same soul as you all have.

Come children, kiss this hand full of me.

- Lord, have mercy, have mercy.

Take my hand.

I'm the one that can give you strength.

Take me wherever you go.

I'm your strength.

Take my hand.

Take me wherever you go.

I'm your strength.

Wherever you go.

- Old folks are supposed to die!

It ain't right!

They're supposed to die and go to heaven!

It ain't right!

It ain't right!

- Hoodoo!

Hoodoo!

Hoodoo!

Hoodoo mess!

Ain't no roots and herbs going to change nothing.

Don't go and spoil everything.

Old used-to-do-lt-this-way don't help none today!

Come, come child, I love you 'cause you're mine!

Mama, please!

Look at that, see?

In this quiet place, simple folk kneel down

and catch a glimpse of the eternal.

Morning would begin a new life

for my children and me.

They would carry my spirit.

I would remain here with the old souls.

- Iona, iona!

Iona!

And so, on the 19th day

of August, 1902,

they left these islands.

And set out for the north, having said farewell,

perhaps, never to see us again.

My momma and daddy stayed behind with yellow Mary.

Some say Eli got himself all involved

with the anti-lynching issue.

Some say eula saw too much of herself in Nana peazant

and wanted her children born on this island.

They say mama was always peculiar,

and Nana's roots and herbs set her off.

All I know is, I was born here before Nana passed on.

We remained behind, growing older,

wiser, stronger.