The Deep

Chapter 3 describes the Remembrance ceremony from Yetu’s perspective. The ceremony requires that the wajinru collectively surrender to their energetic connection and become one. Yetu acts as a guide for the ceremony, leading the wajinru through a history of collective memories that the historian prepares in sequence. It’s a 600-year-old story that contains tragic and difficult-to-witness violence, suffering, and trauma. While she begins by providing context—“our mothers were pregnant two-legs thrown overboard while crossing the ocean on slave ships” (28)—Yetu insists that the wajinru experience the past rather than listen to her recount it. All together, they begin to experience physical and emotional pain, as Yetu takes them deeper into the past and the ocean.

Together, the wajinru lose themselves as they experience their ancestors’ memories. Ayel, for example, panics as she forgets her name and who she is and needs to be recalled by the rest of the group. Yetu notes that “[t]he process of remembering demand[s] an openness, and in some people, openness [becomes] nothingness” (32). Yetu resolves the conflict by providing a reassuring image of connection, a memory that calms the frightened wajinru. As the Remembrance proceeds, more memories of death flood the wajinru with fear, and they begin to lose the ability to distinguish past suffering from their present bodies.