Painted Turtle (Symbol)
At the final dinner on the island, a young island boy brings Daddy Mac, the patriarch who is making a speech, a turtle with a white design painted on its shell. The turtle symbolizes history and spiritual tradition on the island, as well as the longevity of the people there. Turtles notoriously live very long lives, and in spiritual practices are thought to possess a great amount of wisdom. Thus, the turtle with the painted shell represents all the people who came before, and the Gullah people's connection to their ancestry.
African statue in the water (Symbol)
At certain points, we see an African statue floating in the water. It represents a connection to Africa for the Americans at Ibo Landing. The statue is most prominently featured in the moment in which Eula is telling the story of the slaves who drowned themselves at Ibo Landing. She tells the story of their arrival, but instead of framing their arrival as a suicide, she tells the mythological and magical version of the tale, in which the slaves were said to have walked on water. As she tells the story, Eli touches the statue and sprinkles water on it. In this way he makes the statue a symbol of all the African ancestors who came before, and who had to endure such painful experiences upon their arrival in the Americas.
Walking on Water (Allegory)
As mentioned before, Eula tells the story of the arrival of the slaves at Ibo Landing, but she turns the darker elements of the story into a fable of sorts, with supernatural elements. This version of the story, passed down to her by the older members of the Peazant clan, tells that when the slaves got off the slave ship in Ibo's Landing, instead of killing themselves, they walked on the surface of the water. This version of the story serves as an allegory for the ways that the slaves and their progeny turned stories of trauma into stories of strength and resilience.
The Abandoned Umbrella (Motif)
While walking along the beach, Mary, Eula, and Trula find an old tattered umbrella buried in the sand. They open it up and sit under it. Then later, Snead takes photographs of some of the island children sitting underneath the umbrella. The umbrella is a visual motif that recurs and represents the past and a repurposing of something old into something beautiful and new.
Nana's hair and her mother's hair (Symbol)
At the final dinner, Nana makes a speech and produces a piece of her mother's hair that her mother gave her. She then takes a piece of her own hair and puts the two pieces in a pouch together. This pouch with the intergenerational pieces of hair blended together represents the connection between people, across generations, across physical distance, and across difference.
