Hands are a way of producing action, they are the way we grasp, fight, endure, etc. without the full capabilities of one’s hands productivity and functionality decrease as these actions cannot be performed to the fullest extent or to no extent at all. The Legend of Sedna the Sea Goddess, by Lenore Lindeman, 1999, is an Inuit origin/creation tale that details the story of a young girl’s trials after promising herself a marriage. When she later discovers that her husband is not who he says he is, she flees with her father, who murders her husband out of anger. While Sedna and her father attempt to escape on the boat, this action causes the husband´s friends to seek revenge and Sedna´s father throws her off the boat in hopes that they will stop their pursuit but they do not. Sedna clings to the boat side for her life after being thrown overboard, yet her father cuts off her fingers one by one to prevent himself from drowning. She sinks to the bottom of the sea where the segments of her fingers turn into sea mammals, and she becomes the Sea Goddess, who has the power to control these animals and their abundance to man. In correlation, The Water Will Carry Us Home by Gabrielle Tesfaye is a 2018 stop-motion animation and film that reveals the stories of impregnated African slaves being thrown off slave ships by seamen whilst sailing through the Middle Passage. While these women are sentenced to drowning through tied hands, they are rescued by Yoruba Orishas, a divine water spirit that transforms them into powerful water entities. Freed from their past traumas, they embrace their newfound existence in the ocean with their children. By delving into the thematic significance of hands/fingers as a focal point of trauma, The Legend of Sedna the Sea Goddess and The Water Will Carry Us Home demonstrates the transformation of women after painful and constraining experiences. Despite the assumption that removal or restraint of hands would prevent survival, both tales reveal how trauma to the woman at the will of a man is a detachment from victimhood. The analysis of the symbolic role of women’s hands/fingers in these stories, challenges conventional notions of female weakness, illustrating the enduring strength of the female spirit. In these tales, the severance or constraint of hands serves as a defiance against the expectation of women’s weakness in the face of male power. Rather than victims, these women emerge as their own saviors, empowered by their resilience and determination.
The symbol of a man is a consistent and central aspect in both of these storylines, specifically the initial physical power and control that the men have over Sedna and the African woman. Focusing on the theme of “the Man” in relation to the constricting of the hands, further allows the storyline to emphasize the focus of the women’s physical transformations. First, in Sedna’s story there is constant mention of men in association with fulfillment and commitment., “…men desired,…”, “…he provided…”, and “…man promised…”, where the men are participating in acts revolving around committing to Sedna. The father’s boat represents her family as a whole and is the sole controller of her fate, just as he was in her life. In Inuit culture fathers are modeled as family protectors, and it is their role to dedicate themselves to the safekeeping of their family’s well-being, yet the situation is entirely upside down in this scenario. It is important to recognize that it is her father who sacrifices her fingers and sentences him to drown in order to protect himself. Sedna is victimized by the deception and lies of her husband, the control of her father, and the unwilling sacrifice that is forced upon her, although she does not allow it to drag her down. The Water Will Carry Us Home follows a similar male focus as the males as the aggressors and deciders of the woman’s fate. At 3 minutes and 47 seconds, the white men can be seen dangling a woman over the crashing water, after grabbing the woman with ropes and binding their hands together. These powerful men are central to this very moment in the story and are not showcased during other scenes, which is important because it directly correlates to the woman’s hands being tied and sentencing them to the waters. At the beginning of both of these stories, dominating male figures contribute to the notion of women being weak and less than men, as they are initially perceived as having no power. This stature of no power may be seen through the representation of the woman as being controlled by the men and following the rules of the men around them.
The actions being performed on these women’s hands, in the form of severing or constraining, serve as a defiance against the expectation of women’s weakness in the face of male power, and demonstrate strength in the face of trauma. The trauma represents both Sedna and the slaves’ unwilling sacrifice by male counterparts, who intentionally use the woman’s hands to prevent their survival. The defiance against expectations may be seen in the woman’s strength to persevere, as slaves at the time were not seen in a prevailing light and princesses were taught to obey the laws of their father rather than to seek their own lives.
Diving directly into the hands and how they are handled differently/similarly in each story reveals how the hands/fingers are used as a defiance of man and a lesson of woman’s strength. For the Inuit Sedna, there is a strong importance in the fact that he does not simply push her off, but chooses to cut each one of her fingers off individually, ¨one joint at a time.¨ This action would inflict the most physical and emotional pain on her body and mind, brutally detaching her from recovery. The cutting of her fingers prevents her from reaching back to grab onto the boat where she is unable to save herself and is forced to the very bottom of the ocean to transform herself. This action is extreme and inflicts the ultimate amount of powerlessness onto an individual as it permanently disables Sedna’s ability to carry on through life to the full extent of her hands. The details are very brief, ¨ the father cut her fingers off, one joint at a time,¨ where the father is the main focal point of inflicting this quick yet everlasting pain upon Sedna’s life. She is permanently incapacitated by her father where the text specifically states that Sedna ¨sank to the bottom of the ocean ̈ and established her new self and home on the ¨ocean floor.¨ At the bottom of the Ocean, she transforms and becomes a powerful sea goddess in defiance of the man who sentenced her to her death and the belief that she would drown. The roles are reversed as Sedna is now in charge of how much the men eat through her production of animals and their abundance to man. She is now the controller and is no longer controlled, all because of this literal detachment that was intended to drown her. The Water Will Carry Us Home is an African story beginning with a woman performing rituals with her hands, using her hands to guide the audience’s attention and focus on the acts she is performing. When the story begins, the women have tied hands and cannot perform the actions/rituals of their cultures, until the end when they become free. Their hands bound around their bodies prevent them from swimming, as they are limited in motion and are shown with no movement once they hit the water. Slaves at the time of the Middle Passage were thrown overboard to establish insurance claims for their owners, pregnant women would be of less value as they could not work or produce more children at the time they were bought. These women were at the hands of man and man’s wishes, in particular their owners and traders, who sought the worst for them, and for these women, the traders sought death. These women’s hands are constrained which forces an inability to resist, yet provides a chance for escape. The sense of tying provides a claustrophobic death and causes an emotional death, as even with the chance of releasing the hands, swimming forever is not an option. The women appear to drown during this scene, yet they defy the men who have manipulated them and the notion that they are victims to these men, instead they are survivors. The binding of their hands presents a symbol of male grip, when they are freed they are released from the men who figuratively and literally tied them down during the slave trade and would do so thereafter. These female entities free themselves from a state of complete despair and hopelessness, defying the initial assumption of death, and transforming into a future of power and control of their bodies and male bodies. These females transitioned from male-dominated positions as a princess and slaves, into goddesses and controllers, where they have the potential to not only control their own fate but to control those who attempt to control them or others.
The examination of the finger-cutting scene from The Legend of Sedna the Sea Goddess in conjunction with the binding of the hands from The Water Will Carry Us Home presents defiance against the expectations of women in relation to men’s power. These stories showcase women who men control but they do not let this control take over their lives and allow them to become powerless. It is interesting to note that both of these women come from different backgrounds and positions in society, yet they meet the same successful end and the same journey of control away from men. For some reason hands have been a really interesting concept for me this year and understanding what hands can tell us when they are manipulated in different ways has been an interesting topic to explore.
