Wild Seed

The Atlantic crossing is frightening and new to Anyanwu and Okoye. The ship is different from other ships of its sort: “No one was chained as the slaves on shore had been. No one seemed hurt or frightened” (61). Anyanwu demonstrates who and what she is to Okoye, transforming from a young man to her natural form as a young woman. Anyanwu discovers another of her distant generational past on the boat, a woman named Udenkwo. She meets an attractive white man named Isaac, Doro’s son. In private conversation, Doro and Isaac discuss “sharing” Anyanwu, as part of the normal course of Doro’s breeding program. 

Anyanwu cares for Okoye as he becomes seasick. Doro oversees a wedding ceremony between Okoye and Udenkwo despite Anyanwu’s protests that they are remote kinsman. She comes to better understand that Doro’s power is absolute. Doro declares to Okoye, “You will live. But in exchange for what I give, you will obey me whether I come to you tomorrow or forty years from now” (72).

During a violent storm, Isaac demonstrates his full power as one of Doro’s “best sons” by telekinetically propelling the ship into clear waters. After the storm, Anyanwu is attacked by another of Doro’s sons, a man named Lale Sachs, “one of the ugliest men Anyanwu had ever seen” (79). He violates her mind with obscene telepathic imagery, and she transforms into a leopard and tears out Lale’s throat. Tasting flesh swells Anyanwu’s appetite, but a warning from Doro settles her down. Neither Doro nor Isaac seem upset by Lale’s death, choosing to treat his death as an object lesson in Anyanwu’s power.

Isaac telekinetically traps a dolphin in order to feed his crew. Upon eating the dolphin, Anyanwu gains an understanding of its anatomy. With Doro’s permission, she transforms into a dolphin and joins a nearby school but is soon pulled out of the water by Isaac at Doro’s request. Doro realizes that his power over Anyanwu, his ability to take her life with a telepathic thought, is not absolute: “In her dolphin form, and before that, in her leopard form, Doro had discovered that his mind could not find her” (97). Anyanwu is not yet aware of Doro’s vulnerability to her, but Doro considers killing her while she is in human form for completion’s sake. Only the idea that she would mother extraordinary children stays his hand. Doro thinks to himself that he prefers dealing with the tame and cowed people of his village, not “wild seed” like Anyanwu, who value their freedom.

Isaac and Anyanwu spend more time together learning English and stretching the limits of their abilities to swim and “fly” together near the boat. Doro considers more seriously the desirability of a match between Anyanwu and his son.

The ship reaches New York Harbor but does not dock. Anyanwu is eager to see the people, but Doro fears that she is not yet ready to be acclimated into the clothing and food of America, as well as the need for people of African descent to prove that they are free while in public. At their destination, the upstate New York village of Wheatley, Doro says, “they do not enslave each other” (103). He gives her a silk petticoat to wear. While getting dressed, Doro suggests that one day they might reverse genders and couple. Anyanwu is repulsed: “‘It would be a vile thing,’ she whispered. ‘Surely an abomination’” (109).

Soon they reach Wheatley. The people of the town are healthy and cooperative, without slavery or racial competitiveness, but they are also completely obedient to Doro. They allow themselves to be coupled at Doro’s command. Every so often, Doro’s power manifests as a hunger, and he kills a member of the Wheatley community in order to satiate himself. The people of Wheatley treat such occurrences as normal.

Doro and Isaac make the rounds of Wheatley and discover that a young girl named Anneke is near her “transition”—the time in adolescence in which Doro’s children manifest their powers. It is a dangerous and often fatal time for both the child and their family. Isaac is offended by Doro’s indifference to their suffering. Doro decides that Isaac should marry Anyanwu.

Later that evening, Anyanwu befriends a villager named Sarah Cutler and eats dinner with her family and Doro. After dinner, Anyanwu is enraged to learn that some of the food had been prepared with what she calls “animal milk”—the milk of a cow. To her mind, such food is a more unnatural abomination than almost any other. Doro assures her that, while she does not have to eat such things, she will have to get used to others who do. In this spirit, he breaks the news to her that he has decided she must wed his son Isaac, another abominable act in Anyanwu’s eyes. Recognizing Doro’s absolute power over her, however, she concedes. “I had never thought before that I was a coward, but I am. Living has become too precious a habit,” says Anyanwu (141).