drives Joe to suicide is vanquished only after he is physically and spiritually healed by a mysterious old man, the keeper of a relic, who transmits his responsibility to Joe and, with it, a sense of continuity with the Maori past.

Perhaps it was less the Maori context that confused the early readers of The Bone People than the mixture of voices and techniques. On the simplest level, the novel is a mystery story. Reclusive Kerewin Holmes, who has built a tower for her residence, looks up one day to see a child standing in her slit window. After she gets him down from his dangerous perch, she finds that he is a mute, the foster child of Joe, who rescued him after a shipwreck of which he was the sole survivor. As the story proceeds, clues to the mystery of Simon’s past come in his memories, in his fears perceived by Kerewin, in a rosary and a ring to which he is attached, and in information gathered by her. The question of Simon’s parentage preoccupies Kerewin, and it is particularly important because without knowing what had happened to him as a small child, she cannot deal with the peculiar responses that anger Joe and repel the boy’s teachers and schoolmates.

Although the events of the novel are roughly chronological, the fact that it does not have an omniscient narrator but instead is told from various viewpoints can demand close observation from readers. Sometimes the thoughts are fragmentary and poetic; sometimes one must deliberate before ascertaining the speaker. There is no clear time frame; instead there is a moving window that is always the present, generally relating events in the present tense. Now and then, a conversation reveals the past in narrative form. Then a rereading of Simon’s thoughts will sometimes clarify previously unclear passages. There are few novels, except those of William Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce, that call for more concentration than The Bone People. It is not easy reading, but it is compelling, both because the mystery is fascinating and because the futures of its three central characters are important.

Superficially, Kerewin, Joe, and Simon do not seem to be the kind of fictional characters who would elicit such sympathy from readers. Kerewin is a grumpy, self-centered recluse who does not like to be touched. Joe is a drunk, later revealed to be a child abuser, who at last nearly kills Simon and leaves him permanently deafened. Despite Simon’s loyalty to Joe, despite his affection for Kerewin, the boy is a sneak thief—the extent of whose appropriations do not become clear until his hoard is found late in the book—and a violently disturbed child who will attack and smash without clear provocation.

Certainly one of the reasons that the three characters are so interesting is that through their interior monologues and through their conversations with one another, they reveal themselves learning to know themselves. Explaining why she does not like kissing, for example, Kerewin tells Joe, “ever since I can remember, I’ve disliked close contactcharged contact, emotional contact, as well as any overtly sexual contactit always feels like the other person is draining something out of me.” After their talk, she dreams that she is looking at Tarot cards, seeking a message.

Similarly, in his darkest hours, after he has lost Kerewin, after Simon has been removed from his custody, after he has served a prison term for child abuse, Joe asks himself why he drove Simon into the misbehavior that justified retribution. Worst of all, he thinks, is that his own suffering has produced no redemption. Such introspection lifts Joe above the level of the mindlessly brutal. Clearly, he too is seeking a message.

On his way back to the Tower, after Simon has once again run away from those safe guardians which the law provided for him, the boy, tired, hungry, and thirsty, forgets his misery long enough to anticipate: “I will say hellos. I will give them all my love. And then I am going to bed for a week.” Because such passages reveal Simon’s peculiar combination of practicality and sweetness, of amazingly preserved innocence and ancient wisdom, he is more than a disturbed child whose behavior needs to be modified. Thus, once again, the certainly difficult technique of Keri Hulme has given her characters an interest, a complexity, and a sympathy that might not otherwise have been accomplished.

The other characters in the book are important primarily because of their relation to Kerewin, Joe, and Simon and to the themes of the novel. The Tainuis, for example, are caught between loyalty to Joe and compassion for Simon. Those who know about the beatings cannot bring themselves to report Joe, lest he and Simon, who truly love each, be lost to each other. The homosexuals arouse Joe’s anger because he recalls with shame a relationship with a young boy and fears that his feeling for Simon might have a sexual dimension.

One of the characters, however, represents the whole world of the Maori supernatural, which is being lost by New Zealanders, even those of Maori extraction. Tiakinga Meto Mira is the old man who cares for Joe after his suicide attempt. The guardian of a stone which he describes as the heart of the land, the link with the spirits and the past gods, T. M. Mira has waited for years, he says, for a stranger, a digger or planter, and a broken man. Only when such a person comes can he relinquish his charge and die. Certainly Joe is a stranger; certainly he is broken, physically and spiritually. Yet only after Mira’s death and Joe’s redemption does it become clear that Joe is also a planter, a creator rather than a destroyer. Mira dies and is buried by Joe; out of that grave, and the grave of Joe’s uncontrolled violence, comes rebirth. The new Joe accepts his responsibility until an earthquake buries the site of the ancient canoe; then he can take the stone and go to rejoin Kerewin and Simon. Clearly T. M. Mira is more than human; he is also a spirit from the Maori past, bringing healing through contact with the supernatural.

The Bone People, then, is more than a mystery, an exploration of a case of child abuse, and a plea for the preservation of Maori traditions. At the beginning of the novel, Kerewin, Joe, and Simon are essentially alone. Kerewin has retreated to her tower, rejecting her family and the world; yet in giving up human connections, she has evidently lost the power to paint. Although Joe and Simon live together and love each other, each is trapped in his own hell. Grieving for his dead wife and baby, Joe plunges into alcohol and attacks his foster son; tormented by nightmares that only drugs can relieve, Simon defies his foster father and unknowingly encourages the violence that leaves both of them trapped in a conspiracy to conceal the abuse.

The first friendships are superficial and thus doomed. Kerewin does not wish to lose her independence, her privacy. Joe desires a conventional sexual relationship with her. Simon veers between trust and retreat. Only after Simon has nearly died from a beating, after Joe has been imprisoned, after Kerewin has destroyed the tower and come near death, can the three come back together, capable of giving to one another without selfish or fearful reservations, capable of accepting one another without demanding changes under threat of the withdrawal of love.

Finally, then, The Bone People suggests that all people need the Maori relationship with the spirit world, the Maori sense of community with people in the present and those who have passed beyond. In her prologue, Hulme summarizes the theme of the book:

They were nothing more than people, by themselves .But all together, they have become the heart and muscles and mind of something perilous and new, something strange and growing and great.

Together, all together, they are the instruments of change.

The Bone People explores the complexities of human relationships by weaving an intricate, painful web between three self-destructive characters. Each is almost ruined by a tragic flaw but ultimately saved by forgiving personal differences and reuniting to form a multicultural family. Their individual stories, fragmented into dreams, memories, songs, dialogue, and snatches of interior monologue, spiral around each other interdependently. The text, which sometimes reads like a prose poem, is further enhanced by rhythmic Maori phrases, most of which Keri Hulme translates in an index. Together, the four parts of the book form a patchwork: Each part contains three chapters that are divided into numbered segments, and the whole is framed by a prologue and epilogue. As with a difficult piece of music, its secrets are not easily revealed.

The story opens on an isolated stretch of South Island coast where Kerewin Holmes lives. Returning from spearfishing, she finds young Simon Gillayley cowering in her library window with a thorn in his heel. She reluctantly provides first aid, feeds the child dinner, and lets him spend the night. He is the first person to enter her private sanctuary; Joe Gillayley is the second. She tries to be rid of them, but their companionship stirs something within her, and she invites them back for games of chess and elaborate teas.

Simon is forthright about his affection for Kerewin. A regular truant, he reappears at the tower so often that Kerewin and Joe agree to a semiformal arrangement in which Simon spends two or three days a week with her. Joe, too, grows to love Kerewin, but he is desperately afraid that she will discover what everyone in the village already knows; that he brutalizes Simon. Tension builds as the three become increasingly close, and as Kerewin, for all her astuteness, misses the plentiful clues of Simon’s abuse.

When she discovers infected welts on Simon’s back, she is quietly shocked, partly by her own ignorance, and resolves to intervene. The three travel to her family’s beach house, where cold weather and Kerewin’s lack of physical affection provoke Joe and prompt a fight between he and Simon. Using aikido, Kerewin crushes Joe into the sand, telling him that he cannot discipline the child without her permission. Months later, when Joe tries to propose to Kerewin, her ambivalence drives him again at his son. This time, Simon rebels by destroying Kerewin’s prized guitar, then the shop windows in town. Kerewin, at an alcoholic, cancerous low point in her life, abuses Simon verbally by telephone and gives Joe permission to finish the job. The boy’s skull is crushed, permanently impairing his hearing and sight. He is taken to a hospital, then to a Catholic foster home. Joe goes to jail for three months and loses custody. Kerewin packs off alone to the desert to die.

Each character almost dies but is saved by the intervention of another. A doctor who understands Simon’s need to reunite with Joe encourages the child to run away, which he does with agonizing difficulty, finally returning to Kerewin’s tower. Joe, released from jail, travels to a sacred beach where one of the Great Canoes landed years before the arrival of the Maoris. A member of an ancient tribe guards a sleeping spirit in the canoe and passes on the responsibility to Joe, who returns with the spirit to Kerewin’s tower. Kerewin, healed by an unnamed androgynous spirit-person, also returns to the tower, and the three reunite to become a family.

The publication of The Bone People coincided with a Maori nationalist movement in New Zealand that eventually generated parliamentary reforms. Like the members of all colonized societies, New Zealanders are a mix of several cultures and continue to struggle over issues of identity, tradition, and power. Though writings preceding Hulme’s novel addressed postcolonial issues, Hulme’s was the first to receive worldwide attention, thus introducing non-New Zealanders to the country’s situation.

Writing the book about and for New Zealanders, Hulme was surprised when it received much international attention. In 1984, The Bone People received the Mobil Pegasus Award for Maori Writers, the New Zealand Book of the Year Award for fiction, and in 1985, the Booker-McConnell Prize. Before the publication of Hulme’s novel, the sale of ten thousand copies of a book by a New Zealand author classified it a best-seller; hers had sold nearly one hundred thousand copies by 1987. The book continues to attract the attention of literary critics, who are fascinated with its linguistic intricacies, its disturbing imagery, and its sociopolitical implications.

Hulme writes in her preface to the first edition that The Bone People took twelve years to write, evolving from her first short story, “Simon Peter’s Shell.” Several publishers turned it down because it was “too large, too unwieldy, too different when compared with the normal shape of a novel” and because Hulme refused to edit away its unconventional qualities. The book was finally brought out by Spiral Collective Number Five, a group of three feminists who gathered specifically to publish the novels of three New Zealand women whose work had otherwise been disregarded. The success of this publishing story is that Hulme’s work remains virtually unchanged from the version that she considered complete. Whereas texts are generally edited to ensure uniformity and marketability standards, the Spiral Collective respected Hulme’s artistic idiosyncrasies. The result is a text that challenges rules established by writers and publishers with traditional ideologies; it is a text that celebrates difference.

New Zealand Maori History and Culture

The first inhabitants of New Zealand were Polynesian people who likely arrived by boat from the islands of Southeast Asia, known in their mythology as Hawaiki, possibly as early as 800 A.D. The event known as the Great Fleet, marking the mass arrival of Polynesians to New Zealand, may have started around 1350. However, some contemporary anthropologists and historians question this estimated date. Much of the early Maori history was passed down through oral traditions and storytelling rather than written documentation.

The Maori initially settled along the coastlines of New Zealand's two main islands. Each tribe's ancestors are identified by the name of the large canoe they used for their journey to the island. These canoes hold significant importance and are celebrated in tribal stories. One of the principal original canoes, named Tainui, is mentioned in Hulme's novel. Many early tribes established themselves on the South Island, where the moa, a large flightless bird resembling a turkey, provided an abundant food source. As the population grew with the arrival of more people and diverse tribes, conflicts arose over land and power. Cannibalism was one method of warfare, with victors consuming their defeated foes. By the time Europeans arrived, the Maori had explored and claimed all the land.

Known as Aotearoa in the Maori language, New Zealand posed challenges for many of the migrating people. They were accustomed to tropical climates and found the colder weather and local crops difficult to manage. Traditional foods like coconut and taro did not thrive in New Zealand's environment. As a result, the newcomers hunted birds and seals extensively, leading to their near extinction, and turned to agriculture for sustenance.

In 1642, the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was likely the first European to circumnavigate, but not set foot on, what would later be named New Zealand. James Cook landed there in 1769, although little is documented about his experience. Cook's voyages paved the way for European settlers, who began arriving around 1800. Europeans introduced muskets into the conflicts between Maori tribes. In 1840, a contentious treaty was signed between Europeans and several hundred Maori chiefs, written in both English and Maori. The interpretation of the Waitangi Treaty has remained disputed into the early 2000s, as translations reportedly often differ. The Pakeha, descendants of European settlers, claimed British control over the land, while the Maori maintained that tribal chiefs held authority. Through various conflicts with Europeans, the Maori lost significant amounts of land.

Throughout the twentieth century, the Maori population experienced a significant decline due to diseases introduced by Europeans. Their numbers plummeted from 800,000 to 50,000, leading to a loss of political influence in the evolving nation. Despite this setback, influential figures emerged, including Apirana Ngata. Ngata founded a political party that eventually succeeded in placing Maori representatives in parliament, implementing extensive health reforms, and altering land tenure systems. He also championed Maori culture by gathering and publishing traditional songs and constructing traditional carved meeting houses for various tribes.

In the 1960s and 1970s, urban Maori youth protested the loss of tribal lands and violations of the Waitangi Treaty. Lengthy protest marches and other political actions brought attention to their cause, resulting in the return of land to some tribes. In the early 2000s, the Waitangi Tribunal was established to address land disputes. Additionally, the Maori language began to be taught, and Maori radio and television stations were established. However, challenges remain. The Maori population experiences higher rates of diabetes and cancer compared to the Pakeha population, and unemployment rates are also higher. Nonetheless, the Maori are known for their adaptability, a trait that continues to benefit them in the twenty-first century.

Maori Language

Maori is a Polynesian language spoken by the indigenous people of New Zealand. In 1800, the Maori language served as a unifying factor among indigenous communities. Although it had several dialects, it originated from a single source. As late as 1840, even as large numbers of Europeans were arriving, the Maori language remained dominant. European scholars collaborated with the Maori to develop an alphabet and a written language. Well into the 1870s, missionaries and European settlers, along with their children, learned Maori, with the children often becoming more fluent than the adults.

This dynamic began to shift as the twentieth century neared. The use of Maori rapidly declined, and indigenous people were taught English. By the early twentieth century, speaking Maori was considered an offense. Maori parents encouraged their children to learn English, as it was becoming the dominant language of New Zealand's industry. To thrive in an increasingly Euro-centric society, Maori children needed fluency in English. However, within their homes, Maori people continued to speak their native language, which remained the first language for Maori children and was used exclusively in religious ceremonies.

As urbanization increasingly impacted Maori communities after World War II, the number of Maori speakers dwindled, reaching a low point in the 1980s with only about 20 percent of the Maori population speaking the language. Urban youth often lost touch with their language and, consequently, their cultural heritage. A twentieth-century initiative sought to immerse preschool children in the Maori language. While this effort halted the decline, it did not significantly boost the number of Maori-speaking individuals.

Changes in Setting and Narrative Voice

In The Bone People, Hulme utilizes abrupt transitions in location without explanation and seamlessly shifts between internal monologue, dreams, and narration. Additionally, the story unfolds through a variety of voices. This distinctive approach crafts a dreamlike reality and a mystical atmosphere. Hulme integrates poetry, brief reflective essays, and journal entries to tell the story in a non-conventional manner.

To illustrate, Hulme opens her narrative with three poems, each highlighting one of the three central characters: Kerewin, Joe, and Simon. This is followed by three concise introductions, each less than a page, for the characters. These introductions stand independently. By the end of the novel, readers grasp the significance of these poems and passages. These elements form the novel's prologue.

In the initial chapter, readers notice that dialogue lacks attribution to specific speakers, leaving them uncertain about who is speaking. Before the page concludes, the protagonist, Kerewin, is portrayed in the third person while simultaneously presenting her internal thoughts in the first person. Occasionally, when the protagonist engages in internal dialogue, the text is fully indented, indicating the passage as such. However, other first-person passages are not indented and are formatted similarly to the narration, which predominantly uses third person. Readers adapt to this shifting narrative style, and soon the transitions between points of view become secondary to the content being conveyed. Thus, conventional narrative structures are disrupted. The novel's form aligns with its characters and their tales.

For instance, in the first chapter, Kerewin talks about fishing for flounder. This segment begins in the third person, transitions to unattributed dialogue, returns to third-person narration reflecting on the dialogue, moves to internal dialogue, and is then interrupted by third-person narration, which is subsequently interrupted by internal dialogue.

After finishing her cigarette, she unscrews the top of the stick and pulls out a seven-inch piece of barbed steel. It fits perfectly into the slots at the top of the stick.

"Now, flounders are easy to spear, as long as you watch your toes."

Whether she means her own toes or the fish's, she's never really cared to find out. She rolls up her jeans as high as they will go and steps into the chilly water. First, she wades in ankle-deep, then knee-deep, pausing to sense the tide's movement. Slowly, with the morning sun ahead of her, she begins to hunt, focusing her mind on her hands and scanning the water for the telltale puff of mud and the quick, silty trail of a startled flounder.

All this effort just to sneak up on a fish? And they call humans the smart ones? Sheeit …

With a swift, precise thrust, she spears a flounder, leaving it flapping with a bloody hole at the end of the stick.

Kerewin gazes at it with a slow, satisfied smile.

Goodbye to a soul-crushing night. Hello, sunshine, and a blissful, carefree day.

By alternating between different perspectives, whether it's the narrator describing the character's actions or the character herself expressing her thoughts, readers gain a richer understanding of the scene. This variety offers deeper insight into the character and an additional layer for interpreting the action.

As the novel progresses, readers also delve into the inner thoughts of Joe and Simon. These insights reveal, for instance, why Joe behaves the way he does toward Simon, his feelings about the abuse he inflicts, and the contradictions within his emotions. For Simon, inner dialogue reveals his fears, which he cannot express through gestures or written notes. Through these stylistic choices, Hulme differentiates between the known external reality and the internal reality of each character.

Ethnic References

Hulme's novel is rich with references to Maori culture. To enhance the novel's authenticity, the author extensively incorporates the Maori language and customs without offering explanations within the text. Translations of Maori phrases, sentences, and dialogues are provided at the back of the book, but the text itself lacks direct support or clarification. This creates a jarring or fragmented experience for the reader. The author may have chosen to include the Maori language without explanation to give readers the feeling of being outsiders; they are observers but remain culturally detached.

• 1980s: Research from the University of Otago in New Zealand indicates that four out of five children experience corporal punishment. Within this group, 6 percent endure severe punishment, such as being struck with a belt or repeatedly kicked.
  2000s: A report by the Family Help Trust highlights that New Zealand ranks poorly in child mortality rates due to abuse. Of every 1000 Maori children, twelve are victims of abuse.
• 1980s: Government statistics in New Zealand show the Maori population at around 400,000, making up nearly 10 percent of the country's entire population.
  2000s: The Maori population is on the rise and is projected to reach one million by the mid-21st century, potentially comprising almost 20 percent of New Zealand's total population.
• 1980s: The New Zealand Ministry of Health reports a significant increase in alcohol consumption during the 1980s, reaching nearly twelve liters per person each year.
  2000s: According to the Alcohol Advisory Council of New Zealand, over 1.2 million people in the country consider frequent binge drinking to be acceptable behavior.

Sources

Brown, Rebecca, "First-Rank Debut—Novel from New Zealand Masterfully Captures the Spirit of the Country's Native Culture," in Seattle Times, January 5, 1986, p. J10.

Hanson, Neil, "Bone People, Fishing and a Search for Bait," in Los Angeles Times, August 14, 2005, p. R12.

Hegi, Ursula, "Cracking Open the Shell of a Reclusive New Zealand Artist," in Los Angeles Times, November 18, 1985, p. 8.

Hulme, Keri, The Bone People, Penguin, 1984.

Kakutani, Michiko, Review of The Bone People, in New York Times, November 13, 1985, p. C23.

Moncur, Andrew, "Years of Rejection Didn't Stop Author's Quest to Publish," in Seattle Times, January 5, 1986, p. J10.

Tate, Claudia, "Triple-Forged Trinity," in New York Times, November 17, 1985, p. BR11.

Willens, Susan P., "At Home with the Maoris," in Belles Lettres, Vol. 2, No. 1, Fall 1986, p. 3.

Further Reading

Duffie, Mary Katharine, Through the Eye of the Needle: A Maori Elder Remembers, Wadsworth Publishing, 2000.

This book narrates the history of the Maori people through the perspective of a Maori woman.

Harawira, K. T., Beginner's Maori, Hippocrene Books, 1997.

An introduction to the fundamentals of the Maori language is offered in this book.

Masson, Jeffrey Moussaieff, Slipping into Paradise: Why I Live in New Zealand, Ballantine Books, 2004.

Masson, an American psychologist and author, moved to New Zealand to immerse himself in the local landscape, culture, and community. This book provides a thoughtful and engaging account of what Masson came to cherish about his new homeland.

Smith, Philippa Mein, A Concise History of New Zealand, Cambridge University Press, 2005.

As of 2005, Smith serves as an associate professor of history at the University of Cambridge in the UK. Her comprehensive history of New Zealand explores the development of its geography, the arrival of the Maori people, and the evolving relationships between the Maori and European settlers up to the early twenty-first century.