The Bone People - Title

Title

The title The Bone People draws parallels between Māori, who use bone extensively in art and tools, and the notion of the core or skeleton of a person: in the novel the characters are figuratively stripped to the bone. Also, in the novel, "E nga iwi o nga iwi" p. 395, translates to "O the bones of the people" (where 'bones' stands for ancestors or relations), but it also translates to "O the people of the bones" (i.e. the beginning people, the people who make another people).

Read more about this topic:  The Bone People

Famous quotes containing the word title:

    “In Goya’s greatest scenes we seem to see
    the people of the world
    exactly at the moment when
    they first attained the title of
    ‘suffering humanity’”
    —Lawrence Ferlinghetti (b. 1919)

    “A familiar name cannot make a man less strange to me. It may be given to a savage who retains in secret his own wild title earned in the woods. We have a wild savage in us, and a savage name is perchance somewhere recorded as ours.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “If any ambitious man have a fancy to revolutionize, at one effort, the universal world of human thought, human opinion, and human sentiment, the opportunity is his own—the road to immortal renown lies straight, open, and unencumbered before him. All that he has to do is to write and publish a very little book. Its title should be simple—a few plain words—”My Heart Laid Bare.” But—this little book must be true to its title.”
    —Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)