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Both the literal and metaphorical unearthing of human remains symbolize how New Zealand’s colonial past haunts its present. On the train, the narrator mentions his belief that construction projects often unearth human bones, “because that’s what you get when you dig up the ground, bones.” This image of human remains lying just under the surface of new development projects makes clear that New Zealand’s history—a history of violent colonization—still very much affects its present. White New Zealanders may be able to change the way the landscape looks, but they cannot alter its history. This argument appears even more explicitly when the narrator passes a spot where the city bulldozed a graveyard to build a highway. Again, white New Zealanders are attempting to erase evidence of their colonial past, this time by intentionally removing a graveyard. Yet they cannot truly rid themselves of this past: the bones and headstones still remain, “in a heap somewhere.”
Much like the bones in the graveyard, the narrator and his family are also being “resited” by the New Zealand government. Using the same deceptively polite language to describe the graveyard, the story draws a connection between the government’s view of the graveyard and its racist view of the family’s visible Māori identity: both are seen as unpleasant reminders of the country’s colonial past, and as such, they must be removed. Like the jumbled bones from the graveyard, the narrator imagines that his family will be broken up and “scattered,” erasing their collective Māori identity. Therefore, in the act of concealing evidence of its colonial past, the government continues to colonize in the present.
The story further develops this symbolism when the narrator returns home and expresses his fear that his own remains will be dug up after he dies. The ground, which for the narrator’s entire life has represented his family’s deep connection to a specific place, now is “not safe,” demonstrating the very real threat of colonization that the narrator faces in the present.
Displaced Bones Quotes in Journey
The Journey quotes below all refer to the symbol of Displaced Bones. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Journey
Quotes
And up there past the cenotaph, that’s where they’d bulldozed all the bones and put in the new motorway. Resited, he still remembered the newspaper word, all in together. Your leg bone, my arm bone, someone else’s bunch of teeth and fingers, someone else’s head, funny people. Glad he didn’t have any of his whanaungas underground in that place. And they had put all the headstones in a heap somewhere promising to set them all up again tastefully – he remembered – didn't matter who was underneath. Bet there weren’t any Maoris driving those bulldozers.
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He was an old man and his foot was giving him hell, and he was shouting at them while they sat hurting. Burn me up I tell you, it’s not safe in the ground, you’ll know all about it if you put me in the ground. Do you hear?
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Displaced Bones Symbol Timeline in Journey
The timeline below shows where the symbol Displaced Bones appears in Journey. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Journey
...all over the valley when it rains. He also expects that the projects are unearthing bones. At the same time, he reminds himself that these development projects allow people to have...
(full context)
...remembers how the newspapers reported that the remains were “Resited […] tastefully.” He imagines the bones of different people all jumbled up together, and is glad none of his relatives were...
(full context)
