h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

how long did it take to reach back and how old were they on their return?Was basket the wife of button?

hmm. let's see:

They arrived in England in 1830 and "In January 1833, Fitz Roy landed the Fuegians in the area of Jemmy's family."

Fuegia was thought to be twelve when she had her encounter with York Minster in an English ditch sometime between her arrival in England in 1830 and her departure for points south in late 1832. I've always been under the impression that Jemmy Button was of a similar age (perhaps a little older) and that York Minster was well into manhood.

I've not seen anything which suggests that Jemmy and Fuegia where married either according to European or Fuegian convention. The wife that Jemmy mentioned to the crew of the Beagle was apparently someone other than Fuegia.

I hope this helps.

thanks for enlighting it is very interesting indeed . are their families still there?

records for the period in that area are not good. One might presume that some descendants are around, but it would likely be difficult to demonstrate.

I am new to h2g2 so please excuse me if I don't get this right. I was interested in your piece on the Fuegians FitzRoy took to England - particularly the York Minster and Fuegia Basket story. I have not encountered the part about their "encounter in a ditch" in any of my sources, can you tell me your source for this? Many thanks!

I'll post this here as well:

I believe my source for that bit may have been the biography of FitzRoy, 'Evolution's Captain', by Peter Nichols. I don't have a copy at hand, so I can't verify right now.

Hope this helps.

I am posting this here too (slowly learning the ropes...)
Thanks heaps anhaga! I haven't got my hands on this book yet. I can see I'm going to end up hassling P. Nicholls himself for his source at this rate. I'll let you know what I find out if I do. If you haven't got already found this one,I recently read "Savage: The Life and Times of Jemmy Button" by Nick Hazlewood which has some excellent stuff about the Fuegians in it. For example, most books say they were Yaghans/Yagans/Yahgans/Yamana, but in fact only Jemmy was - the other three were Alacalufe (now called Kaweskar). This is clear from FitzRoy's Narrative, both by where they were picked up and from his vocab lists, but most historians can only imagine ONE type of tribal other I suppose... Hazlewood manages the two.
I really enjoyed your entry - it's great!!