In 1830 Captain Robert FitzRoy, of HMS Beagle, exchanged a mother-of-pearl button for a Yaghan boy named Orundellico, known ever since as Jemmy Button. Together with York Minster, Fuegia Basket and Boat Memory, he was taken to England to be instructed in the language, customs and religion of the English, who hoped to return him transformed into an interpreter and evangeliser of his own people. The series devoted to this story begins here, in the scene of the purchase: the four appear as storybook children surrounded by their buyers.
The composition is based on Nicolas Poussin’s The Nurture of Bacchus (National Gallery, London), in which a satyr gives wine to the child god to drink: in this version, what is being served is civilisation. The flat acrylic and the cartoon’s line lend the scene the deceptive sweetness of a children’s tale, while the European figures, blurred and distorted, become grinning monsters.
The children, by contrast, carry the attributes of their new names: Fuegia Basket bears a basket, York Minster a small church upon his head, and Boat Memory a boat and a pair of wings foreshadowing his fate. Jemmy’s attribute is the only one not upon his body: the button that names him remains in the buyer’s hand.
Gallery
