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The chimpanzees climbed into a low tree to feed on fresh young leaves. I moved to a place where I could stand and watch as they enjoyed their last meal of the day. The scene was breathtaking in its beauty. The leaves were brilliant, a pale, vivid green in the soft sunlight; the wet trunk and branches were like ebony; the black coats of the chimps were shot with flashes of coppery-brown.
There are many windows through which we can look out into the world, searching for meaning. There are those opened up by science, their panes polished by a succession of brilliant, penetrating minds. Through these we can see ever further, ever more clearly, into areas that once lay beyond human knowledge. Gazing through such a window I have, over the years, learned much about chimpanzee behaviour and their place in the nature of things. And this, in turn, has helped us to understand a little better some aspects of human behaviour, our own place in nature. But there are other windows; windows
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I was intensely aware of the shape, the colour, of individual leaves, the varied patterns of the veins that made each one unique. Scents were clear, easily identifiable – fermenting, over-ripe fruit; water-logged earth; cold, wet bark; the damp odour of chimpanzee hair and, yes, my own too.
If only we could, however briefly, see the world through the eyes of a chimpanzee, what a lot we should learn.
For a long time I never liked to look a chimpanzee straight in the eye – I assumed that, as is the case with most primates, this would be interpreted as a threat or at least as a breach of good manners. Not so. As long as one looks with gentleness, without arrogance, a chimpanzee will understand, and may even return the look.
As I had not had an undergraduate science education I didn’t realize that animals were not supposed to have personalities, or to think, or to feel emotions or pain.
Not knowing, I freely made use of all those forbidden terms and concepts in my initial attempt to describe, to the best of my ability, the amazing things I had observed at Gombe.
The editorial comments on the first paper I wrote for publication demanded that every he or she be replaced with it, and every who be replaced with which. Incensed, I, in my turn, crossed out the its and whichs and scrawled back the original pronouns.
their intellectual abilities evolved, over the millennia, to help them cope with daily life.
It is more meaningful to study the subject in the wild, but much harder. It is more meaningful because we can better understand the environmental pressures that led to the evolution of intellectual skills in chimpanzee societies.
Chimpanzees are clearly more ‘intellectual’ than baboons – as demonstrated by their use of objects as tools, for example. But baboons are very much more adaptive than chimps. There are baboons all over Africa, from north to south, east to west, whereas the chimpanzees, with their cautious and conservative natures and their much slower reproductive rate, are found only in the equatorial forest belt and surrounding areas.
The more complex an animal’s brain the greater the role that learning is likely to play in shaping its behaviour, and the more variation we shall find between one individual and another.
A secure childhood is likely to lead to self-reliance and independence in adulthood. A disturbed early life may leave permanent scars.
Pom, after the tragic death of little Pan, became sick, lethargic and so emaciated we thought she might not recover.
Mike lay, his eyes open, staring into space. As I watched him I wondered what was going on in his mind. Was he regretting his lost power? Is it only we humans, with our constant pre-occupation with self-image, who know the crippling sense of humiliation?
The more we learn about the struggle for power among chimpanzees, the more we realize the tremendous importance of coalitions.
At this moment Pom, an adolescent at the time, rushed to join her mother, and Gilka, outnumbered, turned and fled with Passion in hot pursuit, Otta still clinging tightly to her belly. Confident in her victory, Passion sat on the ground, pulled the terrified infant from her breast, and bit deeply into the front of the little head: death was instantaneous. Slowly, with utmost caution, Gilka returned. When she was close enough to see the limp and bleeding corpse she gave a single loud, bark-like sound – of horror? despair? – then turned and left.
The following year Gilka gave birth to a healthy son, Orion. By this time she was terrified of Passion. They met, for the first time, when the baby was a few days old. Fortunately there were two adult males nearby. Passion approached to within ten yards, then stood staring at the tiny infant. Gilka instantly began to scream loudly, looking back and forth from Passion to the big males. As though they understood what was going on, the males charged over and, one after the other, attacked Passion. On that occasion it was she who fled, screaming.
She was not quite twenty years old when she died. I saw her one day lying very still beside the swift flowing waters of the Kakombe Stream and I knew, even before I got close, that she would never move again. As I stood there I reflected on the long series of misfortunes that had dogged her, almost from the start. Her life, begun with such promise, had unfolded into a tale of infinite sadness.
It was dim and green in the forest, dappled with shifting brightness where the rays of the late afternoon sun fell through the rustling leaves of the canopy above. There was a murmuring of running water. And then, catching at the heart, the pure, hauntingly beautiful song of a robin chat. As I looked down on her, I knew a sudden sense of peace. Gilka, at last, had shed the body that had become nothing but a burden.
far away,
*So Far Away, Dire Straits
It is quite clear that a female prefers some males to others; equally there are certain individuals whom she may actively try to avoid.
This whole set-up – the prolonged period of the exclusive relationship, the calm and relaxed atmosphere that prevails, and the unusual sexual interactions – suggests that chimpanzees have a latent capacity for the development of more permanent heterosexual pair bonding: a relationship more similar to the pattern of monogamy – or at least serial monogamy – that has become the cultural tradition in much of the western world.
Gradually, however, I learned to accept the new picture. For although the basic aggressive patterns of the chimpanzees are remarkably similar to some of our own, their comprehension of the suffering they inflict on their victims is very different from ours. Chimpanzees, it is true, are able to empathize, to understand at least to some extent the wants and needs of their companions. But only humans, I believe, are capable of deliberate cruelty – acting with the intention of causing pain and suffering.
The interactions between chimpanzees and baboons, as observed at Gombe, are more varied and more complex than those between any other two species in the animal kingdom – with the exception of our own interactions with other animals.
they understand many of each other’s communication signals, and sometimes this results in what amounts to a joint effort to intimidate and repel a predator.
Chimpanzees, clearly, understand and may respond appropriately to many of the postures, gestures and calls of the baboon communication system – signals given in friendliness and threat, submission and sex. Equally, the baboons understand similar messages conveyed by the chimpanzees. Individuals of each species are alerted by the alarm calls of the other – indeed, they pay attention also to the alarm calls of various kinds of monkeys and even birds.
Of all the interactions between chimpanzees and baboons, it is, perhaps, the exuberant play sessions of the youngsters that are the most fascinating to observe. Sometimes an unusually close relationship – a friendship really – develops between a young baboon and a chimp and they will seize every opportunity to play together.
I have wondered so often about Jomeo’s fascinating character, his strange lack of any sort of dominance drive. If he had not been wounded as an adolescent, would he have gone on to become a high-ranking male? Probably not for, after all, his brother Sherry showed the same inability to cope with adversity. Was this a genetic, inherited trait? While this is possible, I suppose, it seems far more likely that it stemmed from the personality, the child-raising techniques, of their mother, Vodka.
After a week I decided that we should give Melissa a course of antibiotics. I hoped that this would get into her milk and help to clear up Gyre’s infected foot. And so, for five days, we took a little supply of bananas with us when we followed Melissa and, at regular intervals, handed her one – laced with medicinal powder. I don’t know if this helped, but Gyre’s foot did get better and soon Melissa was able to go about her daily business with no more difficulty than before.
After the death of her infant, Melissa seemed to lose the will to live. She had been thin before, now she became emaciated for she ate almost nothing. Often she did not leave her nest until after ten in the morning and sometimes she went to bed as early as four o’clock.
The next morning I watched as Melissa took her last, laboured breath: her body shuddered, then relaxed. All around, during those last hours, the branches had swayed and rustled as youngsters played while elders fed on the luscious fruits. In the midst of life there is death. This was an appropriate setting for Melissa’s passing, allegorical in its portrayal of the inevitable cycles of nature. I was deeply moved, but my tears were over. Melissa had indeed known a hard life, with many misfortunes, but she had lived fully and, for much of the time, had clearly enjoyed living. She had attained a
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How ironic that, having somehow struggled through his perilous infancy, having survived despite his mother, he should leave the world when he was on the very verge of independence. But Tapit’s life was not in vain, for he taught Patti a great deal about maternal behaviour.
Poor Gigi. Unable to bear young of her own, she has not been able to find the sort of reassuring relationships that typically exist between chimpanzee mothers and their grown young.
A male, it is true, may forge a similar friendship with his brother, or even with a non-related community male. But a female, once she loses her own mother (either through death or if she, the daughter, transfers to a new community), will not know such a relationship again until her own youngsters are grown.
We still know little about the correlations between the gradual drying up of the mother’s milk, the frequency with which the child suckles, and the hormonal changes in the mother that precede and accompany the development of the next infant in her womb.
All of the above – weaning, the birth of a new baby, temporary separation – upsetting as they may be at the time, are as nothing when compared with the death of the mother, the final and irrevocable breaking of the bond. Infants who are less than three years old and still quite dependent on their mother’s milk will, of course, be unable to survive. But even youngsters who are nutritionally independent may become so depressed that they pine away and die.
Other youngsters, though, have been cared for by their older siblings. And these adoptions provide us with some of the most touching stories, illustrating clearly the nature of the affectionate, protective attitude of juveniles and adolescents towards their infant brothers and sisters.
These two infants have survived, but the psychological scars of their ordeal will never leave them. You can tell when you look into their eyes – they lack the sparkle and eager curiosity of normal youngsters of their age. In many ways they behave like adults: their movements are deliberate, and they spend much time resting and grooming themselves.
behaviour does not fossilize.
Similarities in the structure of the brain and central nervous system have led to the emergence of similar intellectual abilities, sensibilities and emotions in our two species.
The opening of this window onto the way of life of our closest living relatives gives us a better understanding not only of the chimpanzee’s place in nature, but also of man’s place in nature.
Chimpanzees, as a result of an unusually hostile and violently aggressive attitude towards non-group individuals, have clearly reached a stage where they stand at the very threshold of human achievement in destruction, cruelty and planned inter-group conflict.
All these reconciliatory, friendly, and helping behaviours are, without doubt, very close to our own qualities of compassion, love and self-sacrifice.
Among non-human primates in the wild it is rare for adults to share food with each other, although mothers will typically share with their young. In chimpanzee society, however, even non-related adults frequently share with each other, although they are more likely to do so with kin and close friends.
in both chimpanzees and humans, these are the qualities that lead to altruistic behaviour and self-sacrifice.
In chimpanzee society, although most risk-taking is on behalf of family members, there are examples of individuals risking injury if not their lives to help non-related companions.
while chimpanzees have, to some extent, an awareness of the pain which they may inflict on their victims, only we, I believe, are capable of real cruelty – the deliberate infliction of physical or mental pain on living creatures despite, or even because of, our precise understanding of the suffering involved.
Only we are capable of torture. Only we, surely, are capable of evil.
unless we act soon, our closest relatives may soon exist only in captivity, condemned, as a species, to human bondage.
