Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (43 page)

In this description by Jane Goodall of a patrol at Gombe, we are taken by the ability of the chimps to overcome their fear, to exercise self-control by inhibiting their usual noisy interchanges, but particularly by their deductive abilities. These chimps are tracking. They are weighing the evidence of branches, footprints, droppings, artifacts.
We might expect that, when food is in short supply, group differences in tracking skills help determine who lives and who dies. Not just strength and aggressiveness are being selected here, but something akin to reasoning and quick-wittedness. And stealth. When one human who lived with a troop for a long time tried to accompany a patrol as it set out, they looked at him reprovingly. He was just too clumsy. He could not, as they do, slip silently through the forest.

So the long-range combat patrol wends its way toward the borders of their turf If it’s more than a day’s walk, they’ll set up camp at night and continue on their way tomorrow. What happens if they encounter members of another group, Strangers from the adjacent territory? If it’s just one or two intruders, they’ll attempt to attack and kill them. There’s much less disposition here toward threat displays and intimidation. But if two parties of roughly equal strength encounter one another, now there are a great many threat displays, rocks and sticks are thrown, trees are drummed. “Somebody hold me back, I’m gonna break his knees,” you can almost hear them saying. They practice threat assessment If the patrol senses an obviously larger number of Strangers, it is likely to beat a hasty retreat. At other times chimp patrols may penetrate enemy territory or even raid its populated core area—for many purposes, including copulating with unfamiliar females. The combination of tracking, stealth, danger, teamwork, fighting hated enemies, and the opportunity for sex with strange females is enormously attractive to the males.

The delight shown by the members of a patrol after having successfully returned from dangerous—perhaps enemy-held—territory is little different from what happens when chimps unexpectedly encounter a substantial cache of food. They screech, kiss, hug, hold hands, pat one another on the shoulders and the rump, and jump up and down. Their camaraderie is reminiscent of teammates in mutual embrace just after winning the national title At the start of a heavy rain, male chimps often perform a spectacular dance. On coming upon a stream or waterfall they display, seize vines, swing from one tree to another, and cavort high above the water in a breathtaking acrobatic performance that may last for ten minutes or more. Perhaps they are awed by the natural beauty or entranced by the white noise. Their evident joy sheds a revealing light on the eighteenth-century doctrine
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that humans are right to enslave other animals because we are unmatched in our capacity to be happy.

The prescription offered by Sewall Wright for a successful evolutionary response to a changing environment closely matches many aspects of chimp society. The species is divided into free-ranging groups, generally comprising between ten and one hundred individuals. They have different territorial ranges, so that if the environment alters the impact will be at least slightly different from group to group. A staple food at one end of a vast tropical forest may be a rare delicacy at the other. A blight or infestation that might result in serious malnutrition or famine for chimps in one part of the forest might have negligible consequences in another. Each territorial group is enough inbred that the gene frequencies differ systematically, group to group. And yet the pattern of inbreeding is relieved by exogamy (outbreeding). There are key sexual encounters with chimps from adjacent territories, initiated either when a patrol penetrates into alien territory or when a foreign female wanders over. These unions provide genetic communication, group to group, so that if in an adaptive crisis one group were more fit than the others, the adaptation would rapidly spread to the entire chimpanzee population through a sequence of sexual contacts—perhaps hundreds of copulations in a chain linking the remotest groups of a vast tropical forest. If there’s a modest environmental crisis, the chimpanzees are ready.

If this is indeed the explanation, at least in part, of the territoriality, ethnocentrism, xenophobia, and occasional exogamy that characterize chimpanzee society, we do not imagine that individual chimps understand the reasons for their behavior. They simply can’t stand the sight of strangers, find them hateful and deserving of attack—except, of course, for the chimps of the opposite sex, who are unaccountably exciting. The females occasionally run away with strange males, no matter what crimes they may earlier have committed against their land and kin. Perhaps they feel something of what Euripides makes Helen of Troy feel:

Mothers know who their sons are and so can preferentially resist their (very rare) sexual advances. But fathers are not sure who their daughters are, and vice versa. Thus, when a female comes of age in a small group, there’s a significant chance of an incestuous union, further inbreeding, more infant mortality, and fewer of their genetic sequences passed on to future generations. So around the time of first ovulation, a female often feels an inexplicable urge to visit the neighboring territory. This can be a dangerous undertaking, as she probably understands full well. The compulsion, then, must be strong, which in turn underscores the evolutionary importance of her mission. Combine this not uncommon itch to wander at first ovulation with the rarity of brother-sister and, especially, mother-son unions and it’s clear that a high-priority, well-functioning incest taboo is operating among the chimps.

There’s one aspect of chimpanzee territoriality not shared by other apes—all of whom are divided into territorial, xenophobic groups, with a little exogamy thrown in: Unlike encounters within the group, where bluff and intimidation play major roles and only rarely does anyone get seriously hurt, when two chimp groups interact there can be real violence. No main force combat has ever been observed. They prefer guerrilla tactics. One group will pick off the members of the other in ones and twos until there’s no longer a viable force left to defend the adjacent territory. Chimpanzee groups are constantly skirmishing to see if it’s possible to annex more turf. If the penalty for failure in combat is death for the males and alien sexual bondage for the females, the males soon find themselves caught up in a powerful selection for military skills. Genes for those skills must have been racing through the tropical forests, by exogamous mating, until nearly all chimps had them. If they didn’t, they died.

Moreover, the skills that make you good on patrol and good in skirmishes also make you good in the hunt. If your combat skills are honed, you can also supply your friends, loved ones, and concubines—to say nothing of yourself—with more of that delicious red meat. Except for the part about the good eating, being a male chimp is a little like being in the army.

LIVES OF THE APES

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he alpha male is sitting bolt upright, jaw set, staring confidently into middle distance. The hair on his head, shoulders, and back is standing on end, which gives him an even more imposing aspect. Before him crouches a subordinate, in a bow so deep that his gaze must be fixed on the few tufts of grass directly before him. If these were humans, this posture would be recognized as much more than deference. This is abject submission. This is abasement. This is groveling. The alpha’s feet may, in fact, be kissed. The supplicant could be a vanquished provincial chieftain at the foot of the Chinese or Ottoman Emperor, or a tenth-century Catholic priest before the Bishop of Rome, or an awed ambassador of a tributary people in the presence of Pharaoh.
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Calm and assured, the alpha male does not scowl at his nearly prostrate subordinate. Instead, he reaches out and touches him on the shoulder or head. The lower-ranking male slowly rises, reassured. Alpha ambles off, touching, patting, hugging, occasionally kissing those he encounters. Many reach out their arms and beg for contact, however brief. Almost all—from highest to lowest rank—are visibly buoyed by this king’s touch. Anxiety is relieved, perhaps even minor illnesses cured, by the laying-on of hands.

Regal touching, one after the other, in a sea of outstretched hands seems familiar enough to us—reminiscent, say, of the President striding down the central aisle of the House of Representatives just before the State of the Union address, especially when he’s riding high in the polls. The future King Edward VIII on his world tour, Senator Robert Kennpdy in his presidential campaign, and countless other political leaders have returned home black and blue from the grasp of their enthusiastic followers.

The alpha male will intervene to prevent conflict, especially between hotheaded young males pumped up on testosterone, or when aggression is directed at infants or juveniles. Sometimes a withering
glance will suffice. Sometimes the alpha will charge the pair and force them apart. Generally, he approaches with a swagger, arms akimbo. It’s hard not to see here the rudiments of government administration of justice. As in all primate leadership positions, an alpha male must accept certain obligations. In return for deference and respect, for sexual and dining privileges, he must render services to the community, both practical and symbolic. He adopts an impressive demeanor, even something approaching pomp, in part because his subordinates demand it of him. They crave reassurance. They are natural followers. They have an irresistible need to be led.

Beyond the reaching out of hands there are many styles of submission, of which the most common is, in the scientific literature, demurely called “presenting.” What is it that’s being presented? The subordinate animal, male or female—but here we’re discussing males in the dominance hierarchy—wishing to pay its respects to the alpha male crouches down and elevates its anogenital region toward the leader, moving its tail out of the way. It sometimes gives a little bump and grind. It may whimper and, grinning over its shoulder, approach the alpha, raised rump first. The subordinate’s need to pay respect in this manner is so great that it may even present to an alpha who’s fast asleep.

The alpha (if awake) moves forward, grasps the submissive animal from behind, closely embraces it, and not infrequently makes a few pelvic thrusts. Since this is the invariable posture and motion of chimp copulation, there can be no mistaking the symbolic significance of the exchange: The subordinate animal asks please to be fucked, and the dominant animal, perhaps a little reluctantly, complies.