Jane Goodall has died at 91
Goodall was sui generis. Even as a young woman, she radiated a quiet calm that was both soothing and unusual. She had patience galore, which is probably why famed anthropologist Louis Leakey decided she would be well-suited to an intensive study of chimpanzees. It became her life’s work. Somehow she managed to have two marriages and a child, as well.
Goodall had a look of timelessness no matter her age, slender youngster or wrinkled elder. She died in the saddle, as it were, while on a speaking tour. She studied animals in a way no one before her had done, and she made remarkable observations: that chimpanzees used sticks as tools, for example.
It was after many years of studying chimpanzees that she made a truly horrific discovery, which was that they could be extremely violent with each other. This must have been profoundly difficult for her to learn, but she reported it nevertheless and didn’t flinch from its implications.
Goodall was a remarkable woman and a remarkable person. RIP.
I had seen some documentary about the chimpanzee’s capacity for violence long ago. I believe they covered this incident:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_(chimpanzee)
But they also covered cases where men went into a more natural chimp habitat and were mauled or killed. If I recall correctly, one gruesome detail is that they tend to destroy the genitalia of men when such violent interactions occur.
Also, while chimps are not huge like gorillas, they can be exceptionally strong. Rather superhuman in terms of strength versus size.
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This popped up from a search on violent primates: Of course, humans. I don’t disagree. But I’ve never heard of the slow lorises. They are small, but also the only venomous primate in the world.
Yeah, Goodall observed the infamous Gombe Chimpanzee War back in the 70s, where 2 communities of chimpanzees effectively went to war with one another for several years. Chimps committed what would be deemed atrocities if they were human, including cannibalistic infanticide committed by a ” high-ranking female in the community”.
We lived in Zaire from 1977-80, when I was assigned to our embassy there. It was a fairly large American community, with a large USAID contingent and an embassy that seemed outsized for even the second largest country on the continent. (Sudan was one country in those days, and the largest. Zaire is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.)
Anyway, we had a Marine Security Guard detachment with its own quarters where embassy families would frequently gather on Friday afternoons for happy hour and games. We got to know one of the members of the detachment and were surprised that he had a pygmy chimp he was soon going have to abandon when he was rotated to another assignment. We ended up taking her and keeping her for two years.
Those were interesting times. She wore a strong dog collar that we would attach to a long cable fixed to a tree in the back yard, but around six o’clock every day she would get tired and be ready for bed. We’d take off her cable and lead her to our garage, where she had a gunny sack that was her “bed.” She’d pull the sack over her head and settle down for the night, only waking up when it was light in the morning.
We generally trusted her, occasionally even letting her in the house where she’d immediately head or the kitchen to look for anything she could eat. We knew she’d be there looking for food, so we’d put it all away before letting her in.
She also joined us for dinner occasionally and especially loved spaghetti. She was well enough behaved to sit in a chair at the table and eat it with us, but we had to be sure to finish our meal before she did, as she would grab food off our plate if there was any left.
Pili pili was about the same size as our three year-old daughter, but far stronger. She never hurt our daughter or even tried to, and they were close friends. The State Department Newsletter even had a photo on its front cover one month of my daughter and Pili pili seated at a small table and drinking tea out of a doll’s tea set.
I often thought their age made them a good match: our daughter was more intellectually developed, but Pili was far more developed physically. When it was time for us to be reassigned from Zaire we tried everything we could think of to bring her to the States as we knew she could not go back to living in the forest. We contacted various zoos and the Yerkes Center, but they were all afraid of running afoul of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), and they just all said no. Eventually she went to live with a Greek farmer not far from the capital city.
This long digression is to say we followed Jane Goodall’s work closely. Mind you, Pili was a pygmy chimp, a distinct species that was a lot smaller than the chimps she was working with, but there were many points of commonality. Tools? Oh yeah — after Pili saw us using a key to open a padlock that linked her collar to the cable, she started sticking everything she could find in the padlock. A very clever animal.
Goodall’s initial observation of chimps as peaceful creatures in an idyllic setting (I may exaggerate) became the popular picture and withstood her later discovery. She’d had no idea she was looking at a community, or clan, or something, rather than a bunch of critters. And that there were other communities.
That said, Goodall waited years to publish her findings on chimp violence.
She first noticed the violence in the late 60s and after the 1974-1978 Gombe Chimpanzee War there was no denying it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War
Nonetheless, Goodall didn’t publish her findings until 1986, leaving the nice friendly chimp image she propagated intact in the public mind.
–Jane Goodall, “The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior”
https://archive.org/details/chimpanzeesofgom0000good/page/n5/mode/2up
Better late than never. It is a thorough 600+ page book, well-done by the look of it.
Likewise the friendly Flipper image of dolphins has similarly been debunked.
* Groups of male dolphins can form violent gangs which may also rape females.
* Dolphins practice infanticide.
* Dolphins war upon porpoises, a different species of toothed whale.
* Dolphins may harass humans, even sexually.
The question isn’t whether humans are more violent than animals. We’re just better at it.
huxley:
From that same Wiki article, this by Goodall is very illuminating:
She had PTSD, it seems, and it took her quite some time to report on what had happened. Plus, she was not believed when she did report it, so it took some courage. From the same article:
huxley:
Nature, red in tooth and claw.
Tennyson.
Enjoyed your account of living with a pigmy Chimp, F.
Africa, it’s a wondrous place. Jane Goodall and many other Brits loved it and lived there as their home. Sorry to learn of her death. She lived a long and worthwhile life. RIP
First Two Rules of Chimpanzee Fight Club
1) You never want to fight with a chimpanzee.
2) You NEVER want to fight with a chimpanzee.
An average chimp can rip your arm off. His fangs can tear your face off.
Chimpanzees are very aggressive and brutal. They are the most dangerous ape to humans.
Gorillas and orangutans are bigger, stronger, but less aggressive. Don’t try to fight with them either.
Huxley, I 100% agree.
A few years ago, maybe 10, there was a horrible related case in a Texas town. A wman was visiting a friend who had a pet chimpanzee. It suddenly got angry & attacked her. Unprovoked.
Ripped her face off.
She lived. And eventually had several surgeries to create a “face”.
Truly changed my views.
PS: the woman-chimpanzee tragedy I mentioned above may have been 15-20 years ago. It’s hard to place some events, nowadays.
F, yes a truly interesting story about Pili, but I shuddered when you said she and your daughter were close enough to share tea, etc. I could just envision a terrible second when some sort of violence would have occurred.
Of course I was not there.
But even those videos showing pet dogs snuggling with infants and small children give me the willies as to potential misadventures.
Neo: Goodall having PTSD – an interesting view.
Perhaps she was her own worst enemy in that regard, along with her lauded patience. By naming the animals she was observing (to keep them and their biological relationships straight?), she gave them more anthropomorphized personalities than they had? If she had remained “objective” and called them by a letter or number, and not gotten so attached to “her” group, she might have maintained a more neutral view of them as “animals” and not “almost humans”? Maybe if she had not been there basically alone as the key or sole observer, but had another colleague or two to help out, they might have observed “offensive” behavior over a wider area than she could cover by herself?
Hindsight is 20-20, so we can still appreciate what she did report – even if delayed for a time.
There are reasons why “Planet of the Apes” struck such a resounding chord in the public imagination.
Anthropomorphising animals is a favorite pastime of we humans. Dogs, cats, other primates, and the list goes on. It’s how Disney got so popular. Many of us like to think that animals possess “human” characteristics, tendencies or attributes. We don’t, however like to think they also possess our human foibles and failings, only the cuddly bits. Truth, however, is quite to the contrary, as anyone spending time with undomesticated animals will agree. One of my pet peeves (pun intended) is people who infantilize their pets, calling them their “fur babies,” and referring to themselves as “fur mommas” and the like. Oh well, it takes all kinds, I suppose, so live and let live.
@ Steve > ” calling them their “fur babies,” and referring to themselves as “fur mommas” and the like”
However, it may be that this was the “gateway” to the phenomena of the “furries” – de-anthropomorphizing people?
@ Steve ” … however like to think they also possess our human foibles and failings, only the cuddly bits.”
Except just as any animal or surf or oaf or ET or troll (!!), or other mythical creature can be made appealing with wide open eyes and a broadish smile, so can they be made bad, evil, or compromised with a snarl (helped by sharp teeth) or scowl, furrowed brow, and a dark countenance.
Comics and animation have supplied us with both.