7
The General’s Will
Legend tells of a dying World War I doughboy. Lying on a hospital gurney in France, he was slowly succumbing to the effects of mustard gas poisoning. In the three weeks that this young enlisted man had spent in the medical tent, his skin had blistered, his eyes had swelled, his breathing had become more labored, and he had begun to lose his mind. He suffered from wild delusions—one of them being that he was a general in charge of the entire army. He was so certain of his position that he would scribble war strategies on scraps of paper and ask the nurse that they be delivered to his lieutenant generals in the field. When they complied, the dying man would commend the nurses and thank them for their contributions to the war effort. The hospital staff began referring to him only as “the General.”
In a short amount of time, the General’s condition would get even worse. The pain in his lungs would cause him to convulse, resulting in him being strapped to his gurney. His eyelids had become so swollen and stuck together that he could no longer see. The blisters on his skin had yellowed. His throat was closing, making it extremely difficult to swallow or breathe. He spoke with a low whisper, able to get only a few words out at a time. Five weeks after entering the medical tent, the General faced his merciful last day.
With his eyes closed, the General motioned for a nurse. When the nurse approached him, he attempted to vocalize but could only produce a choking sound. Frustrated, he began to whisper one word at a time. The nurse bent down so that she could hear. With a series of painful whispers, the General informed her that he had an infant boy at home that he had never seen. He knew he was about to die and wanted to leave something for his child. Quickly, the nurse grabbed a pad of paper and a pen and began to write down what he whispered to her. After several agonizing minutes, the General had finished. He asked if the nurse had written everything down. She responded that she had. The General gasped one last time and sank into the relief death provided. The nurse looked at the dead soldier. She then looked at what she had written. She didn’t quite know what to do with the madness on the paper in front of her.
The General’s will began by stating that the world was a cruel and bloodthirsty place. Indeed, the desolate landscape of war that the General had known throughout the last period of his life was hellish. The trenches and burnt terrain of the First World War were inescapable to the young soldier. The perceptions of death were all around. Men survived by killing each other. The only solace from this bitter condition was his fellow soldiers and the interactions he had with them. These soldiers, like all soldiers, had made a pact to fight to protect each other from the war around them. This pact declared that the survival of their platoon, their alliance, was more important than any individual’s survival. Also secondary were the inclinations and aspirations of the individual to the alliance. The strength of the alliance would boost the strength of each of the individuals. The alliance’s survival bettered the chances of the individual’s survival. In order to boost the odds of survival and the strength of this alliance, the soldiers developed codes of behavior. With this came rules of how to interact with each other or the outside world. These rules helped to establish a chain of command which was crucial to their survival within their the war-torn environment. These rules established customs which, to others, may have seemed frivolous, but were critical to those within the alliance. Finally, the alliance created forms of communication that only they understood. This would allow them to communicate with each other in front of any outside force and be understood only by each other.
The General, assuming that his child had been born into such a vicious and merciless environment, bequeathed his alliance of soldiers to his child. They were to report to his child, teach him their customs, their codes of conduct, their ways of interacting, and their forms of communication. The alliance was to keep the child with them and include him into their pact. This was the best way to ensure the child’s survival in the ruthless world. The General, having nothing material to pass on, had something vastly more important to give: his method of survival.
We cannot choose what we inherit. At our entry point of existence we are saddled with the world we are given. Though we may attempt to escape, the arena we have assumed is with us in some way or another throughout the course of our lives. Some elements define us, some protect us, and some color our perceptions. At birth, every organism is given a genetic construction, an environment, and other organisms sharing its world.
Like the General’s son, our parents, whether or not we know them, pass along to us our genes. The genes we inherit give us both our abilities and our limits. In this, our most defining aspect, we have absolutely no choice. We must learn to work within the confines of our genetic parameters to survive whichever environment we are thrown into. Whether we are born into a tropical forest, an icy tundra, an island surrounded by water, or a suburban neighborhood, we must make our genetic construction adapt or we die. Part of this environment is the community of others we are surrounded by. We inherit this community, not by choice, but by birth. The community is made up of individuals who, like us, must survive their environment by any means necessary. That survival would be at the expense of other individuals were it not for an advantage held by social organisms: the alliance. This alliance is a social pact wherein everyone agrees to follow the will of the group rather than the will of the individual. The survival of the individual becomes tied to the survival of the alliance and is, therefore, stronger.
The role of the alliance is not just to protect each other. The alliance also forms a collective of knowledge on how to survive in a given environment. The trials and errors of each individual get passed along so that others in the alliance don’t have to make the same mistakes. Each individual innovation also gets passed along so that the alliance shares the benefits together.
The strength of this alliance, at its core, is how strong its communication system is. Alliances that have complex communication can transmit more complex ideas of innovations, trials and errors, and traits that aid in survival. Communication systems that are coded for only that group have the benefit of being unintelligible to other groups. This allows the alliance not to have to share information with the outside world and to outcompete the outside world with its knowledge.
The General, with his delusional assumption that his child was inheriting the same war environment that he was living in, wanted to pass along the best way to survive that particular environment. He did this by giving his alliance. With his alliance came all of the collective knowledge, the communications system, and the protection of the pact—all geared toward survival in this particular environment.
Let’s assume that the legend was true. Let’s also assume that the General’s alliance heard of their comrade’s dying wish and, out of sympathy and sentimentality, returned home and found his child. Once there, they would teach the child all of their knowledge, their codes, and offer him protection. However, the child wouldn’t be living in the environment of the First World War. Chances are he would be living in a peaceful community far removed from the world his father had died in. This alliance would not be helpful. In fact, it would seem insane. The presence of his dead father’s group would actually be a social hindrance. He would, most likely, be ostracized by his actual community for following these strange codes of behaviors, bestowed upon him by his father’s pact. He would be an outcast, experiencing his world as a social pariah.
Specific environments carry specific needs. Different environments require different behaviors. In social organisms, these behaviors include different ways of interacting and communicating. Certain communication systems only work in precise environments. When environments change, communication systems must change with them. Communication that relies on learning, such as language, is able to adapt quickly to new or changing environments. Such learned communication makes a species highly adaptive and, thus, more successful.100
We inherit what we physically are, how we are able to learn, the environment that dictates what we learn, the others that we learn from, and the limits of what we can do. What has been passed down to us is everything we are and everything we’ll ever be, and in that, we have absolutely no choice.
1990
Mahale Mountains, Tanzania
The environment was beginning to change for Ntologi. The once undisputed alpha male was now contending with an uprising young male named Kalunde and a crumbling alliance of females. The coalition he had depended on for power was slipping away from him. Despite displays of power and aggressive posturing, his days as the chimpanzee in charge of the Mimikile group were numbered. He produced a loud call which reverberated through the forest. The call was answered and returned by another male.
The male returning the call was Masudi. In the years since the vicious attack on his brother, Masudi had ascended in rank and become a key figure in Mimikile. Now thirteen years old, he was the sixth-ranking male in the social hierarchy of the group. The call he returned was similar in structure to the call Ntologi had given. It began with a few indistinct hoots. This was followed by a quick series of pants, each one a bit louder than the last. These culminated in a high-pitched scream. The scream then descended into another quick series of pants—only these became progressively softer. The call, along with the other calls of the day, was being recorded by primatologists who were observing the chimps. These recordings would be the beginning of a new understanding of chimpanzee communication.
On the surface, chimpanzee calls can fit into broad categories based upon their structure. In much the same way that we can categorize human vocalizations with such classifications as cries, screams, words, laughs, and whispers, we can make similar assessments of chimpanzee calls. The calls given by Ntologi and Masudi were typical of loud chimpanzee calls. The structure of these calls may contain any of the following elements: an introduction (the series of sounds at the beginning), a buildup (the series of progressively louder pants), a climax (the high-pitched scream), and a descent (the progressively softer pants at the end). Both of the calls that had been recorded by the two chimpanzees contained all four elements.
Interested in studying the role of these vocalizations, primatologists analyzed these calls (along with 164 other calls from the Mimikile chimps) and compared them with another group of chimpanzees from Gombe National Park (just north of the Mahale Mountains). The implications of what they found would set off a far-reaching debate about the communication systems of other species and question the very notion of the uniqueness of humans.101
The Mimikile chimpanzees of the Mahale Mountains were producing different loud calls than the Gombe chimpanzees. The way in which this was determined was to convert the vocalizations to a visual representation of sound called an audio spectrogram. Spectrograms represent the structure, intensity, and frequency of a sound. They appear as smudges on a graph with the vertical axis representing frequency, the horizontal access representing time, and the darkening of the smudge representing intensity (the louder the sound the darker the smudge).102 It’s very easy to look at a spectrogram of a chimpanzee call and clearly see if there is an introduction, buildup, climax, or descent. It’s also easy to compare the length, volume, and pitch of different vocalizations. Through the analysis of these spectrograms, it was determined that the Mimikile group was producing loud calls that had a shorter and faster buildup phase and a higher-pitched climax than the Gombe chimpanzees.
Another comparison was made by a primatologist working at the Kibale National Park in Uganda (almost four hundred miles away from the Mahale Mountains). Again, these particular loud calls were compared, this time with all three groups. This revealed greater differences. While the buildup phase of the call was different between the Gombe chimpanzees and the Mahale Mountains chimpanzees, the buildup phase was oftentimes completely absent with the Kibale chimpanzees. Whereas the comparison between Gombe and the Mahale Mountains chimps revealed a difference in pitch and duration, the comparison with the Kibale chimpanzees showed a structural change. This finding was significant, in that it showed groups using entirely different calls in the same situations.
There was no question that chimpanzees from different areas produced different calls. What was not clear, however, was the reason why this was occurring. The papers published on these studies pointed to a number of possibilities. One possibility that could not be ruled out was that the differences were due to vocal learning.
One year later, Ntologi had lost his status as alpha male. Kalunde was now in charge. Like an overthrown tyrant, Ntologi was exiled from the group. He was banished to live alone in the Mahale Mountain forests.
1990
Loxahatchee, Florida
It was Christmas Eve day and a holiday crowd had gathered around the chimpanzee islands. It was the only day of the year that guests were allowed to step out of their cars and watch the animals. Terry Wolf appeared in his boat from behind the first island. In front of him, standing on the bow of the boat, was a man dressed in a Santa Claus suit. In the center of the boat was a bag filled with wrapped presents that were to be thrown to the chimps. Inside the packages were toys, puzzles, and candy treats. This ritual happened every Christmas. The chimpanzees anticipated it as much as the onlookers. When the boat appeared, both the crowd and the chimps went wild. Higgy began a display by rocking back and forth, stomping one foot, and making a series of loud calls. Elgin began jumping up and down. Little Mama held out both her hands. Gin swayed at the top of the shelter, bobbing her head up and down. Tonic and Cashew tackled each other. Noticeably absent from the gathering were Edwina and Cindy. They were inside the shelter with their two new babies. Edwina was cradling her new female infant, Kathy, and Cindy was holding her new male infant, Hank.
Kathy had been born three months before. As she had been with Cashew, Edwina was an attentive mother. Unlike with Cashew, she wasn’t also raising Gin’s child at the same time. Cashew was keenly interested in her new little sister. The six-year-old would sit patiently beside her mother and wait for Edwina’s permission to hold Kathy. She watched intently as Edwina would vocalize softly to the infant. Cashew would study the pair as Kathy would nurse while Edwina gently held her head. Cashew would pay close attention to her mother when Edwina would groom her infant. Often Edwina passed the infant over to Cashew. Kathy would cling onto her older sister while Edwina sat extremely close. Cashew would cradle her sister and try to groom her. She would vocalize softly, the way her mother had done. She would spend just a few moments with Kathy before her mother would take the baby back.
Cashew was learning from her mother. She was watching her mother handle and care for her new baby. She would then handle the baby herself and care for her the same way her mother had. This is a trait that Cashew was acquiring which she could hold onto until she, herself, had an offspring. This knowledge, passed down from Edwina to Cashew, would help ensure that Cashew would give her offspring attentive care. In doing so, Edwina helped strengthen the survival of her lineage. Contrast this with Gin. Gin had never had the ability to learn from another mother chimpanzee. Since she was a very young infant, she had been isolated from such things. Due to this, Gin lacked the ability to care for Tonic.
Sitting beside Edwina and Kathy, Cindy was holding her first offspring since the deaths of Smiley and Rachel. Hank was just a few weeks old. The helplessness of the newborn chimpanzee was tempered by his already larger stature. Hank, as a neonate, was already larger in size than three-month-old Kathy. Cindy’s hulking body plan had very obviously been passed to her son. Though Cindy, like Gin, had been isolated as a pet during her juvenile years, she had been exposed to other chimpanzees at a younger age. On top of this, Cindy had always seemed to have a keen natural ability in caring for young chimpanzees. She first showed this with Higgy in the nursery pen. She continued to show it with Hank.103
As the Christmas boat moved in front of Higgy’s island, the chimps shouted at each other and at the boat. Cindy, with Hank clinging onto her chest, climbed out of the shelter and slowly made her way down to the banks of the island. She patted her head twice, folded her lip down, and made a raspberry sound at the man dressed as Santa. When a wrapped package was thrown to her, she quietly and gently picked it up and carried it with her as she went back into the shelter where she opened a box with candy and called out excitedly.
That night, as darkness covered the islands, everything was still. The crowd had gone home, preparing for their own Christmas morning. In each household, the families who had come to see the chimps were planning on celebrating the holiday in different ways. Some of them had opened presents that evening. Others waited until the next morning. A portion of them went to church services. Some went to parties. Others didn’t celebrate at all. Many of them spent the evening with their families. Some of them spent the evening alone. The chimpanzees on the island spent the evening in silence. Like all chimpanzees, they spent the night sleeping. In the morning, they would wake up to another day on the island. When they woke, they would communicate and interact in a way that suited their group. Christmas morning, like all mornings, would be a time spent surviving together.
1991
Mahale Mountains, Tanzania
The primatologists watched as Ntologi circled the perimeter of the Mimikile group’s range. He was completely alone; unable to socialize with his old group mates. In a relatively short amount of time, he had gone from being the alpha male to being an exiled solitary chimpanzee.
Far away from Ntologi, the Mimikile group was functioning with its new alpha male, Kalunde. The alliance that had put him into power was still intact. However, all social groups have those members that never quite mesh with the others. One such individual was a male named Jilba. The sixteen-year-old would frequently attack females and would never really ally himself with any other males. This was evidenced by his lack of using a certain type of vocalization with the other males. This vocalization was a soft grunting directed at another individual. These calls differ from the very loud calls in that they seem to serve a different function. The loud calls are frequently directed outwardly to no one in particular. The softer grunts are more deliberate and have a dialogue quality to them. These vocalizations are used in an affiliative or nonaggressive way. Therefore, using them to another chimpanzee not only conveys the information contained in the vocalization, but also conveys an alliance or, at the very least, a nonaggressive interaction. Jilba never used these vocalizations with any of the males in his group. He had not even vocalized in this manner to Kalunde. When an individual doesn’t show any sort of affiliative communication with the alpha male, that individual can be in trouble.
In addition, Jilba would frequently use visually aggressive gestures to the other males. When he would pass them, his hair would stand erect and he would maintain a facial expression that conveyed frustration to the group. At one point, the second-ranking male took such offense at Jilba’s attitude that he chased him until Jilba vocalized a grunt back to him. Outside of this forced incident, Jilba was silent with the other males.
One morning, Jilba was left out of a group activity. The rest of the Mimikile adults were hunting a red colobus monkey (something chimpanzees are known to do).104 When chimpanzees hunt these monkeys, they are known to hunt cooperatively. Each hunter has a job and they work together, resulting in the capture of one or more monkeys. Usually this involves a cooperative team of hunters so that the monkey or monkeys can be cornered in the forest. A cooperative hunt may go something like this: one or more red colobus monkeys are detected in an area of the forest. One or more chimpanzees silently occupy the forest floor or lower canopy underneath the area that the monkey is occupying. Another chimpanzee rushes toward the monkey, causing the monkey to run in the opposite direction. In that direction, another chimpanzee is positioned to block the monkey. Yet another chimpanzee may then ambush the monkey from the side. The hunt concludes with the monkey either falling or attempting to escape to the lower canopy where the silent chimpanzees await. These chimpanzees grab hold of and kill the monkey. The meat is then shared. The eating of monkey meat is something that fills a social niche within a chimpanzee group. The meat is distributed by high-ranking individuals to lower-ranking individuals. The distribution helps to solidify the hierarchy. The hunts are extremely complex and not only do they require the ability to predict the movements of the red colobus monkey, they also require a great deal of communication in order to coordinate the attack.
The Mimikile chimpanzees were involved in this type of cooperative hunt. While most of the hunting party were high up in the canopy ready to attack the monkey, Kalunde sat silently below. After a great deal of chasing, blocking, and ambushing, the red colobus monkey fell directly into Kalunde’s hands. He killed it and took it up the tree. The rest of the adults surrounded him as he began to eat it. Occasionally, he would share the meat with the rest of the group. For almost an hour, the chimpanzees sat in the canopy, peacefully eating the red colobus monkey.
After a while, Jilba appeared and disrupted the gathering. He approached the group and began to display to them. Abruptly, Kalunde charged him. Jilba jumped to the ground to escape but while he ran, he got caught in a bush. The other chimpanzees in the hunting party sounded loud vocalizations to the rest of their group. Soon seven chimpanzee aided Kalunde and descended on Jilba. Within moments, Jilba fled the group and disappeared into the forest. The other chimpanzees continued to produce a call for fifteen minutes after he had left. Jilba was now exiled from the group, sentenced to live alone in the forest.
Jilba had failed to honor the behavioral customs of his social group. His presence in the group was maladaptive to them and, therefore, he was exiled. A social group only functions when one puts his own will second to the group’s will. Jilba had not done this. He had refused to recognize the hierarchy and had refused to communicate with the others in the group. He was aggressive with the females and had assumed the role of pariah. The last straw appeared to be when he approached the group after a hunt. Rather than waiting for meat to be distributed to him, Jilba had aggressively approached the group. This resulted in the attack by Kalunde and Jilba’s banishment.
Jilba went out into the forest alone. Later, he encountered Ntologi. For three months the two of them formed a two-member alliance and lived together as refugees from Mimikile. During this time, three young males would occasionally defect from Mimikile and spend time with Ntologi and Jilba. At the end of this period, Ntologi and Jilba reappeared at Mimikile together. Their alliance of two with the help of the three other males was strong enough to allow their reintegration into the group. Before long, Ntologi was alpha male again.105
1994
Loxahatchee, Florida
Hank followed Higgy around the perimeter of the island. Higgy was going through his ritual of walking the boundaries of his group. When he did this, he would frequently stop to sit and watch the other groups. Higgy’s presence was such that the other groups would take immediate notice of Higgy’s watch and act nervously until he moved on. Following closely behind, Hank would attempt to match Higgy’s swagger. He would also walk at exactly the same pace and sit when Higgy sat.
Hank had become Higgy’s shadow. When he wasn’t with Cindy, he could always be found within a few steps of Higgy. He would watch as the alpha male would tend to the group. Higgy’s actions were always powerful and reaffirmed his position at any given moment. Hank, at four, was acquiring these movements and mannerisms.106
Higgy’s group was extremely orderly. If ever a dispute got out of hand, Higgy would quickly put an end to it by giving a certain vocalization. If the vocalization didn’t work, Higgy would charge at the fighting chimps. This would almost always end the dispute. Higgy would show any displeasure with the group’s behavior with massive displays that included loud calls and violent gestures. The displays would end with one of the chimps (usually Elgin) getting charged. The charging would culminate in a slap across the back. These charges were not so much physically violent as they were spectacles of power. Across the water, the other groups would watch Higgy display his authority. Higgy was so powerful that he could affect the behavior of the other groups. If there were fights in the other chimp groups, Higgy could, oftentimes, end the assault by carrying on in this fashion.
Higgy continued to protect the weaker individuals in the group and control the aggressive ones. Elgin was still very much under Higgy’s protective wing. Though an easy target, Elgin was untouchable to the rest of the group. Higgy was the only one allowed to act aggressively toward him. Little Mama, also low in the social hierarchy, also benefitted greatly from Higgy’s powerful protection. Both Little Mama and Elgin, without the strong protective backing of Higgy, would have been treated aggressively and eaten only scraps. Instead, they ate what everyone else ate and they were protected from aggression. Without Higgy, or the fully functioning social group that Higgy represented, they would not survive.
Higgy’s actions as alpha male included more than just displays of power. He also spent a great deal of his time with the juveniles. He played with them, groomed them, and slept next to them. He groomed their mothers while they were nursing. He was extremely protective with them and was always near any of the juveniles who had ventured away from their mothers. One such mother was Gin.
Ten years after the birth of Tonic, Gin had given birth to another offspring: a female named Nana (short for Banana). Watching Edwina with Tonic had apparently been good for Gin, who was now raising Nana all by herself. This was not without its problems. Gin hadn’t quite gotten the knack of holding her infant. In Nana’s early infancy (when most infant chimps stay on their mother’s chest), Gin had flung Nana on her back to carry her around. Nana would frequently slide off her mother, which would make Gin nervous and cause her to scream and react wildly. Sometimes she would carry Nana around backward on her lower back. Also, Gin would carelessly put Nana down on the ground and venture off somewhere else. Since Higgy was always keeping a watchful eye out for the children, he was never far behind. He would scoop Nana up and bring her back to Gin.
As all of these events occurred, Hank was watching and learning how to be a protective male chimpanzee. What was also being passed along to him was how to be a powerful chimpanzee. He was learning how to maintain alliances, use displays to maintain status, and how to receive consent from others to rule them. What Higgy was, inadvertently, teaching Hank would prove to be the ultimate undoing of his group.
1994
Mahale Mountains, Tanzania
Ntologi’s vocalizations were, once again, being recorded by primatologists. The loud calls he was producing were the subject of a deeper exploration into chimpanzee communication. His calls, along with the calls of the rest of Mimikile, were part of another group-to-group comparison.
The last few years had been a time of social upheaval for Ntologi. He was, once again, the alpha male of the Mimikile group. His reacceptance into the group had hinged on a number of things. In addition to his exiled alliance with Jilba, Ntologi had apparently been following the group dynamics by eavesdropping on the vocalizations that he was able to hear in the periphery.107 In listening to the calls being produced by his old group, he was able to determine that Kalunde’s status as alpha male was constantly being challenged by another male named Nsaba. In gathering this information, Ntologi chose the right time to reappear to the group. Kalunde, who needed an ally, had accepted Ntologi back. Ntologi used the chaos of a power struggle to manipulate the situation. Before long, Ntologi was, again, the alpha male. Nsaba was still the second-ranking male. Kalunde, who had trusted the wrong chimpanzee, had lost much of his social status and was lingering at the bottom of the social hierarchy.
That Ntologi had used the vocalizations he heard to map out a strategy shows the complexity of information being transmitted between individual chimpanzees. He was able to divine what was occurring within the social situation of the group, who was aligning with whom, and how solid Kalunde’s power was. He was able to use this information and act on it in a way that best suited his own survival. The question that the observing primatologists were pondering was if this information was understandable to all chimpanzees or just the Mimikile chimpanzees. In other words, was the information contained in these vocalizations something that had to be learned or was it genetically ingrained in all chimpanzees?
More loud call vocalizations had been recorded from the Mimikile group to explore whether or not chimpanzees learn some of their calls. The paradigm-shattering discovery that the chimpanzees of the Mahale Mountains, Gombe, and Kibale were all using acoustically distinct calls was eclipsed only by the fact that the reason for these differences was that chimpanzees were learning vocalizations from each other. Chimpanzees being shown to learn vocalizations from each other would end the notion that humans were the only species to do so. The conventional wisdom that all other species communicate with merely that which is genetically programmed would have to be rethought. If learning, in fact, was the reason that chimpanzees were producing group-specific vocalizations, the line between chimpanzee calls and human language was becoming one of debate. However, the newly recorded vocalizations, and a deeper look at them, would cast doubt on this.
The new recordings were compared with the recordings from Kibale. Because the previous comparisons between the Mahale Mountain chimps and the Kibale chimps had differed from the comparisons with the Gombe chimpanzees, another study was needed to look deeper into the phenomenon. It is important to remember that with the Gombe comparison, the chimpanzee calls were differing in their pitch and durations; the Kibale comparison showed that the vocalizations were structured differently. In finding that the Kibale chimpanzees were using one less element in their calls than the Mahale Mountains chimpanzees, the data suggested that the chimpanzees were learning a different call rather than just a way to produce the call. This finding was what was driving this new comparison.
Though the differences may sound trivial, they are profound. The loud calls of two groups that differ in pitch and duration but not in structure (and fulfill the same function) may just be accounting for differences in the acoustics of an area. For example, if one group of chimpanzees live in a rocky location, where sound reverberates, and another live in a densely forested area, where sound is absorbed, the two groups are going to produce the same call differently. The chimpanzees are merely shaping their genetic calls to conform to the acoustics of an area. Learning would not necessarily be involved. However, if a group is producing a structurally different call, learning would almost certainly be a factor. A different structure would imply a different call, not one that would be genetically programmed at birth.
The original study of the Kibale chimpanzees revealed that they were using a different structure in their loud calls. Whereas the Mahale Mountain chimps were using an introduction, buildup, climax, descent structure, the Kibale chimpanzees were leaving out the buildup. The buildup, being a very large portion of the vocalization, is a key element. Not having any sort of buildup completely changes the structure of the call. The study had also confirmed that the pitch and duration of the individual elements differed between groups.
The new study differed from the previous study and questioned learning in chimpanzee vocalizations. The Kibale chimpanzees were found, in fact, to be utilizing a buildup in their vocalizations, only dropping them out occasionally. Thus, the notion of a completely different call was disputed. It was also found that the Mahale Mountains chimpanzees were occasionally switching around the structure. This meant that structural variation was occurring within the group, making a case that, since the structure of a call should be uniform within a group, learning was, in fact, not occurring.
There were, however, still differences between groups that the new study found. These differences occurred acoustically in pitch and duration. As we have discussed, these variances could very well be to compensate for different acoustic environments. Another reason proposed was that since the chimpanzees were from different lineages (Kibale and the Mahale Mountains are too far away to assume much relatedness between groups), they would have different physiological features which would account for differences in voices between the two groups. Just like a human family who all sound the same when they talk, the same thing could be happening within a group of chimpanzees.
This reassessment of group-specific calls in chimpanzees had given rise to a skepticism of chimpanzees learning calls.108 A new study was needed that could control certain variables. Two groups of chimpanzees needed to be studied where the acoustics of the two environments were similar. The lineages of these groups must also be known in order to ensure that there wasn’t enough relatedness between group members which would cause a similarity in voice. Also, a more in-depth look at the structure of vocalizations was necessary. Up until this point, only loud calls had been compared. Was there a difference within other categories of calls? Some of these answers would begin to be revealed when two captive groups of chimpanzees were studied a year later. This study provided a setting where relatedness was known and the acoustics were similar. The two groups of captive chimpanzees would show, definitively, whether vocal learning was occurring. One of the groups was living on an island in Loxahatchee, Florida.
1996
Loxahatchee, Florida
Higgy’s group sat silent and motionless as they watched the zookeepers slowly row away from the island. Cindy stood staring at the boat, her knuckles buried into the ground. In front of her, Cashew clutched her sister, Kathy. Tonic paced wildly in front of the two juveniles. The zookeepers reached land and docked their boat. Gently, they lifted the body of a chimpanzee out of the boat and into their truck. As they drove away, they heard Higgy calling out from the top of a shelter. Edwina, mother of Cashew and Kathy, caretaker of Tonic, was dead.
Edwina, being an older chimpanzee, had died of natural causes. Her death marked a radical change in the dynamics of Higgy’s group. Kathy, at six, was still very young. She had been very dependent on her mother until the end. Though she would still have her older sister, Little Mama, and Cindy, she would be forced to become more independent. Gin, who was dealing with the two-year-old, Nana, would have to stop relying on Edwina for child-care help. When she would fall short in her maternal responsibilities, Little Mama or Cindy would now have to step in.
The following weeks of transition were marked by the increased presence of human observers around the island. These observers weren’t typical park guests. These were primatologists who were there to record any loud call from the chimps that they heard. The project, in response to the last study at the Mahale Mountains, wanted to look for evidence of vocal learning in a controlled captive environment. The chimps at the animal park were being compared with the chimpanzees at the North Carolina Zoo.109
The acoustics of the islands at the animal park were similar to the acoustics of the North Carolina Zoo. Therefore, it was reasoned that if there were call variances between the two groups, acoustic compensation could be ruled out. Additionally, the relatedness of all of the captive chimpanzees was known. With the exception of the juveniles, the chimps at the animal park, as well as the chimps at the North Carolina Zoo, all came from diverse genetic backgrounds. This fact would rule out genetic family vocal similarities. If the two groups were using their own calls, learning would have to be ruled the best explanation.
While the chimpanzees on the islands vocalized, the primatologists recorded the calls. Once recorded, they were compared with the North Carolina Zoo calls. Similarly to how the calls were compared in the Mahale Mountain studies, spectrograms were used to determine the structure, pitch, amplitude, and duration of the calls. What was found was a clear indication that chimpanzees were learning their calls.
The data would show that not only did the Florida chimpanzees differ from the North Carolina chimpanzees in pitch and duration, but they also differed in structure. The Florida chimpanzee incorporated a long buildup phase, while the North Carolina chimps usually didn’t include them. The North Carolina chimps seemed to replace these buildups with long introduction phases. This contrasted with the Florida chimps, whose introductions were very short. There was enough vocal similarity within the communities and enough vocal difference between them to show that each group was, indeed, producing their own loud call.
What this study had achieved was an exploration of the arbitrary nature of a chimpanzee call. There was no ecological need for the Florida chimps to produce a different loud call than their North Carolina counterparts. There were no acoustic barriers that existed in one setting that didn’t exist in the other. There was no large related family of similarly voiced chimps in either group. Therefore, the explanation that remained was that the members of each group were learning these loud calls from each other.
The quest to understand chimpanzee communication and its relationship to human language had led primatologists to seek answers from this small group of captive chimps living on an island in an Everglades animal park. Here the quest would stay and the journey would continue. The chimpanzees themselves, of course, had no idea that what they were doing was of any importance to their relationship to humans. They were merely surviving in the environment they had been given; surviving by communicating in the way that they had learned. They used this communication to govern their group, raise their offspring, help each other during times of need, alert each other in times of danger, maintain their social roles, and create alliances when they wanted something more from the group. Each of them were experts in the learned behaviors, learned social traditions, and learned communication systems unique to their group. They were experts in them because without them they wouldn’t be able to survive. These learned traits were viable nowhere else but in their own unique situation.
As humans, like chimpanzees, we rely on the learned traits and learned communication systems of our social groups. We rely on them because they work in our own unique situation. From our vantage point, within our situations, these traits seem like the best way. Like the General, we are sure that everything else in the world functions the same way our own little world does. Like the General, we tend to try to inflict our own learned behaviors on those outside of our situations. We do this with outside cultures and outside species. In the same way that we assume a culture in another part of the world would function better if its people adopted our own cultural traits, we assume that chimpanzees are members of a more relevant species if they act and communicate just like a human. This is why we put them in films, make them learn sign language, watch them ice-skate in circuses, and make them dress up for tea parties in zoos. This is why we are surprised when, in the end, they don’t quite act like little humans. This is why we are shocked when a chimpanzee gets violently aggressive toward a human caretaker. This is why we are disappointed when we realize that a chimpanzee really can’t use sign language in any meaningful way. However, when we look at chimpanzees relating to each other and their own given environments, we see the miracle of a species inheriting, teaching, and surviving by learned behaviors that fit their own situations.
Like chimpanzees, it benefits us to live within our social groups and follow the social hierarchy, learned customs, and communication systems therein. Our own desires, our own will, are secondary to the general will of the group. It is the group, as a whole, that allows us to survive better than we would if we were on our own. If, at some point, the social group ceases to be beneficial to our own survival, we have a choice. We can attempt to change the group and teach new learned behaviors to each individual, or we must leave the social group and either find a new group that fits our needs or create our own social group out of our own desires.
In Higgy’s group, there was an established hierarchy, established code of behavior, and established communication system. These were benefitting the entire group. Thus far, nothing had challenged these established traits.
The primatologists, having recorded everything they needed, began to pack up. Late in the evening, after the primatologists had left with their data, a zookeeper observed Hank and Cindy standing next to a sleeping Higgy. The nest Higgy had made was enormous. As an alpha male, Higgy was always entitled to the most hay and branches which he would use to make these very massive, thronelike nests. The nests were a sign of his status. The zookeeper wondered why Cindy and Hank were standing by Higgy watching him sleep. After a while, the zookeeper left. The next morning, Higgy was lying on the bare floor of the shelter. Hank and Cindy were sharing an enormous nest beside him.
Individualism is the most modest stage of the will to power.
—FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE