Through a Window (20 page)

The young male has different things to learn. There are some aspects of community life that are primarily, though not entirely, male responsibilities—such as patrolling, repelling intruders, searching out distant food sources, and some kinds of hunting. He cannot gain adequate experience in such matters if he remains with his mother. He must leave her and spend time with the males. Freud had been fascinated by the big males throughout his infancy. From the time he could walk he had been quick to totter up to greet any males who joined his mother, and often, too, had followed a short way when they left. I remember Freud
stumbling after Humphrey once, as he set off after a grooming session with Fifi. His mother, not at all wishing to leave, followed and tried to retrieve him, but he protested vigorously, whimpering and clinging tightly onto the vegetation. After a few attempts, each one provoking increased resentment, Fifi gave in and trailed along behind as her son continued to follow Humphrey. Presently, though, he got tired, climbed onto her back, and made no protest when she moved off in the direction of her choice.

Freud had always been eager to join in the fun whenever he heard the calling of chimpanzees gathered in excited, noisy groups. I remember one occasion, when he was just four years old. We had had a peaceful morning, just the three of us on our own. At midday Fifi rested, stretched out on the ground, while Freud, ever active, played in the branches above. Suddenly, on the far side of the valley, there was an outburst of excited pant-hoots and screaming. Certainly some of the adult males were there—the voices of Figan and Satan, Humphrey and Jomeo were easy to recognize—and we could hear females and youngsters as well. Freud listened intently, then joined in with his high-pitched infant pant-hoots and Fifi sat up and called as well. Swinging down, Freud at once set off in the direction of the big group. But Fifi did not move and, after travelling some ten yards, Freud looked back, then stopped and whimpered softly. But Fifi ignored her son's plea and lay down to continue her rest. Disappointed, he moved back and sat beside her, raising one arm in a request for grooming.

Five minutes later the group called again. As before Freud joined in eagerly, this time running along the ground and stamping his feet in a small display. Again he set off along the trail towards the excited calling, longing to be part of it, to join his peers in their games. But still Fifi made no move to follow. This time Freud went a little further before he paused and looked back. Nor did he return, but remained standing some fifteen yards along
the track—just before it made a sharp bend that would take him out of Fifi's sight. Gradually his soft whimpers increased in frequency and volume until he was crying loudly.

And then, either because of Freud's entreaty, or just because she felt like joining the fun herself, Fifi got up and followed her son along the trail. Ten minutes later they were part of the noisy, exuberant group. Fifi, with soft grunts of pleasure, climbed to feed on the juicy figs that had attracted more than half of the community members to the feast. Freud, beside himself with excitement, raced to join a wild play session with other youngsters.

One very clear indication of increasing independence in the young male is the frequency with which he joins gatherings of this sort without his mother. Sometimes the chimpanzees get together in these large and noisy groups in order to feast on some abundant and delicious crop; sometimes the magnet is a sexually popular female. The gatherings usually last for a week or more, with chimpanzees arriving and leaving at different times. In many ways they are the hub of chimpanzee social life, giving community members the opportunity to meet and interact with each other—to play, groom, display, make a noise. Often, particularly when several pink females are present at the same time, there is almost a carnival atmosphere.

Fifi, with her social disposition, joined many gatherings throughout Freud's infancy and childhood, so that he gained much social experience and learned (often the hard way) to make himself scarce when the big males were tense and the threshold for aggression low. As the years went by, Freud's self-confidence in such situations increased: by the time he was nine years old he was joining gatherings without his mother quite regularly. And Frodo did so at an even earlier age—provided that his big brother was nearby to provide reassurance in times of stress. Indeed, when he was only five years old, Frodo actually spent several nights in succession away from his mother, travelling with the adult males—and Freud.

Prof's childhood was very different from that of Freud and even more so from that of Frodo. Although Passion was considerably more attentive and less harsh with this her second child, she could not begin to compare with Fifi in terms of affection and solicitude, tolerance and playfulness. Moreover, with the passing of the years she had become increasingly asocial—the big groups of chimps that had gathered in camp for bananas during Pom's infancy were a thing of the past. And Passion had no friend, such as Winkle, with whose infant Prof could play. He did, of course, have an older sister but even though, after getting over her weaning depression, she began to show more interest in her young brother, she never played the role in his life that Freud had played in Frodo's or Flint, before he died, in Freud's.

Prof, therefore, had less opportunity for social interactions of any kind than Freud and Frodo did. Perhaps because he played with other youngsters less often than they, he lacked confidence when he did play. He hardly ever stood up for himself when a game got rough even though, if he did get into trouble, Pom as well as Passion usually helped him out. But probably the most significant difference in the early social experiences of these three young males was the fact that Prof had far fewer opportunities to interact with adult males.

For Prof, as for his sister before him, weaning was a time of despair, but because he was a male he was far more aggressive in his misery than Pom had been. He threw violent tantrums, screaming and tearing at his hair, hurling himself to the ground. In most families, tantrums elicit an immediate response from the mother. Frodo, spoilt child that he became, had also thrown violent tantrums. In his case, I think, they were due more to rage at not getting his own way. Always Fifi had reached out to him, trying to draw him close. If, as was so often the case, he had then hurled himself to the ground, pulling away from her conciliatory gesture, she had usually taken him into her arms and held
him there. And, however violent had been his rage, Frodo had always calmed after a while, perhaps intuitively understanding his mother's message: "You can't have milk (or ride on my back) but I still love you, anyway."

But hard-hearted Passion often ignored Prof's tantrums altogether. This, of course, was yet another form of rejection, and Prof became increasingly distressed as a result. Screaming loudly he would rush off through the undergrowth or hurl himself down some slope. Once he actually tumbled backwards right into a stream—and young chimpanzees are frightened of fast-moving water. Even then, when his screams of frustration must surely have turned to screams of fear, Passion ignored her son. This troubled period in his young life did little to boost Prof's already minimal self-confidence! However, unlike Pom, Prof re-covered from his weaning despair before the birth of his infant brother, Pax, and, like Freud, he was fascinated by his new sibling, more so than Pom had been by hers.

Prof was about the same age as Freud when he was first seen to challenge a female. But whereas Freud, having once embarked on the task of dominating the females, repeated his displays more and more often, Prof's performances were few and far between. And they lacked the determination and vigour that characterized Freud's efforts and, later, Frodo's. Indeed, Prof's second attempt ended somewhat ignominiously when his "victim" reached out, grabbed his neck, and tickled him until his bristling aggression ended in laughter.

Prof, as an infant, clearly longed to spend time with the big males just as Freud and Frodo had. But if he set off after one of them Passion never followed and so quite soon he gave up trying to persuade her. Moreover, because Passion avoided the big groups that Fifi and other sociable females found so exhilarating, Prof often seemed ill at ease on those occasions when he did find himself in such a gathering. And so, lacking Freud's and Frodo's
self-confidence, Prof was still spending almost all his time with his mother when she died—at which time he was almost eleven years old.

There can be little doubt but that differences in behaviour observed in Freud, Frodo and Prof stem, in large part, from the different personalities and child-raising techniques of their mothers. Of course, there are genetic differences also between these three young males: some temperamental differences surely derive from heredity rather than experience. Sometimes, though, one can trace the onset of an unusual behaviour to a particular traumatic incident that occurred in early childhood. When Prof was two years old, for example, he was attacked by an adult male colobus monkey during a hunt. Passion was just sitting and watching, holding Prof, when suddenly one of the colobus males, enraged, leapt at and attacked her. She was quite unharmed: Prof had one toe bitten right off.

That experience, both painful and frightening, apparently left Prof with a deep-rooted fear of monkeys. Most young males begin to hunt when they are mere juveniles. Freud caught his first monkey (which Fifi took from him) when he was only six years old. Prof was not observed to hunt monkeys at all until he was eleven, and even then it was in a half-hearted manner. He has never been observed, by us, to catch one. Interestingly, Prof was also terrified of baboons as a child. He showed none of the swaggering, bristling, aggressive play with young baboons that we saw so often in Freud and Frodo. If a large male baboon approached him, during feeding for example, he whimpered in fear and hid behind Passion. Thus it seems that his fear of colobus monkeys may have generalized into fear of all monkeys and baboons. Of course, there is always the possibility that there was some equally traumatic interaction with baboons that led to this second childhood fear. Certainly there would have been many opportunities for such an event to take place.

T
HE 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. Chimpanzees and baboons sometimes compete aggressively for food. Young baboons may be captured, killed and eaten by chimpanzees. The young of the two species sometimes play together—and young chimpanzees may even groom and try to play with adult baboons. Finally, 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.

There are more baboons than chimpanzees at Gombe for, while the number of individuals in each social group—the baboon troop or the chimpanzee community—is about the same, averaging fifty over the years, there are some twelve troops of baboons crowded within the range of one chimpanzee community. This means that it is rare indeed for a day to go by without an encounter of some sort between individuals of the two species. For the most part these meetings are peaceful: often the chimps and baboons simply carry on with their own pursuits and seem to ignore each other altogether. They do, of course, utilize many of the same food resources. The food supply at Gombe is,
for most of the year, more than adequate for the requirements of both chimpanzees and baboons, in which case there is no need for them to squabble. On occasion, individuals of the two species feed peacably in the same tree. At other times there may be varying amounts and intensities of aggression. It is during the dry season, from June to October, when food is sometimes in relatively short supply, that one sees the most aggressive competition between the two primate species. When a baboon troop arrives near a tree where three or four chimps are feeding, and its members, one after the other, climb into the branches, the chimps tend to become increasingly nervous. Moving rapidly from place to place, they stuff food into their mouths more and more quickly, then they usually leave. But not always—sometimes, even when they are heavily outnumbered, the chimps do not give up so easily. It depends on the age, sex and personalities of the individuals present. Some chimps are far bolder than others in situations of this sort—and there is no question but that the baboons recognize them. I well remember an occasion when Goblin, Satan and Humphrey were peacefully feeding on figs, and D troop baboons arrived and climbed up, more and more of them, to share the feast. Led by Goblin the three male chimps charged the baboons again and again. There were violent skirmishes in the branches, chimps and baboons screamed and roared, the quiet of the morning was shattered. It was only after twenty minutes that the chimpanzees finally decided to call it a day. Even then they made an impressive exit, uttering loud roaring hoots and charging through the baboons who were feeding on the ground, scattering them, screaming, in all directions.

Some chimpanzees are far more fearful than others in their interactions with the baboons—and the baboons, knowing this, react accordingly, taking liberties with some chimpanzees they would not take with others. Likewise, the chimpanzees recognize that certain adult male baboons are not to be trifled with. Walnut, for several years alpha male of Camp troop, invariably
struck fear into the hearts of the staunchest chimpanzees. And rightly so, for he sometimes appeared to go berserk, charging hither and thither through a peaceful group of chimpanzees, uttering the fierce roar-grunts that sound every bit as frightening as the coughing roar of a leopard, until one and all had fled.

Nevertheless, despite the occasional dramatic confrontation over a valued food resource, most disputes are settled peacefully, with nothing more vigorous than a mild threat gesture from one side or the other. Competition is minimized by the fact that baboons have a more catholic diet than do chimpanzees. They eat a greater variety of stems and seeds and blossoms. They spend hours digging for roots and little nodes in the dry season, when food is scarce. They turn over rocks in the streams and on the mountain slopes looking for crabs and insects. Their incredibly strong jaws enable them to crack open the small rock-hard kernels of the oil-nut palm fruits. The Gombe chimpanzees, die-hard conservatives that they are, seldom show interest in any food item that is not part of their traditional diet. Except for the infants—sometimes they seem fascinated when they see baboons feeding on something different.