Through a Window

by Jane Goodall

  In fact, if Louis Leakey had not sent me to Gombe in 1960 the chimpanzees would almost certainly have lost their refuge, for there was, at that time, a move afoot among the local inhabitants to change the reserved status of the area so that they could move back in and cultivate the land. But the interest my study aroused around the world ensured Gombe's continuing protected status. The chimpanzees, knowing this, would naturally have made me their patron saint!

  How, in actual fact, do they perceive me? Me and the other humans who have moved in to watch them and shared in the documentation of their history? Today, I believe, we are taken for granted. In the chimpanzee's scheme of things, other chimpanzees are the most important figures, particularly close family and friends—and the current alpha male. Animals, such as monkeys, bushpigs and so forth, are important too as a source of food. Baboons, often ignored, are also regarded as potential competitors for precious resources, except for young baboons who are perceived by young chimpanzees as potential playmates. And humans, at Gombe, are regarded simply as another animal species, as a natural component of the chimpanzee's environment. Unthreatening, occasional providers of bananas. Sometimes irritating since they tend to be noisy in the undergrowth, but for the most part benign and harmless.

  Of course, the chimpanzees recognize us as individuals. Many of them are more relaxed when I am with them than they are in the presence of other human observers. This, I believe, is because I invariably follow them quite alone, and also because I remain quietly in the background, intruding as little as possible, often foregoing opportunities to collect additional data, or getting a photo of some particular behaviour, if this means disturbing or irritating the chimpanzees I am with. For the most part the chimpanzees are very tolerant also of the Tanzanian field staff, the men who work with them day in, day out, month after month, year after year. But they are usually ill at ease if they encounter strange Africans in the park. I have been with chimps who, hearing a group of fishermen moving along one of the paths from lake-shore to village, have crouched, still and silent, in the bushes or long grass until the men passed. A few of the chimps avoid tourists—indeed, the shier females no longer visit camp unless they are part of a big group in which case, clearly, they believe there is security in numbers. But some, particularly those who grew up during the days of heavy student involvement, actually appear to find tourists, and all their odd—and unsuitable—costumes, of some interest. At least, that is what it seems when Fifi or Gigi or Prof move close to a camera-clicking, sunburned group and lounge nearby, grooming each other—or just sitting.

  The nature of my own relationship with the chimpanzees is, to some extent, constrained by our research methods at Gombe. We deliberately keep our distance from the chimps, partly because they are much stronger than us and can be dangerous if they lose their respect for humans, partly so as to influence their natural behaviour as little as possible. We do try to administer medicine if a chimp is sick or hurt, but for the most part we simply observe and record. The chimps are in no way dependent on me, not even for bananas which they often receive very irregularly indeed. This is probably why I do not, as many suppose, think of the chimps as extensions of my own family. I have the most profound regard and respect for them. I am endlessly fascinated by their behaviour and I can spend hours, days in their company. Often I am asked if I prefer chimpanzees to humans. The answer to that is easy—I prefer some chimpanzees to some humans, some humans to some chimpanzees! Because, of course, they are all so different. One or two whom I have known, like Humphrey and Passion, I disliked very much indeed. Others, like David Graybeard and Flo, Gilka, Fifi and Gremlin, have a very real hold on my heart, and my affection for them is close to love. But it is a love for beings who are essentially wild and free. And because I do not groom or play with them, or take part in their disputes, it is a one-sided love—they do not love me back, as does a child or a dog. This in no way diminishes what I feel for them.

  I shall never forget sitting by Flo's dead body and, some ten years later, below the nest where Melissa breathed her last. As I thought back over their lives, I knew a real sense of loss, and I mourned their passing as I have grieved at the passing of close human friends. When little Getty was found dead, his body mutilated, I was numbed by shock and horror, and again I felt deep sorrow. No longer would I be able to watch his exuberant play, record his innovative games, delight in his fearless, adventurous spirit.

  Of all the Gombe chimpanzees, though, it is David Graybeard whom I have loved the most. His body was never found. He simply stopped coming to camp and, as the weeks became months, we gradually realized that we would never see him again. Then I felt a sorrow deeper than that which I have felt for any other chimpanzee, before or since. I am glad I was spared the anguish I should have known had I seen him, too, in death. David Graybeard, gentle yet determined, calm and unafraid, David Graybeard who opened my first window onto the chimpanzee's world.

  And what a magic world this is for me, a world far removed from the bustle of modern society, where I can find peace, and energy. A world with power to heal the battered spirit. For in the forest there is a sense of timelessness, and in the lives of the chimpanzees, so like us, so different, a quality that brings one face to face with basic realities. They get on with living, and, although things can go very wrong sometimes, for the most part they enjoy that living to the full.

  It was to Gombe that I went, seeking solace, after Derek lost his heroic battle with cancer. He died in Germany, where, for a while, we had hope for a miracle cure—a hope that we clutched at, desperately, as do thousands of others in similar circumstances. When hope was ended, I knew that bitterness and despair that comes to all of us when we lose one whom we have loved. I spent a little time with my family in England. Then back to Dar, with all its sad associations: gazing each day at the Indian Ocean where Derek, despite his crippled legs, had found freedom swimming among his beloved coral reefs. It was a real relief to leave the house and bury myself, for a while, in Gombe. For there I could hide my hurt among the ancient trees, find new strength for living in the forests that, surely, have changed little since Christ walked the hills of Jerusalem.

  It was during that time, when I spent hours in the field with little thought of collecting data, that I came closer to the chimpanzees than ever before. For I was with them not to observe, to learn, but simply because I needed their company, undemanding and free of pity. And, as my spirit gradually healed, so I became increasingly aware of a new intuitive empathy with the chimpanzees, with these closest living relatives of ours. Ever since, I have felt more in tune with the natural world, the endless cycles of nature, the interdependence of all living things in the forest.

  I shall never, so long as I live, forget one afternoon that I spent in the company of Fifi and her family and Evered. For three hours I followed as the chimpanzees, peaceful and harmonious, wandered from place to place, now feeding, now resting and grooming while the youngsters played. Towards the end of the afternoon they moved down into the Kakombe Valley and, following the Kakombe Stream eastward, headed for the fig trees— Mtobogolo the local people call them—that grow near the Kakombe waterfall. As we drew near, the roar of falling water sounded ever louder in the soft green air. Evered and Freud, hair bristling, moved faster. Suddenly the waterfall came into sight through the trees, cascading down from the stream bed fifty feet or more above. Over countless aeons the water has worn a deep groove in the sheer rock. On either side lianas hang, looping down the rock face. Vivid green ferns wave ceaselessly in the wind created by the rushing of the water through its rocky channel.

  All at once Evered charged forward, leapt up to seize one of the hanging vines, and swung out over the stream in the spray-drenched wind. A moment later Freud joined him. The two leapt from one liana to the next, swinging into space, until it seemed the slender stems must snap or be torn from their lofty moorings. Frodo charged along the edge of the stream, hurling rock after rock now ahead, now to the side, his coat glistening
with spray.

  For ten minutes the three performed their wild displays while Fifi and her younger offspring watched from one of the tall fig trees by the stream. Were the chimpanzees expressing feelings of awe such as those which, in early man, surely gave rise to primitive religions, worship of the elements? Worship of the mystery of water, which seems alive; always rushing on, yet never going; always the same, yet ever different.

  The ritual over, the chimpanzees turned from the stream and climbed into the fig tree where Fifi sat. They all began to feed on the ripe fruits with grunts of pleasure. A gentle breeze rustled the branches and the little stars of light that shone through the dancing canopy above, gleamed and winked. Pervading everything was the almost intoxicating scent of ripe figs, the humming of insects, the chirps and flutters and whirring flight of feeding birds. The huge branches of the fig tree were festooned with vines, twining and twisting up towards the sky. Their flowers gave nectar to butterflies, to iridescent sun birds. The chimpanzees munched figs, spitting out the seeds so that new figs would grow. The tree, one day, would crash to earth with all its burden of plant and animal life, and from the decaying richness a host of new life would spring forth. Everywhere life entwined with life, uniting with death to perpetuate the forest home of the chimpanzees. An endless cycle, ancient as the first trees. Old patterns repeated in ways that would always be new.

  In the richness of such a lush environment lived the chimpanzee-like creatures that became the first men. Slowly they evolved. Some became more adventurous and left the forest on excursions into the surrounding savanna, in search of food or new territory. What a relief it must have been after the danger of such ventures, to return to the safety of the forest. But gradually, just as earlier life forms became increasingly independent of seas and lakes and rivers, so did early humans learn to live away from the forest. They found caves and fire, learned to build dwellings, to hunt with weapons, to talk. And then they became bold and arrogant. They began to hack at the outskirts of the forest itself, bending to their will that which for so long had nurtured them. Today, striding the face of the globe, humans clear the trees, lay waste the land, cover mile upon mile of rich earth with concrete. Humans tame the wilderness and plunder its riches. We believe ourselves all-powerful. But it is not so.

  Relentlessly the desert inches forward, gradually replacing the life-sustaining forests with barren and uncompromising harshness. Plant and animal species vanish, lost to the world before we have learned their value, their place in the great scheme of things. World temperatures soar, the ozone layer is depleted. All around we see destruction and pollution, war and misery, maimed bodies and distorted minds, human and non-human alike. If we allow this desecration to continue we shall, ourselves, be doomed. We cannot meddle so greatly in the master plan and hope to survive.

  Thinking of this whole terrible picture, the magnitude of our sin against nature, against our fellow creatures, I was overwhelmed. How could I—or anyone—make a difference in the face of such vast and mindless destruction?

  A fig dropped close by, startling me. Fifi climbed from the tree and lay near me with closed eyes, replete. Here, at least, was perfect trust between humans and animals, perfect harmony between creatures and their wild environment. Faustino, tottering a little, moved close to me and, with his wide-eyed stare, reached to touch my hand, then wandered back to Fifi. Trust. And freedom. I thought of the countless chimpanzees who have lost their forest homes, and of the prisoners in zoos and labs around the world. I remembered the story of Old Man and how he had responded to the need of a human friend.

  The will to fight, to fight to the bitter end, flared up. The chimpanzees need help now more than ever before, and we can only help if we each do our bit, no matter how small it may seem. If we don't, we are betraying not only the chimpanzees but also our own humanity. And we must never forget that, insurmountable as the environmental problems facing the world may seem, if we all pull together we have a good chance of bringing about change. We must. It is as simple as that!

  Evered, Freud and Frodo climbed down and, with Fifi and Faustino, moved away, deep into the peace of the forest. I watched them go, then looked back. And where the sun shone through a window in the dense vegetation, a rainbow had appeared, spanning the spray-cloud at the foot of the waterfall.

  AFTERWORD

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Appendix I

  SOME THOUGHTS ON THE EXPLOITATION

  OF NON-HUMAN ANIMALS

  Appendix II

  CHIMPANZEE CONSERVATION

  AND SANCTUARIES

  GOMBE BIBLIOGRAPHY

  GOMBE RESEARCH AND SUPPORT

  INDEX

  ABOUT THE JANE GOODALL INSTITUTE

  AFTERWORD

  OVER THE TWENTY YEARS following the publication of Through a Window, the total number of chimpanzees in Gombe has decreased. In the 1970s there were four communities. In the preceding pages we have seen how the males of the main study community, the Kasekela community, annihilated the Kahama community during the shocking Four Year War. The Kalande community, perhaps fifty strong, then moved northward, pushing the Kasekelan victors back on that front, while the equally strong Mitumba community pressed in from the north. Then, in 1987, there was a terrible epidemic of a flu-like disease that killed many chimpanzees in the Kasekela community and possibly the other two communities as well. By 1988, the Kasekela community had declined from about fifty to as few as thirty-eight.

  But the Kasekela community rebounded and gradually increased—t oday it numbers some sixty individuals, including eleven adult males, and has expanded its territory so that it now covers just over half the park. This expansion has been at the expense of the Mitumba and Kalande communities that were weakened not only by disease but by human farming activities, which had deprived the chimpanzees of key habitat outside the park. Also, evidence of some poaching surfaced in the south. Since 1993, Kasekela chimpanzees have not only acquired territory but also have attacked and mortally wounded at least five chimpanzees from the neighbouring communities.

  The Mitumba community was down to twenty-one individuals by 1997. And, for some inexplicable reason, some of the remaining Mitumba males, on two separate occasions, ganged up and killed males of their own community. Nevertheless, despite this seemingly non-adaptive behaviour, the community, which now numbers twenty-five, may survive as there are several young males who will soon come of age and be able to help defend their territory. Indeed, the large Kasekela community has lost at least one of its adult females to attacks from Mitumba males.

  We know less about the Kalande community, which we have monitored since 1999 but never fully habituated. We think there were well over thirty chimpanzees even in the late 1990s, but today the maximum number does not exceed sixteen, and there could be fewer. This decrease was a result of habitat loss, disease and intercommunity violence. And there was evidence that one individual was killed by humans.

  Family Histories

  In the space I have left, I want to give a quick update about the individual chimpanzees I introduced in the preceding pages of this book.

  THE G FAMILY: Let me start with Goblin and the rest of Melissa's children and grandchildren. Goblin lost his alpha position to Wilkie in 1989 during a fierce fight over a female, Candy. This left him with bad injuries to his scrotum. He kept well away from the other males during his convalescence (the story is told in the HBO film Chimps: So Like Us) but often groomed quietly with his sister, Gremlin. It was in keeping with his courageous, determined character that he made one attempt to regain his lost position—but it failed. He was again attacked, this time by many of the community—and once again he was driven into exile.

  When Goblin finally rejoined the others, he played it safe, showing extreme submission to the high-ranking males. But while he never again tried to get to the top, he was very politically astute. When Freud became alpha, Goblin courted favor with him, gaining power from that friendship. When Frodo took over, Goblin transferred hi
s attentions to him. He was even able to mate in their presence, usually after first "asking permission" by quickly glancing at, or briefly grooming or touching, his superior. But although he had much opportunity, it seems he sired no more offspring after his downfall. We think his injury must have left him sterile. Towards the end of his life Goblin looked old, his teeth worn to the gums. In August 2004, just before his fortieth birthday, he became sick. He showed up close to our research offices, possibly seeking help—for after his wounding we had taken him food and medicine. Mike Wilson, field director at Gombe at the time, writes, "We fed him, treated him with antibiotics, and several of us even spent the night in the forest with him, to ensure that he wasn't attacked by leopards or bush pigs." Mike describes how "he lay motionless in the bushes off the trail. It was terribly sad to see Goblin reduced to such a state. Despite our best efforts, he died."

  Goblin's young brother Gimble, the survivor of Melissa's twins, was always small. After Melissa died, he spent a lot of time travelling with Goblin. Despite his small size he developed an impressive display, and at one time, during the early days when Frodo became alpha, Gimble was clearly the second-ranking male. After this he gradually lost rank. He was last seen in 2007 when he was only thirty years old.

  Goblin's sister, Gremlin, after losing her firstborn, Getty (apparently killed for use in "witchcraft" or traditional medicine), had another son, Galahad, who was equally charismatic. We were devastated when she lost him also, during an epidemic of a flu-like disease in 2000.

  After that her luck turned. Bill Wallauer actually filmed the birth of Gaia. And he filmed, too, the extraordinary and quite unexpected murderous attack on the newborn by Fifi, Gigi, and Fanni. It was then that I realized that the similar attacks by Passion and Pom were not incidences of aberrant behaviour after all. Fortunately, against all odds, Gremlin managed to keep Gaia safe.