Jane Goodall: Humanity and the Chimpanzee

Jane Goodall: Humanity and the Chimpanzee

Cynthia Worsley University of Manitoba

No matter how sophisticated or complex human societies become, one question seems to elude concrete answers: who are we (Lestel 2006:150)? Trying to identify and synthesize " ... what it means to be human ... " (Fedigan 1994:536) has likely been a human quest since the moment we began wondering about and questioning our origins. It is in search of our origins that the famous paleoanthropologist, Dr. Louis Leakey, hired a young secretary by the name of Miss Jane Goodall to observe and record the behaviour of the human species' closest living relative, the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) (Goodall 1986:2-3). The woman we now recognize as the world-renowned primatologist, Dr. Jane Goodall, originally got her start in the career she dreamed of by convincing Dr. Leakey that she was the person he had been looking for to travel into the African wilderness and document the behaviour of chimpanzees (Goodall 1988:4-6). Leakey saw the chimpanzee as a conduit for discovering and understanding how ancestor species to humans (which Leakey was busy excavating in Olduvai Gorge, Serengeti, Tanzania) might have behaved when they were living beings (Goodall 1988:5-6). Where Goodall would set-up her research camp, in what is now Gombe National Park, Tanganyika, Tanzania, might very well have been a campsite for the hominids whose remains

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Leakey was excavating further north at Olduvai Gorge (Goodall 1986:3).

Key ingredients for Goodall's success as a primatologist include her patience and skill in acquiring vast amounts of observational data in order to synthesize an accurate picture of the chimpanzees' life ways at Gombe (York 2006:371-372). The natural habitat of chimpanzees is solely in Africa along the continent's equatorial belt (Goodall 1986:44). Though the chimpanzee has adapted to a wide range of habitats from savannas to rain forests, the areas they inhabit must have trees, as they use them for nests and to escape predators (Goodall 1986:44-45). Gombe National Park is roughly thirty-two square kilometres and hugs the shoreline of Lake Tanganyika (Goodall 1986:44-45). The area is dominated by mountain peaks with deep valleys where streams run through, hence the original name of the park, Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve (Goodall 1986:44-45; Goodall 1988:1). One peak in particular (which Goodall calls the Peak) served as an ideal vantage point to watch the daily activities of the chimps in and around the trees below (Goodall 1988:34).

To appreciate the life-work of Goodall I think it is useful to picture a symbolic outline which is representative of her life and work. One symbol that can be invoked is that of a tree - a tree with roots, a trunk, branches and leaves. The roots represent Goodall's beginning or foundation; the trunk, her core research; branches, expanded research; and leaves, her public outreach. Why use a symbol? Goodall has been called an "icon" among the

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general public (Corbey 2005:10) which is a specific symbolic form. Goodall herself uses symbolic metaphor to explain her success as a primatologist, describing herself as a jenny wren (a small bird) who was brought to the heights of accomplishment by riding in shelter on an eagle (all of the people in her life who supported her endeavours) before she flew off solo (Goodall and Berman 2003:ix-x). And finally, the choice of a tree is fitting in that Charles Darwin referred to "the branching tree of life" when describing his theory of the evolution of species (Corbey 2005:65). Darwin's theory of evolution is what has allowed us to directly biologically link humans to primates, and it has formed the foundation of the scientific progress that made apparent the value in studying primates for insights into our past (Goodall 1986:3). Building on Darwin's theories, Goodall biographer Dale Peterson stated that " ... [Leakey] helped shape the scientific world's vision of human evolution as a tree with roots in the garden of Africa" (Peterson 2006:100).

The Roots of Growth So how did Goodall herself evolve into a world-renowned primatologistwhat were her roots? Goodall was born to upper class parents in North London, England in 1934 (Peterson 2006:10). Her father, Mortimer Herbert Morris-Goodall was a wellknown British race car driver from an affluent family, and her mother, Vanne Goodall, was a secretary by training (Peterson 2006:6). Dr. Goodall followed in her mother's footsteps, training to be a secretary at her mother's urging, as her mother

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thought that secretarial training would afford Goodall the flexibility to .work in any location she might want to travel to (Peterson 2006:69).

According to Goodall, indications of her natural career leanings appeared when she was four years old, as she vividly remembers trying to figure out how chicken hens laid eggs (Goodall and Berman 2003:6). She thought that the eggs looked too large for a hen to produce. In her determination to actually observe a hen laying an egg, she hid herself under some straw in a henhouse and waited patiently for hours until she witnessed the event, seeing for herself that it was indeed possible for a hen to lay an egg. "A true naturalist" was already emerging within herself, according to Goodall (Goodall and Berman 2003:6). She was saved from the predictable life of the average secretary when an old school friend invited her to visit her parents' farm in Kenya (Goodall and Berman 2003:35). Fascinated by Africa, Goodall was very well read on all the creatures that inhabited the continent (Goodall 1988:4). When Goodall travelled to Africa in 1957, she resolved to meet a Kenyan palaeoanthropologist who was an authority on the wildlife of Africa, and who was also making a name for himself as a cutting-edge researcher on the origins of humans in Africa. This person was Dr. Louis Leakey (Peterson 2006:101). Leakey agreed to meet Goodall and was so impressed with her knowledge base that he hired her as his personal assistant (Peterson 2006:101-102; Goodall 1988:4).

Leakey discussed with Goodall that he was looking for someone to study wild

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chimpanzees living close to the shore of Lake Tanganyika in the Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve, which he thought was an ideal, undisturbed area for study purposes (Goodall 1988:6). His aim was to apply an anthropological perspective (rather than a purely zoological perspective) to the chimpanzee study (Goodall 1988:5-6). Leakey believed that there must be inherent similarities between primate behaviours (especially our closest biological relative, the chimpanzee) and the ancient descendents of humans in Africa, if we do indeed share common ancestors (Goodall 1986:3). With this anthropological leaning, and Leakey's skill in convincing funding bodies to fund his research proposals (Goodall 1988:7), Leakey offered Goodall the opportunity she had been looking for - studying animals in the wild (Goodall 1988:4).

Goodall (1988:6) had no formal university training (she had graduated from secretarial college) when Leakey sent her off to Gom be to study chimpanzees, and this he thought was actually an advantage for the study because her observations would be "unbiased." Furthermore, Goodall would not have any preconceived ideas about what she would observe (Goodall 1988:6). Leakey prepared Goodall for fieldwork by having her assist him on his various projects, beginning with his excavations of the earliest hominids at Olduvai Gorge (Goodall 1988:4-6). He then sent her on a short field study to observe vervet monkeys on an island in Lake Victoria, Tanzania so that she was familiar with documenting and analyzing field observations before

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heading to Gombe (Goodall 1988:8). But, Goodall was not a lone twenty-six year old in the African wilderness when she first set up camp in Gombe. She had a close camp companion in her mother, Vanne, who had travelled from England to accompany her daughter on her fieldwork to provide support and encouragement. Additionally, a member of the Kakamega tribe of Tanzania, Hassan, served as the Gombe camp assistant (Goodall 1988:8).

Goodall's basic research tools consisted of a pair of binoculars, a notebook, and a seemingly endless supply of patience (Goodall 1986:51). Hugo Van Lawick, Goodall's husband from 1964 to 1974 and a photographer for the National Geographic Society (Peterson 2006:299,343), describes watching the Gombe chimps as though" .. .it was like being spectators of life in some village. Endless fascination, endless enjoyment, endless work" (Goodall 1988:133). Vanne played an important role in the first five months of Goodall's chimpanzee research (Goodall 1988:50). Because the closest medical facilities in Gombe were across Lake Tanganyika in the town of Kigoma, and this facility was substandard at best, the local human inhabitants where invariably without adequate medical care (Goodall 1988:39-40). Some basic medical supplies such as Aspirin and Epsom Salts were valuable to the local people. Vanne combined the basic camp medical supplies with her knowledge of their basic uses in order to treat ailing locals (Goodall 1988:40). She found herself conducting daily clinics for the local headman's family,

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fishermen, and anyone else inhabiting the Gombe area (Goodall 1988:38-40).

Vanne's clinics were a natural vehicle for ingratiating Goodall to the local population, so that Goodall's constant presence at Gombe would be accepted and supported by them (Goodall 1988: 40). This process of acceptance was completed within five months of their arrival. Vanne left Goodall with their local cook at Gombe, once government officials decided that Goodall could manage safely without her in the wilderness (Goodall 1988:50). In traditional anthropological studies, establishing a good rapport with all the people one encounters is critical to the success of the study (Siskind 1975:9-10). In Goodall's case, good rapport with the human primates was important so that they did not feel threatened by her or think that they were merely incidental to her and her study (Goodall 1988:50).

The original chimpanzee (chimp) community that Goodall began studying, the Kasakela community, consisted of twenty-two individuals in 1968, ten females and twelve males (Goodall 1986:82). Over the course of the first twenty-five years of Gombe research there were four different chimpanzee communities within the park, the other three being the Kahama, Kalande and Mitumba communities (Goodall 1986:46). Combined, there was a total population of, roughly, one hundred and sixty chimps as of the mid-1980's (Goodall 1986:49).

Roots in the History of Primat%gy What were some of the forerunning theories and approaches to

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primatology? By the time Goodall set out to study the chimps of Gombe in July of 1960, primates had been studied by researchers since the 1890's, when they were observed from the safety of a cage in the African jungle (Goodall 1986:6). In the 1890's there was a combination of fear of the unknown, along with the curiosity of wanting to understand the creatures that Darwin's evolutionary theory stated were our closest non-human relatives (Goodall 1986:6).

The discipline of primatology is actually positioned at a conjunction between three other pre-established research fields: "anthropology, psychology, and animal behaviour" (Fedigan 1994:535). It was insights into the field of psychology that drove the first studies of chimps, beginning in 1912 with Wolfgang Kohler, a Prussian psychologist and philosopher who studied a colony of controlled chimps (Goodall 1986:7). Kohler investigated their ability to solve problems that he challenged them with (Goodall 1986:7). In the 1920's, American Robert Yerkes, a Yale professor with an interest in the biological underpinnings of psychology, founded the Yerkes Primate Laboratory where more extensive and intensive studies of chimp behaviour were conducted (Goodall 1986:8).

Yerkes' research aims are aptly illustrated by the title of the prologue for his 1943 book, Chimpanzees: A Laboratory Colony. The prologue is entitled, 'A Servant of Science,' in reference to chimps (Yerkes 1945:1). The goal he outlines is one in which the study of different methods of


chimp manipulation is used as a means of improving our control over nature and natural processes (Yerkes 1945:1).

For anthropologists, an interesting note lies in the fact that the first clear anthropological interest in primate studies was voiced by Alfred Kroeber, in 1928. In his article "Sub-human Cultural Beginnings," Kroeber raised the possibility that cultural insights regarding human societies might be discovered by analyzing the behaviours of non-human primates (Sussman 2000:89). Kroeber theorized that human culture follows identifiable patterns (Bohannan and Glazer 1988:103). Almost sixty years after Kroeber published his article, Goodall published a comprehensive account of her Gombe research titled, The Chimpanzees of Combe: Patterns of Behavior (1986). In this monograph, Goodall explained the social and behavioural patterns that she discovered while working with the Gombe chimps. In this instance, human culture research may have aided in understanding chimp behaviour.

Putting theory into practice, a researcher with the Yerkes Primate Laboratory by the name of Henry Nissen spent sixty-four days in 1930 (Nissen 1931:16 as cited in Peterson 2006:201-202) observing wild chimpanzees in Guinea, West Africa. He was the first person to undertake such a study (Peterson 2006:201-202; Goodall 1986:8). It was Nissen's fieldwork that Goodall was to directly build upon in 1960 (Peterson 2006:201-202). Nissen, in his short study, had arrived at the conclusion

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that chimps functioned as cohesive groups that lacked individual input and/or independence (Nissen 1931:18,25,30 as cited in Peterson 2006:202).

Independent of Western primatological research, Japanese primatologists were interested in "animal sociology" and saw an opening for the application of knowledge gained from monkey sociology (Japanese macaques) in the analyses of human societies (Michael Huffmann and Takayoshi Kano, personal communication as cited in Peterson 2006:221). In fact, Japanese researchers showed a keen interest in Dr. Leakey's chimp research plans in Gombe, and according to Japanese primatologists, Leakey had promised to let them conduct research at Gombe. But, as Goodall had already begun her Gombe observations, Japanese ambitions for the Gombe research location were put to an end (Nishida 1989, 1990 as cited in Peterson 2006:222-223). The Japanese researchers subsequently set-up their own chimp research centre to the south of Gombe, in the Mahale Mountains (Goodall 1986:9), which would allow for valuable comparisons between these chimp communities in the future (Whiten et al. 1999:682; Morin et al. 1994:1193).

A year prior to Goodall commencing her chimp research, American zoologist George Schaller from the University of Wisconsin (Schaller 1971:1) embarked on a year-long study of mountain gorillas in the Virunga Mountains, which run along the common borders of the Congo, Rwanda and Uganda (Schaller

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1971:15). Schaller recounts his experiences and observations in his book The Year o/the Gorilla (1971). It is interesting to note that Schaller became so familiar with the gorillas in this region that he was able to identify individuals, some of which he chose to name. For example, Schaller named an infant "Mrs. September," in honour of the month in which she was born (Schaller 1971:129). This is an example of Schaller anthropomorphizing the gorillas, and prior to reading this, I thought that Goodall was the first researcher to actively include anthropomorphic features like this in her fieldwork. Goodall's anthropomorphic tendencies (such as naming her chimp subjects) are the basis of common criticisms levelled at her fieldwork by the scientific community (Goodall 2003:78). I have not read any of the same types of criticisms levelled against Schaller for his up-close-andpersonal methods with gorillas, so as to make them comfortable with his passive presence (Peterson 2006:203). This same quiet openness was employed by Goodall with her chimps, and she gained valuable knowledge about the fieldwork methods that Schaller used directly from Schaller himself (Peterson 2006:204-205).

Earlier in the same year that Goodall began her Gombe research, a Dutch ethologist named Adriaan Kortlandt had undertaken a chimp observation study in the Congo with the clear intention of emphasizing the animal behaviour perspective within primatology (Peterson 2006:214). Ethology is defined as "the science of animal behaviour" (Barber 1998:478).

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Ethologists view chimps, and all other primates, from a traditional zoological perspective which posits that they are members of the animal kingdom (like humans), but yet somehow quantitatively distinct from human beings (Strier 2003:17). Kortlandt chose a banana plantation (bananas are the chimps' favourite food) as the best site to observe chimps. He thought that the dependable food source would keep them coming to the plantation on a consistent basis, making it easy for him to watch their behaviour when in the area (Kortlandt 1991:6 as cited in Peterson 2006:214). Because the duration of his study was only going to last roughly two months, Kortlandt decided that his best approach was to remain hidden from the chimps so that he would not influence their behaviour. He felt that the time required to "habituate" them, or make them comfortable with his presence, would consume too much of his study time, so it was better that they did not realize he was there at all (Peterson 2006:214-215). Kortlandt gradually introduced camouflaged look-out points around the plantation, including one positioned at a high elevation in a tree, which served as an observation tower (Peterson 2006:215). An important contribution to the knowledge base on chimp behaviour was KortJandt's documentation of a multitude of chimp communication methods (Peterson 2006:215-216). This is the point on the timeline where Goodall first steps into primatology history.

The Trunk: Core Research It was within four months of arriving at Gombe that Goodall would make

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her first ground breaking discoveries (Goodall 1988:34). She observed a chimp she named David Greybeard hunt a pig and eat it, proving that wild chimps were indeed successful omnivores and not herbivores (Goodall 1988:34-35). But it was another discovery at this time that would change how we defined human beings. Goodall observed a chimp, again David Greybeard, making and using a tool (Goodall 1988:34-35). He removed the leaves from a loose tree branch and then used it as a "fishing" stick by inserting it into a termite mound (Goodall 1964:1265). He then proceeded to remove the stick from the mound and eat the termites that were clinging to it (Goodall 1988:35-36). When Goodall informed Leakey of her discovery, his response defined the cornerstone of Goodall's career: "Now we must redefine 'tool,' redefine 'man,' or accept chimpanzees as humans" (Goodall 1971:25 as cited in Peterson 2006:212; Goodall 2003:78). The traditional definition of "Man the Toolmaker" (Oakley 1968 as cited in Corbey 2005:99) was no longer valid; forcing a re-evaluation by scientists of what defines humanity (Peterson 2006:212).

This re-evaluation of scientific theory brought forth by Goodall's discovery is a good example of a scientific "anomaly," which is something that is required to precipitate the process of scientific revolution, the impetus for scientific evolution as proposed by scientist and philosopher Thomas Kuhn (Kuhn 1996:92). Goodall's discovery can be seen as the initiator for at least a reworking of the models or paradigms that the scientific community had used to study non-

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human primates in relation to humans (Stymeist 2007). Indeed, Goodall's research on chimps has shown that individual skills and abilities, such as in communication, are only different in "degree" of development when compared to humans (Chivers 1987:191). Simply categorizing chimps and humans based on the presence or absence of a skill or attribute is not an effective method of differentiation (Chivers 1987:191).

Looking at the chronology of events that occurred since Goodall began observing wild chimpanzees in July of 1960, the first major event that validated Goodall's scholarly career was the publication of her findings on the Gombe chimps in the March 1964 edition of the prestigious journal Nature. The article is titled "ToolUsing and Aimed Throwing in a Community of Free-Living Chimpanzees"(GoodaIl1964:1264-1266). In addition to the chimps' toolmaking skills for eating termites, they all also made use of tools in other ways. They used leaves for such tools as: cups for collecting water where they could not easily reach with their mouths, crumpling the leaf beforehand in their mouth to increase the leafs water collection capacity; and they used leaves as a pseudo-cloth to wipe themselves after they defecated, or to dry themselves off after being in the rain (Goodall 1964:1265). Furthermore, as noted by Goodall, chimps made use of other tools (such as sticks and stones) for the purposes of throwing, as a method of intimidating other chimps (without necessarily intending to hit another chimp); essentially, a display of aggression that did not require

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immediate physical contact between chimps (Goodall 1964:1265-1266).

With Goodall's groundbreaking discoveries of chimp tool-making and meat eating, Leakey was able to secure further funding from the National Geographic Society for Goodall to continue her research (Goodall 1988:37). Leakey realized that for Goodall's work to be fully accepted by the scholarly communities of the world, Goodall would need academic credentials (Peterson 2006:261). Leakey had graduated with a first class honours Ph.D. from Cambridge University and had an excellent reputation in the academic community (Peterson 2006:100-101). He used his considerable influence to pitch an idea to Cambridge officials, which suggested that Goodall could use her chimp research towards earning a Ph.D. in ethology at Cambridge. His proposal was accepted (Goodall 1988:63). Goodall would spend blocks of time studying at Cambridge over the course of several years, compiling, analyzing and interpreting her data from Gombe to write her Ph.D. dissertation (Peterson 2006:261-262).

Goodall's Ph.D. can be seen as a workrelated Ph.D., which contrasts with what is traditionally thought of when discussing Ph.D. research (Peterson 2006:261-262). Rather than her doctorate opening up a door of possibilities in the research and working worlds, the opposite was the case for Goodall - her research opened the door to the academy. And with solid, consistent funding, Goodall was able to continue with her research indefinitely (Goodall 1988:xvi-xvii). By 1964, there began a steady stream of

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research assistants who came to Gombe from all over the world to be trained according to her field techniques. Most of these assistants were students conducting graduate work in primatology (Goodall 1988:xvi-xvii). This assistance was crucial in maintaining continual observation of the chimps, especially in the absence of Goodall when she was at Cambridge completing her Ph.D. studies (Goodall 1988:xvi-xviii).

So, what exactly was Goodall's theory, or theories, regarding research into chimp behaviour? She certainly had read widely and was well aware of the previous research that had been conducted on chimps. She was not, however, indoctrinated into thinking according to any particular school of thought (Goodall 1988:6). She was determined to create her own theories in uncharted territory for human investigation. She was driven by her innate curiosity and guided by her intuition (Goodall 1986:4). Goodall was personally determined to discover what made individual chimps tick and formed her theories based on her on-the-job-training (Goodall 1988:89). Her life, quite literally, became the chimps, as she spent every waking hour she could following and observing them (Goodall 1988:76-77).

From this intense observation for extended periods of time grew her inclination to empathize with the chimps, allowing her to begin to understand the motives and emotions behind different chimp behaviour (Goodall 1986:117-119). Goodall deciphered the chimps' communication methods, from their complex facial expressions and


vocalizations to their "tactile communication" methods (Goodall 1986:114-145). If Goodall saw a chimp was suffering from a health problem that she thought was treatable, she would intervene. In one instance, Goodall provided anti-fungal medication to an adult female named Gilka, who had a fungal infection on her face that was so severe that it obstructed her eyesight (Goodall 1986:95).

In Goodall's best known monographs, In the Shadow of Man (1971) (containing her research from 1960 to 1970) and The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior (1986) (considered to be her crowning scientific achievement), the reader is introduced to a cast of chimp characters, as though they are actors in a theatrical production (Zihlman 1987:726). Goodall has accumulated intimate life histories for hundreds of chimps spanning decades since 1960 (Zihlman 1987:726; Goodall 1986:79). Furthermore, Goodall became an active participant, a character in the production. An article about Goodall in the December 1995 edition of the National Geographic magazine refers to "the 'continuing soap opera' at Gombe," in reference to chimp life (Miller 1995:106). Goodall's research skills brought the Gombe chimps' ongoing story to life, so that others could gain from her insight and build upon this new-found knowledge (York 2006:371). In the Shadow of Man (1971) does not read like an ethological analysis for scientific readers, but is instead an ethnography of Gombe chimps, constructed in ways that are similar to those in which cultural anthropologist write about

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human groups (Strier 2003:18). Goodall's pioneering and ethnographically-styled works made possible the ethnological analysis of different aspects of chimp behaviour between chimp groups (Lestel 2006:149).

If one were to hypothesize what affinity Goodall would have for historical anthropological theories based on my readings of her work, I would say that she would identify with Franz Boas, Bronislaw Malinowski, and Ralph Linton. The key theories put forth by each of them that Goodall would likely highlight are: Boas' emphasis on fieldwork and collecting enormous amounts of field data and histories (Bohannan and Glazer 1988:83-84); Malinowski's pioneering participant- observation technique in fieldwork (Bohannan and Glazer 1988:274); and Linton's value and importance placed on the individual within a cultural framework (Bohannan and Glazer 1988:184). These anthropological theories and approaches are evidenced in Goodall's chimp research methods, though she may never have studied them. Her detailed life histories on individual chimps, obtained through the employment of up-close and extended duration (decades) observation, are considered to be the key characteristics enabling the enduring success of the Gombe chimp study (Zihlman 1987:726). The study is still ongoing today after fortyeight years (JGI 2009). When Goodall commented on her research approach after twenty-five years at Gombe, she stated that her" ... underlying philosophy of non-interference and the building of trust between observer

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and subject has stayed the same" (Goodall 1986:43). No matter how complex and evolved the data collection and analysis become, the nuts-and-bolts of her research techniques have remained the same (Goodall 1986:43).

An outline of Goodall's achievements in chimp behaviour research revolves around her elucidation of their social structure and organization in relation to their social adaptability (Goodall 1986:3-4). Goodall's research has shown that communities of chimps are territorial to the point of conflict between and amongst communities escalating to warfare. This was the case when a portion of the Kasakela community attempted to fission off into a separate community Goodall named the Kahama community (Goodall 1986:84). The Kahama community did not last because the Kasakela males physically annihilated the off-shoot members, either by killing them, or by driving them out of the territory until the new Kahama community no longer existed (Goodall 1986:84).

The basic social organization of chimps determined by Goodall is a "fusion-fission society" (Kummer 1968 as cited in Goodall 1986:147). This is a highly flexible organization where individual chimps are free to associate or not associate with any member(s) of their community. On any particular day an individual may choose to spend the day alone, while the next day he/she might associate with a dozen members of their community (Goodall 1986:147). Chimp breeding arrangements are such that females commonly leave

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their natal communities to mate with males from adjoining communities; sometimes they remain in visited communities as emigrants, or they may choose to return to their natal community to give birth (Goodall 1986:86-87). This level of independence observed by Goodall is in stark contrast to Henry Nissen's short study in 1930 that concluded that individual chimp identities did not really exist (Nissen 1931: 16 as cited in Peterson 2006:201-202).

Males are dominant in chimp society where they form alliances, usually with male siblings, to attain and maintain a rank within their community hierarchy (Goodall 1986:418). The females have a parallel rank system where family member support (i.e. siblings, mother, and offspring) is the major determining factor in their ranking (Goodall 1986:439). The higher the rank of any male or female, the greater the access they will have to food resources, and subsequently, improved breeding success (Goodall 1986:442). But, in addition to subsistence and breeding success, Goodall thinks that a chimp gets a psychological boost when it improves or maintains a high rank, not unlike the human experience (Goodall 1986:442).

A good example of a chimp's potential for social adaptation can be illustrated by the antics of the adult male Mike (Goodall 1988:112-114). Mike was physically small, not at all robust, and low ranking when Goodall first met him (Goodall 1988:75). But Mike discovered an ingenious way to improve his lot in life with what


appears to have involved mental planning (Goodall 1988:112-114). The Gombe camp had metal Kerosene containers and Mike picked up two of them and starting banging and clanging them together in front of himself as he charged towards any member of his community (Goodall 1988:113). He became very adept at performing this aggressive display. Other chimps were terrified by all the commotion he created. In no time, Mike found himself the highest ranking male in his community, the alpha male (Goodall 1988:112-114). Mike had used his superior intelligence to create an invaluable tool - what Goodall called "display props" (Goodall 1988:114).

Goodall created complex "sociograms" (diagrams that outline the frequency of associations between individuals) to illustrate that there are six "patterns of association" in a chimp community (Goodall 1986:149). There is the primary level of association, where a mother and infant remain in close association until the offspring reaches about eight years old and becomes independent of their mothers (males are not involved in direct infant-rearing) (Goodall 1986:152). At the opposite end is the sixth level of association, which represents the interactions for individuals who are on the periphery of the social community, being solitary and sometimes asocial (Goodall 1986:154).

The typical size of a chimp group going about their daily activities, such as feeding and grooming, consists of five individuals or fewer (Goodall 1986:154). But the chimps' food

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supply determines their association patterns. If food is scarce, the chimps will disperse to forage for food (Goodall 1986:155). Goodall became very aware of this food-supply to pattern-of-association link after she introduced an artificial banana feeding station for the chimps at her camp in 1962 (Goodall 1986:51). She had noticed the chimp David Greybeard take some bananas from her tent. Goodall then realized that having a ready-supply of bananas would guarantee regular sightings of the chimps. Within the span of a single day, fifty-eight chimps would come searching for bananas at the feeding station (Goodall 1986:51-52).

The close proximity of large numbers of chimps competing for food produced a sky-rocket in the frequency and severity of aggressive behaviour. Group dynamics were strained and broken, forcing Goodall to change her method of banana feeding (Goodall 1986:52). The revision consisted of feeding individual chimps when they were away from a large group so that the open feeding station was eliminated by 1968. Normalcy in terms of social behaviour and association gradually returned to pre-feeding patterns (Goodall 1986:52-54). Butthe 1970's saw examples of chimp aggression that were so extreme that they shocked all observers; incidences of cannibalism (Goodall 1986:283-284) and infanticide (Goodall 1986:493-502) by chimps on their own community members, in addition to the warfare which was previously mentioned (Goodall 1986:530-534). Goodall concluded that the chimps were finally showing their true

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colours, so to speak, and that they were capable of committing evil on the level of a human being (Goodall 1986:534). This marks the culmination of Goodall's fieldwork research as of her semi-retirement from the field in 1986 (Goodall 2003:78). So what can be learned and expanded on from this?

Branches: Expanding Research I examined four different single authored book reviews on Goodall's major work The Chimpanzees of Combe: Patterns of Behavior (1986). The reviewers' professions were as follows: a biological anthropologist (Zihlman 1987:726-727), a field biologist (Mitani 1987:464-465), a conservation biologist (Altmann 1987:694-695), and a veterinary anatomist (Chivers 1987:190-191). They all praise her attention to detail and the fact that she has proven the value of anecdotal evidence through sustained observation. Another common praise amongst the four reviews is the fact that her work is accessible to the general reader, not just the primatologist. There are no major criticisms of her work with the exception of John C. Mitani's review, in which he states that " ... some explanations of chimpanzee behaviour, based largely on qualitative accounts, are open to criticism" (Mitani 1987:465). The example he describes is Goodall's qualitative conclusion that high rank has psychological benefits for chimps without quantitative proof (Mitani 1987:465).

One person who expands on the questioning of Goodall's qualitative conclusions is Margaret Power who

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devotes a whole book to re-analyzing Goodall's own analyses of chimp behaviour (Power 1991:1). Power's book is titled The Egalitarians-Human and Chimpanzee: An Anthropological View of So cia I Organization (1991). Power's basic thesis is that the aggression seen in both humans and chimps is an adaptive response to direct competition in their ecological surroundings, and not "naturalistic" (Power 1991:1-2, 15-16). Other wild chimp observation studies that have abstained from any food provisioning have shown evidence of egalitarianism without aggression, according to Power (1991:1).

The introduction of agriculture in human societies created aggressive food hording (provisioning), fundamentally altering the basic organization of these societies (Power 1991:37). Likewise, Goodall's introduction of a banana feeding station produced aggressive behaviour that she had not previously observed (Goodall 1986:52-54). Power argues that even though Goodall revised the provisioned banana feeding set-up (Power 1991:1), and it appeared the aggression dissipated, the damage was actually permanent because she had already altered the social structure and organization of the chimp community (Power 1991:1-2,15-16). The later developments of extreme aggression, like cannibalism, were the result of a new hierarchical social system that had adopted the principle of direct competition over the egalitarian principle of indirect competition (Power 1991:15-16).

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This focus on the cause and effect of social adaptation is reminiscent of Julian Steward's "Cultural Ecology" and its concept of the "cultural core" for all societies, which includes food acquisition methods (Steward 1988:327-328). Steward's principles mean that a change in the food supply (subsistence) for a society will lead to a change in their cultural adaptations (Steward 1988:327-328). This correlation is implied in Power's reasoning, though she does not make reference to Steward's theories. I think that Power's argument is compelling but the only truly quantitative way of proving or disproving her theory is to conduct a chimp field study that qualifies as completely naturalistic and that extends the same amount of time as the Gombe research project- an impractical proposal.

The idea of comparative studies to elucidate some common themes can also been seen in a June 1999 article of Nature titled "Cultures in chimpanzees" in which Goodall is one of nine co-authors (Whiten et al. 1999:682). This article proposes that chimps possess culture in the same way that humans do, elevating chimps from producing merely behaviours, to producing culture (Whiten et al. 1999:682). The proof for this proposal is a comparative analysis of six different long-term studies on wild chimpanzee behaviour in Africa, of which Gombe and Mahale (the Japanese research centre) are two of the studies used (Whiten et al. 1999:684). The comparative analysis of all "behaviour patterns" at the study sites (Whiten et al. 1999:682) showed that" ... the profiles of each community

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[ ... ] are distinctly different, each with a pattern comprising many behavioural variants" (Whiten et al. 1999:685). They concluded that the only logical explanation for these distinctions and variations between communities is that they represent "cultural" differences because they are variants that are learned or "copied" from one member of a community to another (Whiten et al. 1999:685). This conclusion would certainly incense some cultural anthropologists who maintain that "culture" is the purview of humans only; animals are only capable of behaviours (Corbey 2005:185). The Whiten et al. (1999) article calls into question the so-called "ape-human boundary" in metaphysical terms (Corbey 2005:ix). The metaphysical boundary may be a bit more blurred as a result of this article. And it can be argued that Goodall's pioneering research paved the way for such an article to be produced.

An extension of the discussion around the "ape-human boundary" (Corbey 2005:185) surrounds the issue of animal rights versus human rights, which was touched on in the Winnipeg Free Press article "This chimp is a person, activists argue: Austrian court dismisses case" (Kole 2007:A2). An Austrian animal rights association was trying to get the chimp named "Pan" legal recognition as a person because his animal shelter was in danger of closing, which would leave him homeless. It is possible that he might be sold to someone outside of Austria where he could potentially be subject to abuse in a country with laxer animal rights laws than Austria. The only way to ensure that he is properly

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cared for is if he is legally recognized as a person (Kole 2007:A2). I think that it is very likely that without the backing of Goodall's published work, animal rights activists would not have attempted such a legal argument.

Another article which shows the applicability and usefulness of Goodall's fieldwork in a broader context, as it pertains to physical anthropology and conservation biology, is the 1994 article in Science called "Kin Selection, Social Structure, Gene Flow, and the Evolution of Chimpanzees" (Morin et al.1994). Goodall is one of six co-authors for this article. Genetic analysis of chimp hair samples from twenty sites was able to confirm Goodall's observations that female chimps frequently leave their natal communities to mate, while male chimps commonly remain in their natal community throughout their breeding life (Morin et al. 1994:1197). The kind of genetic diversity found within these communities was consistent with "female dispersal behaviour" (Morin et al. 1994:1197). The article highlights the fact that the Gombe chimp population, at the time of the publication of the article, was at a substantial risk of inbreeding because human deforestation had severed the communities' breeding ties outside of Gombe (Morin et al. 1994:1197-1198). They now represent a genetic island, which does not bode well for their long-term genetic viability (Morin et al.1994:1199-1200). This realization would send alarm bells ringing in the minds of anyone concerned with conservation biology. Goodall foresaw the impending disaster as far back as the 1970's (Goodall 1988:285).

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Leaves: Capturing Attention Ethologist Adriaan Kortlandt criticized Goodall for taking the "St. Francis of Assisi approach" to her chimp fieldwork; she was more a patron than a researcher of the chimps (Kortlandt 1998:3 as cited in Peterson 2006:227). But Goodall's empathy with the chimps has driven her to make the public aware of their dire straits in their natural habitats (as well as in human captivity), along with reminding the public of the sorry state of the earth's ecosystems in general (Goodall 1995:129; Goodall 1988:285-286). She believes that human beings are stewards of all life on earth and that it is our collective responsibility to ensure that our actions lead to sustainability, not destruction, as she outlines in her book Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating (Goodall et al. 2005), and in such articles as "Fifi [chimp] fights back" in the National Geographic (Goodall 2003:76-89). I view Goodall as a conservation anthropologist in the broadest sense of the term, in that she reminds us of humanity's relationship with the natural world and our responsibility to it (Goodall 1995:129).

To address the chimp's habitat destruction in Africa, Goodall created the "Roots and Shoots" program in 1977, a flagship youth program run by the Jane Goodall Institute (Goodall 1988:285-286). The program was originally designed for Tanzanian youth in order to increase their awareness of the chimps and the human threats to their survival in the wild (Goodall 1988:285). Most importantly the program instilled in youths the idea that there are tangible ways to create and maintain


sustainable ecology (Miller 1995:128). Today the Roots and Shoots initiative is an international program and Goodall is an international lecturer, as she has been for several decades (Miller 1995:116-117). A major source of funding for the Jane Goodall Institute's research at Gombe and its other initiatives is supplied by the money Goodall acquires from her lecture tours (Goodall 1988:286). Her lecture tours have been her full-time job since retiring from active field research at Gombe in 1986, when she took on her new role as an international activist (Goodall 2003:78)

I was fortunate enough to attend one of Goodall's lectures when she spoke in Winnipeg at the Centennial Concert Hall in the summer of 2005. At that point, I was already a student of anthropology, but my awareness of Goodall and her chimps dated back to when I was in elementary school. At that time, I read some of her "animal series" children's books where she introduces her young readers (with the aid of photographs) to the Gombe chimps using the personal names she has given them, such as in her book called Chimpanzee Family (Goodall 1991). She managed to grab my attention long before I even knew what anthropology was. Her ability to attract and inspire others sets her apart from a great many researchers in any discipline (York 2006:371; Miller 1995:120-121).

I remember Goodall starting her lecture with a "pant-hoot" (chimp vocalization) that she said would be a customary greeting from one chimp to another. It had the effect of creating a

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tangible connection to the chimps of Gombe half a world away. Goodall commented that the previous day she was in Los Angeles giving the same lecture that she was delivering to us. After she finished her talk in Los Angles the film actress Cameron Diaz walked up to her from amongst the audience so that she could touch Goodall's stuffed toy monkey (not a chimp), a gift from a supporter, that Goodall brings with her everywhere as an ambassador/keepsake. (Goodall still has the first stuffed toy she received as a young child - a toy chimp)(Peterson 2006:13). Goodall is a celebrity amongst the celebrities of the world.

According to the palaeontologist and author Stephen Jay Gould, "Jane Goodall's work has already passed into the legends of our culture, but a false stereotype about the nature of science has often prevented its proper recognition as one of the great achievements of twentieth-century scholarship" (Gould 1988:v). In the history of prima to logy research, Goodall has made a significant contribution to progressing our understanding of the chimp from a scientific object into the realm of a cultured being. Through her work we have glimpsed the roots of our humanity and our culture(s) (Whiten et al. 1999:682; Zihlman 1987:726-727). Is it a perfect glimpse? Likely not, as no observational research that depends on living beings as both the observer and the observed can escape flaws (Gould 1988:vi). And no matter what Adriaan Kortlandt's impressions are, Goodall is not a saint. Not yet anyway.

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Documents

Jane Goodall: Humanity and the Chimpanzee