In the Shadow of Man

Female chimp Olly had another infant, who became sick at four weeks old. Gilka, Olly’s older female offspring, showed interest in the infant, who was limp and in pain. Olly carried her sick infant gently and cradled him to her chest even after he died. She continued to carry his body around on her shoulder, attracting curious looks from baboons and other chimps. Olly left the group with the body, seemingly “dazed,” and allowed Gilka to groom and tickle the dead infant. Soon thereafter, Olly abandoned the body, and Goodall learned that the illness that killed the infant was polio, which both humans and chimps can contract and pass to each other.

Panicked, Goodall contacted Louis Leakey, who arranged a delivery of polio vaccines for Goodall, her staff, and the chimps. Goodall worried that the chimps would be badly affected by the polio epidemic, which was spreading in local African communities too. Goodall credits Nairobi’s Pfizer company with providing oral vaccines for the chimps. Goodall placed the drops on bananas and made sure each chimp had three drops once a month, for three months. Goodall recalls the immense stress of monitoring the chimps throughout the epidemic. She writes,

I think those few months were the darkest I have ever lived through: every time a chimp stopped visiting the feeding area, we started to wonder whether we would ever see him again, or, worse, if he would reappear hideously crippled (218).

Six Gombe chimps died of the illness, and it disabled nine others. Goodall admits that she still feels haunted by Mr. McGregor’s illness, since it left him paralyzed from the waist down and completely incontinent. She and her husband were saddened to see him drag himself through the forests and struggle to get into trees. Goodall tried to help Mr. McGregor by bringing him water and food, and they killed the flies that followed him constantly. His fellow chimps were now scared of him, and the more dominant males took advantage of his weakness to beat him. Humphrey, an adult male whom Goodall suspected was Mr. McGregor’s brother, stayed close to him and frequently sat near him. He even confronted Goliath when he attacked Mr. McGregor. Mr. McGregor’s condition worsened, and Goodall and van Lawick decided they should shoot him. For the next six months, his friend Humphrey often returned to the last place he saw him and waited.

Goodall recounts how adult female Marina disappeared, leaving her three-year-old offspring Merlin to fend for himself. Luckily, he re-bonded with his elder siblings, Miff and Pepe, who groomed him and traveled with him. Unfortunately Merlin continued to lose weight and seemed to lose his social awareness and normal behavior, becoming vulnerable to attacks from more dominant males. Merlin’s unusual behavior perplexed Goodall: He was aggressive, unplayful, and solitary, compulsively groomed himself until his hair fell out, and was incompetent at using tools to get termites, despite concentrating hard on this task. Much to Goodall’s relief, his suffering ended when he later died of polio.

The author reports that, as evident in Merlin and several other young chimps, orphaned young tend to exhibit signs of “depression” in the months after their mothers’ deaths. If they still require milk to live, they won’t survive, since an older sibling is more likely to care for them than a lactating female. However, if they’ve already been weaned and receive consistent care from an older sibling, they have a much better chance of survival. Goodall questions why orphaned chimps endure severe “depression” and calls for more research into chimp psychology, which might also help scientists understand the childhood trauma of human orphans.

Goodall argues that Flint’s experience of being orphaned closely parallels the experiences of human orphans. Five-year-old Flint was closely attached to his mother his whole life and resentfully beat his mother when she weaned him. When Flo birthed her new infant, Flame, Flint was gentle and well-behaved, using a twig to touch Flame to get her scent, since he wasn’t allowed to touch her. Flint soon became jealous of his new sibling, however, and became angry when he wasn’t allowed to ride on his mother or sleep in her nest. Goodall was surprised by how discouraged Flint became when it was evident that he was no longer the infant in the family. Soon thereafter, both Flo and Flame caught the flu, and Flame succumbed to the illness. Flo recovered, and Flint was thrilled to be treated as her infant again, sleeping in her nest with her, riding on her back, and indulging in long grooming sessions. Goodall ponders what went wrong with Flint’s upbringing for him to turn into such an “abnormal juvenile” and wonders if he was overly indulged by his attentive mother and siblings or if his mother was too old to cope with his intense tantrums (236).

She concludes that these observations emphasize the importance of mother-offspring relationships to chimps. She writes:

[W]e have been repeatedly impressed by the extent to which a growing child depends on his mother. Who would have thought that a three-year old chimpanzee might die if he lost his mother? Who would have guessed that at five years of age a child might still be suckling and sleeping with his mother at night? (236).

Goodall admits that she was fascinated by the consequences of the chimps’ parenting decisions and decided to incorporate their better instincts into her own parenting. She let her son accompany her and her husband everywhere as an infant. Inspired by the more maternal chimps, she allowed her son to breastfeed on demand, gave him a lot of physical contact and affection, and tried to distract him from naughty endeavors rather than prevent them entirely. Goodall is happy that her four-year-old son is now obedient, independent, and playful and notes that measuring how much parenting decisions informed his behavior is hard.