Nature Wildlife / Africa |
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Cousins Beneath the Skin -- Learning to LiveSeries: Cousins Beneath the Skin |
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100895 |
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Learning to Live was taken in the Mahale forest of east Africa. Blessed with water and greenery in abundance, the region is one of earth's last utopias for mankind's closest evolutionary cousin, the chimpanzee. Compiled from years of research, it tells the story of how young chimpanzees learn to become part of their society, while raising provocative questions concerning the parallels between man and chimp.
Each chimpanzee community has its own cultural traditions including diet, protocols of greeting and courtship behavior. Mothers will show their infants how to feed, how to behave, and how to survive. A chimp's curiosity and inventiveness for play rivals that of any human child. Here, too, a mother will always be there to keep the youngster from harm. A male chimp will gradually come to find his place in the power hierarchy of the group. A female will eventually move on to another group to become a mother.
The mother's nurturing love strikes a deep and familiar chord, as do the power struggles and displays of the males. And then other behavior suggests even deeper psychological aspects. One mother's devoted grooming of her infant even after death suggests a mind that treasures life, and remembers.
This tale of young chimpanzees coming into their own evolved over millions of years. Their way of life is a mirror of humanity in our most distant, common ancestors of aeons ago: Away of life that continues to thrive today in the dwindling forests of Africa.
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