Gorillas & Chimpanzees

by Richard Lynch Garner

This book is an illustrated version of the original Gorillas & Chimpanzees by R. L. Garner. “The present work is the natural product of some years devoted to a study of the speech and habits of monkeys. It has led up to the special study of the great apes. The matter contained herein is chiefly a record of the facts tabulated during recent years in that field of research.
The aim in view is to convey to the casual reader a more correct idea than now prevails concerning the physical, mental, and social habits of these apes.”

284 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 1, 2007

About the author

American primatatologist

a.k.a. R.L. Garner: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

Reviews

[dragonhelmuk]

Kindled for free. Garner (1896) gives an amazing overview of the ape. First what constitutes an ape not a monkey (no tail, similarity to humans except sacrum slots) and then an indepth analysis of the behaviour of chimpanzees and gorillas. He even manages to distinguish two varieties of the chimpanzee (kulu and ntyigo, perhaps foreshadowing the bonobo revelation). He basis this on the 112 days he spent, sitting in a cage in the jungle with his coffee and British newspaper, sometimes smoking a pipe with his pet chimpanzee and "native" servant. He is very anthropomorphic at times, going so far as to ascribe a government to chimpanzees, and some of his suggestions were either completely wrong or have been ignored. (e.g. he strongly advises against the use of straw, or even hay, because of the dust which gets into sensitive ape lungs.)

(chimpanzee theory of mind and empathy with humans)
He was jealous of the boy, and the boy was jealous of him, especially when it came to a question of eating. Neither of them seemed to want the other to eat anything that they mutually liked, and I had to act as umpire in many of their disputes on that grave subject, which seemed to be the central thought of both of them.
…
When he [Moses the chimpanzee) carried his fun too far, I made him down from the table and sit on the floor. This humiliation he did not like at best, but when the boy would grin at him for it, he would resent it with as much temper as if he had been poked with a stick. He certainly was sensitive on this point, and evinced an undoubted dislike to being laughed
…
Elisheba did not appear to encourage the suit of this simian beau, but she did not rebuff him as a true and faithful spouse should do, and I never blamed Aaron for not liking it. She had no right to tolerate the attentions of a total stranger ; but she was feminine, and perhaps endowed with all the vanity of her sex and fond of adulation.

(anthropomorphism or true imitation of a role model?)
From time to time I received newspapers sent me from home. Moses could not understand what induced me to sit holding that thing before me, but he wished to try it, and see. He would take a leaf of it, and hold it up before him with both hands, just as he saw me do ; but instead of looking at the paper, he kept his eyes, most of the time, on me. When I would turn mine over, he did the same thing, but half the time had it upside down. He did not appear to care for the pictures, or notice them, except a few times he tried to pick them off the paper; and one large cut of a dog's head, when held at a short distance from him, he appeared to regard with a little interest, as if he recognised it as that of an animal of some kind, but I cannot say just what his ideas concerning it really were.

(Tarzan’s dum-dum returns!)
One of the most remarkable of all the social habits of the chimpanzee, is the kanjo, as it is called in the native tongue. The word does not mean "dance" in the sense of saltatory gyrations, but implies more the idea of "carnival." It is believed that more than one family takes part in these festivities. Here and there in the jungle is found a small spot of sonorous earth. It is irregular in shape, but is about two feet across. The surface is of clay, and is artificial. It is superimposed upon a kind of peat bed, which, being very porous, acts as a resonance cavity, and intensifies the sound. This constitutes a kind of drum. It yields rather a dead sound, but of considerable volume. This queer drum is made by chimpanzees, who secure the clay along the bank of some stream in the vicinity. They carry it by hand, and deposit it while in a plastic state, spread it over the place selected, and let it dry. I have, in my possession, a part of one that I brought home with me from the Nkami forest. It shows the finger-prints of the apes, which were impressed in it while the mud was yet soft. After the drum is quite dry, the chimpanzees assemble by night in great numbers, and the carnival begins. One or two will beat violently on this dry clay, while others jump up and down in a wild and grotesque manner. Some of them utter long, rolling sounds, as if trying to sing. When one tires of beating the drum, another relieves him, and the festivities continue in this fashion for hours.