About Chimpanzees
Chimp Behaviour
Waterfall Display
Do Chimpanzees Feel Reverence for Nature?
Many of us have questions about the consciousness, perspective and feelings of our closest relative, the chimpanzee. Below, the Jane Goodall Institute's videographer, Bill Wallauer - who daily treks through the forest taking hours and hours of footage of Gombe chimps - offers his thoughts.
Questions of awe, reflection, appreciation, and level of understanding, are constantly on my mind as I watch the Gombe chimpanzees react (or not) to their physical environment.
In my time at Gombe (about nine years since 1992) I have witnessed an average of two to three waterfall displays per year. They have ranged from a single individual to a single individual participant within a social group, to multiple participants. One of the most interesting was a waterfall display performed by the alpha male at the time, Freud.
Freud began his display with typical rhythmic and deliberate swaying and swinging on vines. For minutes he swung over and across the 8-12' falls. At one point, Freud stood at the top of the falls dipping has hand into the stream and rolling rocks one at a time down the face of the waterfall. Finally, he displayed (slowly, on vines) down the falls and settled on a rock about 30 feet downstream. He relaxed, then turned to the falls and stared at it for many minutes.
It was one of the times that I would give body parts to know what was going through a chimp's mind! Dr. Goodall and I have seen several events in which the participants seemed to ponder or consider the natural event to which they were reacting.
... the displays in reaction to these elements of nature suggest that chimpanzees find something meaningful which could possibly be described as reverence to aspects of their environment.What does this all mean? We can't come to any real conclusions, but I honestly do believe that chimps have the capacity to contemplate and consider (even revere) both the animate and inanimate...
I've spent many hours pondering how complex and sophisticated are the workings of a chimp's mind, but I still have far more questions than answers.
- Bill Wallauer, Dar es Salaam
