Through a Window (30 page)

In fact Gigi behaved very much like an elder sister and she and Tapit could often be seen together, sometimes as far as thirty yards from where his mother fed or rested. Once I sat with them during the midday heat while Tapit slept in Gigi's lap for over half an hour, while his mother fed in a tree some distance away. Patti, for her part, seemed delighted with this babysitting arrangement. She showed even less concern for her son when Gigi was around. Once, for example, Tapit went off with Gigi for about a hundred yards while Patti remained grooming with some of the adult males. Her son was quite out of sight, yet even when her group startled and rushed up trees in alarm, Patti seemed totally unconcerned as to Tapit's well-being. Some thirty minutes later he appeared, riding on Gigi's broad back.

During Tapit's third year Patti's treatment of him became, in some ways, even more cavalier than before. During travel he was frequently forced to try to navigate some extremely difficult arboreal routes as he struggled to follow his mother. Even when he screamed she seldom returned to help him. There were many times when he could not cross a gap from one tree to another, despite his most desperate efforts. Then, whimpering and crying the while, he had to climb to the ground and scamper, screaming, to the tree where Patti was calmly feeding. Although youngsters of four and even five years old habitually ride on their mothers' backs in order to cross the fast-running streams, Patti several times left Tapit on the far bank, forcing him to make his own way over the water via overhanging vegetation, crying loudly. But if Gigi was there to carry or reassure him, all was well. Indeed, she remained a frequent companion, playmate and protectress throughout the rest of his infancy.

There can be no doubt but that Gigi made a tremendous difference to the quality of Tapit's life, bringing him, as she did, concern and reassurance, care and affection. His upbringing was extraordinary and, by the time he was five years old and weaned he was, as might be expected, a remarkable young chimp. He was amazingly independent and self-willed, and yet liable to be thrown into sudden frenzies of anxiety if things went wrong. And then, just before Patti gave birth to her next infant, Tapit died of some unknown disease. How ironic that, having somehow struggled through his perilous infancy, having survived despite his mother, he should leave the world when he was on the very verge of independence.

But Tapit's life was not in vain, for he taught Patti a great deal about maternal behaviour. To my delight she was a wonderful mother to her next infant, daughter Tita, and showed none of the curiously inappropriate behaviour that had characterized her early interactions with Tapit. And so Tapit's tenacity for life will benefit the younger siblings he never met and strengthen Patti's line in future generations of Gombe's chimpanzees.

Gigi began auntying Tita long before she was one year old, presumably because, by then, Patti accepted the big female almost as part of the family. And because of this early start, the relationship between Gigi and Tita was, in some ways, even closer than that between Gigi and Tapit. The bond between the two adult females was growing gradually stronger, too. Indeed, Gigi sometimes became quite upset if she accidentally lost contact with Patti during travelling or feeding.

One day, for example, Gigi climbed to feed about fifteen yards away from Patti and Tita. Some forty minutes later she climbed down and wandered over to the tree where Patti and Tita should have been. But they were not there—they had left a few minutes earlier, moving silently away through the undergrowth. Gigi stared, looked all round, then began to cry and whimper like a child who had lost her mother. After a few moments she
uttered a series of pant-hoots ending in a very loud shout that, at least to my ears, had an exasperated overtone: "Where on earth have you got to?" A few moments later Patti and her daughter appeared, and the two females groomed for a while. Then Gigi reached towards Tita, gestured to the infant to climb aboard, and set off. Patti had no option but to follow!

I remember vividly another day I spent with the three. After the heat of midday Patti climbed to feed, but Gigi stretched out on the ground and Tita stayed with Gigi. She bounced about, on and around the big female, then began to hit her with a leafy twig. With a play-face, Gigi took one end and they had a tug of war. Then Gigi began to tickle Tita, who responded at once, biting into Gigi's very ticklish neck. Soon both of them were laughing loudly. After ten minutes, Tita had had enough and she climbed to play by herself, swinging in the vines. It was very peaceful. There were a few rustles from the tree where Patti fed and the shrilling of the cicada chorus. Gigi closed her eyes and slept. Suddenly the quiet of the late afternoon was broken as a fight broke out among a nearby troop of baboons. Tita, startled, began to scream and, quick as a flash, Gigi leaped to her feet, rushed up the tree, and gathered Tita to her breast. She carried the infant to the ground and began to groom her until Tita, her eyes closing, relaxed utterly. Then when Patti had finished feeding, the three moved on, Tita riding, carefree and confident, on Aunt Gigi's strong back.

P
OOR GIGI.
Unable to bear young of her own, she has not been able to find the sort of reassuring relationships that typically exist between chimpanzee mothers and their grown young. Desperately she has sought contact with a series of infants, but one after the other they have grown away from her. Their bond is with their own mothers—and this bond is the strongest and most meaningful of all. Never again will an individual be so nurtured, protected and cared for as during infancy and early childhood. As the youngster matures, the relationship with the mother strengthens into a close, mutually supportive friendship that may last through life. A male, it is true, may forge a similar friendship with his brother, or even with a non-related community male. But a female, once she loses her own mother (either through death or if she, the daughter, transfers to a new community), will not know such a relationship again until her own youngsters are grown.

The stronger the relationship is between two chimpanzees, the greater the distress if it is threatened. Since the mother is, for her infant, his whole world, it is no wonder that some infants become so depressed during the peak of weaning—for the first time, they experience determined maternal rejection. Throughout the early months of weaning an infant can almost always get his (or her) own way through sheer persistence. But as time
passes, his mother prevents him from suckling and from riding on her back with increasing frequency and increasing vigour. Her child's soft and pleading whimpers change, more and more often, to screams of frustration and tantrums. The task of the mother becomes ever harder and, in some cases, is clearly stressful for her as well as for her youngster. This is particularly so if she is trying to wean a firstborn child and is lacking in experience, and even more so if her child is a male, since he is likely to be more violent in his resentment than a female. When, screaming hysterically, he rushes from her and prostrates himself, hitting the ground and pulling at his hair, what is she to do? Usually she follows, often with a grin of fear on her face, and takes hold of him: she wants, I suppose, to calm him. But he, angry and resentful of her rejection, tries to pull away. She, however, maintains her grip, even if he hits or bites her, until he quietens. A female infant often seeks to get her way more subtly, working her way ever closer to the nipple as she grooms her mother, then snatching a quick suck.

At the peak of weaning comes an event that is surely perceived by the infant as yet another threat to the mother-child relationship: the mother resumes her pink swellings. Now, during each oestrus period, she will be preoccupied with the courtship and mating demands of the males and all the attendent commotion. The first couple of cycles are usually the worst, for then the situation is new, strange and frightening for the child. A male infant, as we have seen, tends to interfere in any copulation that takes place nearby. Usually he is quite calm, merely running up and pushing at the male. But when the female is his own mother his interference is often frenzied, and he may hit at the male suitor, grinning and squeaking in his distress. A female infant often seems even more upset when her mother is mated, though she typically ignores the sexual act when non-related females are involved.

We still know little about the correlations between the gradual drying up of the mother's milk, the frequency with which the child suckles, and the hormonal changes in the mother that precede and accompany the development of the next infant in her womb. Some infants suckle throughout the mother's pregnancy. Others are weaned before the mother conceives or during the first few months of gestation. Be that as it may, the birth of the next baby signals the beginning of a new era for the previous child, and it is hardly surprising that some youngsters feel threatened. No longer can they claim the mother's full attention, no longer can they ride on her back or creep into the warm sanctuary of her nest at night. Infancy is left behind. However, although the mother can no longer lavish all her affection on the older child, she is still there to provide reassurance and protection. She will still share food in response to begging. She will groom the older child far more than she grooms the younger. The new-fledged juvenile, therefore, even if upset initially, usually recovers quickly and becomes ever more fascinated by the baby.

Two youngsters did not follow the normal route towards independence, Flint and Michaelmas. Both remained unusually dependent emotionally on their mothers even after the birth of their infant siblings—but for very different reasons. In Flint's case Flo's extreme age seems to have been responsible, for she, who had been the best of mothers in her time, failed this, her lastborn son. If she had not conceived again all would, I think, have gone well for Flint. But that last pregnancy drained so much strength and energy from Flo's aging body that she was simply not able to wean Flint. Surrounded by the assertive members of his high-ranking family, he had become a spoilt and obstreperous child, and when Flo tried to prevent him suckling or riding on her back he threw unusually violent and agressive tantrums. Flo gave in to him again and again, and so he was still nursing right up to the time when little Flame was born. From sheer necessity Flo then managed to wean him from the breast, despite his
tantrums, but she could not, it seemed, prevent him from pushing into her nest at night or riding on her back. Indeed, sometimes he insisted on clinging to her belly in the infantile ventral position, utterly obscuring his baby sister. At the same time he became increasingly depressed, playing but seldom and spending long hours sitting close to Flo and grooming her. So it was throughout the six months of his little sister's life. But then Flo fell sick with a pneumonia-like disease. She became so weak that she could not even climb to make a nest at night. And when we found her, lying on the ground, Flame had disappeared, never to be seen again. After she recovered, Flo, still physically and psychologically geared for looking after a small infant, no longer even
tried
to prevent Flint from creeping into bed with her or riding on her back. He did stop riding eventually, but not until he was eight years old, when Flo was simply not strong enough to support his weight.

Michaelmas's story was quite different. He was five years old when his mother, Miff, resumed her pink swellings. During these periods she was very popular and constantly surrounded by many community males. In these large groups, with tension running high, there was, as usual, much aggression, and Miff herself was sometimes attacked. Michaelmas, sticking close to his mother through thick and thin, not only threw himself between his mother and her suitors, but also did his best to interfere when she was attacked. During one such fracas his hip was dislocated. After this, hurting and lame, he could no longer keep up when the family travelled, and Miff, who had been weaning him vigorously before the accident, relented and allowed the child to continue riding on her back. Even after the baby's arrival she continued to carry him often, and when she sometimes ignored his sad whimpering, his elder sister Moeza let him ride on her. Presumably because of his poor physical condition, Miff made no attempt to keep him out of the communal nest, and he continued to join mother and baby. Not until he was seven years old was he
observed to make his own night nest and even after that he still occasionally crept into bed with his mother and little sister.

As a youngster gradually becomes more independent, his (or her) relationship with his mother changes. It is still close, the mother is still affectionate and supportive, but the onus of maintaining proximity increasingly falls on the child. Whereas the mother, even if she is ready to move on, will wait for an infant—or go and fetch him if she is impatient—an older child must keep his eye on his mother. This does not mean that she always sets off without her child—far from it. But it does mean that the two will, from time to time, become accidentally separated. When this happens, the child usually becomes very upset. The loud, frenzied screams, interspersed with whimpering calls, that are uttered by lost youngsters are very characteristic. Mothers usually stop and wait when they hear such crying, but for some reason almost never give an answering call. And so the youngster learns two things: first, that he must keep alert to prevent the recurrence of similar experiences; second, that temporary separation from the mother is not, after all, the end of the world—sooner or later they will find one another again. Thus the time eventually comes, earlier for a male than a female, when the child begins deliberately to leave the mother for short periods.

Even after this the youngster is likely to become quite distressed when
accidentally
separated from his mother. Moreover, on those occasions when he and his mother want to travel in different directions, he may try very hard to persuade her to change her mind: if she follows him, separation will be at least temporarily averted. One day in 1982 I was with Fifi and her family: Freud, Frodo and one-year-old Fanni. They had been resting for an hour or so when Freud, eleven years old at that time, sat up, glanced at Fifi, then gathered Fanni to his breast and set off to the north. Fifi, who was grooming Frodo, looked after them, got up and followed. Soon Fanni wriggled free and started back towards her mother, who sat down again, presently rejoined by Freud. After five minutes or so Fifi got up and moved southwards, very slowly, allowing Fanni to totter behind her. Instantly Freud, seizing his chance, reached out to his little sister, gathered her up, and set off once more in the opposite direction. Fifi stopped, gazed after them again, then turned and followed. It was not long before Fanni left Freud, but as she took a few steps towards Fifi, Freud pulled her back and, with little shoves, persuaded her to move on ahead of him. They travelled thus for a few yards, then, as Fanni again tried to escape, Freud grabbed her ankle, drew her close, and groomed her until she relaxed. Fifi just watched. After a couple of minutes, Freud got up and took hold of one of Fanni's arms. Quick as lightning Fifi took hold of the other and pulled gently. Freud soon gave in and Fifi, placing Fanni firmly into the ventral position, set off southward. Freud looked after her for a while, gazed, wistfully perhaps, to the north, then turned and trailed after his family. Much later, as the family was feeding, they heard excited calling from chimpanzees to the east. Freud at once began to travel towards the sounds, but Fifi continued to feed. Freud returned, gathered up Fanni, and set off again. Fifi soon followed. After about seventy-five yards Fanni dropped down and went back to her mother but this time Fifi went with Freud, and the family joined the large group.