THE NAKED APE

More documents

Recommendations

Info

they will experience the `shock' of discovery, or playfteeing so that they will be caught. Laughter therefore becomes a play signal, a sign that the increasingly dramatic inter-actions between the child and the parent can continue and develop. If they become too frightening or painful, then, of course, the reaction can switch over into crying and immediately re-stimulate the protective response. This system enables the child to expand its exploration of its bodily capacities and the physical properties of the world around it. Other animals also have special play signals, but compared with ours they are unimpressive. The chim-panzee, for instance, has a characteristic play-face, and soft play-grunt which is the equivalent of our laughter. In origin these signals have the same kind of ambivalence. When greeting, a young chimpanzee protrudes its lips far forward, stretching them to the limit. When frightened, it retracts them, opening its mouth and exposing the teeth. The play-face, being motivated by both feelings of friendly greeting and fear, is a mixture of the two. The jaws open wide, as in fear, but the lips are pulled forward and keep the teeth covered. The soft grunt is halfway between the 'oooo-oo' greeting sound and the scream of fear. If play becomes too rough, .the lips pull back and the grunt becomes a short, sharp scream. If it becomes too calm, the jaws close and the lips pull forward into the friendly chimpanzee pout. Basically the situation is the same, then, but the soft play-grunt is a puny signal when compared with our own vigorous, full-blooded laughter. As chimpanzees grow, the significance of the play signal dwindles even more, whereas ours expands and acquires still greater importance in everyday life. The naked ape, even as an adult, is a playful ape. It is all part of his exploratory nature. He is constantly pushing things to their limit, trying to startle himself, to shock himself without getting hurt, and then signalling his relief with peals of infectious laughter. Laughing at someone can also, of course, become a potent social weapon among older children and adults. It is doubly insulting because it indicates that he is 104
oth frighteningly odd and at the same time not worth taking seriously. The professional comedian deliberately adopts this social role and is paid large sums of money by audiences who enjoy the reassurance of checking their group normality against his assumed abnormality. The response of teenagers to their idols is relevant here. As an audience, then enjoy themselves, not by screaming with laughter, but screaming with screams. They not only scream, they also grip their own and one another's bodies, they writhe, they moan, they cover their faces and they pull at their hair. These are all the classic signs of intense pain or fear, but they have become deliberately stylised. Their thresholds have been artificially lowered. They are no longer cries for help, but signals to one another in the audience that they are capable of feeling an emotional response to the sexual idols which is so powerful that, like all stimuli of unbearably high intensity, they pass into the realm of pure pain. If a teenage girl found herself suddenly alone in the presence of one of her idols, it would never occur to her to scream at him. The screams were not meant for him, they were meant for the other girls in the audience. In this way young girls can reassure one another of their developing emotional responsiveness. Before leaving the subject of tears and laughter there is one further mystery to be cleared up. Some mothers suffer agony from incessantly crying babies during the first three months of life. Nothing the parents do seems to stem the flood. They usually conclude that there is something radically, physically wrong with the infants and try to treat them accordingly. They are right, of course, there is something physically wrong; but it is probably effect rather than cause. The vital clue comes with the fact that this so-called 'colic' crying ceases, as if by magic, around the third or fourth month of life. It vanishes at just the point where the baby is beginning to be able to identify its mother as a known individual. A comparison of the parental behaviour of mothers with cry-babies and those with quieter infants gives the answer. The former are tentative, nervous and anxious in their dealings with their 105
Page 1 and 2:
THE NAKED APE by Desmond Morris A B
Page 3 and 4:
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book is intend
Page 5 and 6:
INTRODUCTION THERE are one hundred
Page 7 and 8:
some respect. If they were healthy,
Page 9 and 10:
CHAPTER ONE ORIGINS THERE is a labe
Page 11 and 12:
we put it, it looks out of place. E
Page 13 and 14:
The primate group, to which our nak
Page 15 and 16:
Faced with a new environment, our a
Page 17 and 18:
complex manoeuvres could be develop
Page 19 and 20:
The brightest stars in the carnivor
Page 21 and 22:
a pack of African hunting dogs it i
Page 23 and 24:
the night, but the contrast is neve
Page 25 and 26:
in the dirt of the den or lair. Aft
Page 27 and 28:
was a process of differential infan
Page 29 and 30:
eating it, each have their own part
Page 31 and 32:
Male and female hunting apes had to
Page 33 and 34:
feature was its naked skin, which l
Page 35 and 36:
home bases, its dens became heavily
Page 37 and 38:
vital missing links in our ancient
Page 39 and 40:
first appears. A great deal will de
Page 41 and 42:
CHAPTER TWO SEX SEXUALLY the naked
Page 43 and 44:
phase, privacy is sought and the su
Page 45 and 46:
summatory act of sperm ejaculation
Page 47 and 48:
the arteries pumping blood into the
Page 49 and 50: activity. Once the climax has been
Page 51 and 52: old females will have experienced o
Page 53 and 54: stay put and mind the babies while
Page 55 and 56: -the female remains responsive to t
Page 57 and 58: mucous surfaces permanently exposed
Page 59 and 60: areas in other animals where there
Page 61 and 62: Any body relationship, they feel, s
Page 63 and 64: At some point, back in our ancestry
Page 65 and 66: sexual contacts. In this particular
Page 67 and 68: This may also explain why the male
Page 69 and 70: lengths to render her as sexually r
Page 71 and 72: ised his sex life. The contemporary
Page 73 and 74: apology being proportional to the d
Page 75 and 76: enlarges it, imitating in this way
Page 77 and 78: ituation where the female is produc
Page 79 and 80: and avoids being attacked. A subord
Page 81 and 82: object lacking these signals. Secon
Page 83 and 84: is that the prolonged period of inf
Page 85 and 86: on the fundamental sexual structure
Page 87 and 88: CHAPTER THREE REARING THE burden of
Page 89 and 90: is not enough for the infant's lips
Page 91 and 92: mother, either instinctively or by
Page 93 and 94: apid during the first two years of
Page 95 and 96: onwards. It may even clasp on to he
Page 97 and 98: unlike the verbal signals, they eme
Page 99: mother's face and to distinguish he
Page 103 and 104: friendly, but if we greet them by l
Page 105 and 106: We develop the vital bond of attach
Page 107 and 108: andom and unco-ordinated. The cryin
Page 109 and 110: CHAPTER FOUR EXPLORATION ALL mammal
Page 111 and 112: But the reverse is actually the cas
Page 113 and 114: are combined, one with another, to
Page 115 and 116: equired no reward-it was its own re
Page 117 and 118: Writing, a formalised offshoot of p
Page 119 and 120: and clothing, in furniture and cars
Page 121 and 122: contacts immensely difficult and wi
Page 123 and 124: epeatedly bite themselves, or pull
Page 125 and 126: on the other hand, of vital signifi
Page 127 and 128: in respiratory activity. Breathing
Page 129 and 130: under the extreme conditions of agg
Page 131 and 132: formalised into rhythmic twistings
Page 133 and 134: sdditional energy on it, and it is
Page 135 and 136: the grooming itself. Monkeys make g
Page 137 and 138: signal. (With the arm bent and held
Page 139 and 140: intensities of it are expressed in
Page 141 and 142: mechanisms. Many moths have a pair
Page 143 and 144: largely confined now to a form of s
Page 145 and 146: such a situation can be seen to per
Page 147 and 148: the policeman into a position of im
Page 149 and 150: attacker and his enemy, and it is t
Page 151 and 152:
intelligence that must get us out.
Page 153 and 154:
frequent accompaniment of wailing o
Page 155 and 156:
of the `pomp and circumstance' will
Page 157 and 158:
in profusion. This is usually expla
Page 159 and 160:
personal acquaintances listed there
Page 161 and 162:
grounds. It is a predominantly masc
Page 163 and 164:
elements of challenge, luck and ris
Page 165 and 166:
Another interpretation is that we h
Page 167 and 168:
If they appeal to our old primate w
Page 169 and 170:
disposal, we might be expected to r
Page 171 and 172:
giving an impression of great conce
Page 173 and 174:
the female can then fondle it and c
Page 175 and 176:
is it aesthetically pleasing. Its f
Page 177 and 178:
significance of the hair. In its re
Page 179 and 180:
co-operativeness, specialised groom
Page 181 and 182:
it is a strong dose of security tha
Page 183 and 184:
If the environment becomes too cold
Page 185 and 186:
CHAPTER EIGHT ANIMALS UP to this po
Page 187 and 188:
prey-predator relationship, since i
Page 189 and 190:
substitute space-traveller. No othe
Page 191 and 192:
interferes with the efficient runni
Page 193 and 194:
point of view, are fully justified
Page 195 and 196:
small objects (chimpanzee, monkey,
Page 197 and 198:
The unexpected discovery here is th
Page 199 and 200:
on its back. It must be stressed he
Page 201 and 202:
This cannot be explained solely on
Page 203 and 204:
spiders being nasty, hairy things.
Page 205 and 206:
symbolically, scientifically or aes
Page 207 and 208:
tendencies; that if we have to beco
Page 209 and 210:
Heart-beat response: Salk, 1966. Gr
Page 211 and 212:
BIBLIOGRAPHY AMBROSE, J. A., `The s
Page 213 and 214:
MILES, W. R., 'Chimpanzee behaviour
Page 215:
Mimikry der Primaten'. Die Naturwis
show all

THE NAKED APE

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?