Table Of ContentTHE NAKED APE
by
Desmond Morris
A Bantam Book / published by arrangement with Jonathan Cape Ltd.
PRINTING HISTORY
Jonathan Cape edition published October 1967
Serialized in THE SUNDAY MIRROR October 1967
Literary Guild edition published April 1969
Transrvorld Publishers edition published May 1969
Bantam edition published January 1969
2nd printing … . January 1969 5th printing June1969
3rd printing …January 1969 6th printing ….August 1969
4th printing.. February 1969 7th printing …October 1969
8th printing… October 1970
All rights reserved.
All rights reserved.
Copyright (C 1967 by Desmond Morris.
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mitneograph or any
other means, without permission.
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Idi.C.1, England.
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CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION, 9
ORIGINS, 13
SEX, 45
REARING, 91
EXPLORATION, 113
FIGHTING, 128
FEEDING, 164
FEEDING, 164
COMFORT, 174
ANIMALS, 189
APPENDIX: LITERATURE, 212
BIBLIOGRAPHY, 215
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is intended for a general audience and authorities have therefore not
been quoted in the text. To do so would have broken the flow of words and is a
practice suitable only for a more technical work. But many brilliantly original
papers and books have been referred to during the assembly of this volume and it
would be wrong to present it without acknowledging their valuable assistance.
At the end of the book I have included a chapter-by-chapter appendix relating
the topics discussed to the major authorities concerned. This appendix is then
followed by a selected bibliography giving the detailed references.
I would also like to express my debt and my gratitude to the many colleagues
and friends who have helped me, directly and indirectly, in discussions, cor-
respondence and many other ways. They include, in particular, the following: Dr
Anthony Ambrose, Mr David Attenborough, Dr David Blest, Dr N. G. Blur-ton-
Jones, Dr John Bowlby, Dr Hilda Bruce, Dr Richard Coss, Dr Richard
Davenport, Dr Alisdair Fraser, Professor J. H. Fremlin, Professor Robin Fox,
Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall, Dr Fae Hall, Professor Sir Alister Hardy,
Professor Harry Harlow, Mrs Mary Haynes, Dr Jan van Hooff, Sir Julian
Huxley, Miss Devra Kleiman, Dr Paul Leyhausen, Dr Lewis Lipsitt, Mrs
Caroline Loizos, Professor Konrad Lorenz, Dr Malcolm Lyall-Watson, Dr
Gilbert Manley, Dr Isaac Marks, Mr Tom Maschler, Dr L. Harrison Matthews,
Mrs Ramona Morris, Dr John Napier, Mrs Caroline Nicolson, Dr Kenneth
Oakley, Dr Frances Reynolds, Dr Vernon Reynolds, The Hon. Miriam
Rothschild, Mrs Claire Russell, Dr W. M. S.
Russell, Dr George Schaller, Dr John Sparks, Dr Lionel Tiger, Professor Niko
Russell, Dr George Schaller, Dr John Sparks, Dr Lionel Tiger, Professor Niko
Tinbergen, Mr Ronald
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Webster, Dr Wolfgang Wickler, and Professor John i’udkin.
I hasten to add that the inclusion of a name in this list does not imply that the
person concerned necessarily agrees with my views as expressed here in this
book.
INTRODUCTION
THERE are one hundred and ninety-three living species of monkeys and apes.
One hundred and ninety-two of them are covered with hair. The exception is a
naked ape self-named Homo sapiens. This unusual and highly successful species
spends a great deal of time examining his higher motives and an equal amount of
time studiously ignoring his fundamental ones. He is proud that he has the
biggest brain of all the primates, but attempts to conceal the fact that he also has
the biggest penis, preferring to accord this honour falsely to the mighty gorilla.
He is an intensely vocal, acutely exploratory, overcrowded ape, and it is high
time we examined his basic behaviour.
I am a zoologist and the naked ape is an animal. He is therefore fair game for my
pen and I refuse to avoid him any longer simply because some of his behaviour
patterns are rather complex and impressive. My excuse is that, in becoming so
erudite, Homo sapiens has remained a naked ape nevertheless; in ac q uiring
lofty new motives, he has lost none of the early old ones. This is frequently a
cause of some embarrassment to him, but his old impulses have been with him
for millions of years, his new ones only a few thousand at the most-and there is
no hope of quickly shrugging off the accumulated genetic legacy of his whole
evolutionary past. He would be a far less worried and more fulfilled animal if
only he would face up to this fact. Perhaps this is where the zoologist can help.
One of the strangest features of previous studies of naked-ape behaviour is that
they have nearly always avoided the obvious. The earlier anthropologists rushed
off to all kinds of unlikely corners of the world in order to unravel the basic truth
about our nature scattering to remote cultural backwaters so atypical and
unsuccessful that they are nearly extinct. Thev 9
then returned with startling facts about the bizarre mating customs, strange
kinship systems, or weird ritual procedures of these tribes, and used this material
as though it were of central importance to the behaviour of our species as a
whole. The work done by these investigators was, of course, extremely
interesting and most valuable in showing us what can happen when a group of
interesting and most valuable in showing us what can happen when a group of
naked apes becomes side-tracked into a cultural blind alley. It revealed just how
far from the normal our behaviour patterns can stray without a complete social
collapse. What it did not tell us was anything about the typical behaviour of
typical naked apes. This can only be done by examining the common behaviour
patterns that are shared by all the ordinary, successful members of the major
cultures-the mainstream specimens who together represent the vast majority.
Biologically, this is the only sound approach. Against this, the old-style
anthropologist would have argued that his technologically simple tribal groups
are nearer the heart of the matter than the members of advanced civilisations. I
submit that this is not so. The simple tribal groups that are living today are not
primitive, they are stultified. Truly primitive tribes have not existed for
thousands of years.
The naked ape is essentially an exploratory species and any society that has
failed to advance has in some sense failed, `gone wrong’. Something has
happened to it to hold it back, something that is working against the natural
tendencies of the species to explore and investigate the world around it. The
characteristics that the earlier anthropologists studied in these tribes may well be
the very features that have interfered with the progress of the groups concerned.
It is therefore dangerous to use this information as the basis for any general
scheme of our behaviour as a species.
Psychiatrists and psycho-analysts, by contrast, have stayed nearer home and
have concentrated on clinical studies of mainstream specimens. Much of their
earlier material, although not suffering from the weakness of the anthropological
information, also has an unfortunate bias. The individuals on which they have
based their pronouncements are, despite their mainstream background, inevitably
aberrant or failed specimens in 10
some respect. If they were healthy, successful and therefore typical individuals,
they would not have had to seek psychiatric aid and would not have contributed
to the psychiatrists’ store of information. Again, I do not wish to belittle the
value of this research. It has given us an immensely important insight into the
way in which our behaviour patterns can break down. I simply feel that in
attempting to discuss the fundamental biological nature of our species as a
whole, it is unwise to place too great an emphasis on the earlier anthropological
and psychiatric findings.
(I should add that the situation in anthropology and psychiatry is changing
rapidly. Many modern research workers in these fields are recognising the
limitations of the earlier investigations and are turning more and more to studies
of typical, healthy individuals. As one investigator expressed it recently: `We
have put the cart before the horse. We have tackled the abnormals and we are
only now beginning, a little late in the day, to concentrate on the normals.)
The approach I propose to use in this book draws its material from three main
sources: (i) the information about our past as unearthed by palaeontologists and
based on the fossil and other remains of our ancient ancestors; (2) the
information available from the animal behaviour studies of the comparative
ethologists, based on detailed observations of a wide range of animal species,
especially our closest living relatives, the monkeys and apes; and (3) the
information that can be assembled by simple, direct observation of the most
basic and widely shared behaviour patterns of the successful mainstream
specimens from the major contemporary cultures of the naked ape itself.
Because of the size of the task, it will be necessary to oversimplify in’
some manner. The way I shall do this is largely to ignore the detailed
ramifications of technology and verbalisation, and concentrate instead on those
aspects of our lives that have obvious counterparts in other species: such
activities as feeding, grooming, sleeping, fighting, mating and care of the young.
When faced with these fundamental problems, how does the naked ape react?
How do his reactions compare with those of other monkeys and apes? In 11
which particular respect is he unique, and how do his oddities relate to his
special evolutionary story?
In dealing with these problems I realise that I shall run the risk of offending a
number of people. There are some who will prefer not to contemplate their
animal selves. They may consider that I have degraded our species by discussing
it in crude animal terms. I can only assure them that this is not my intention.
There are others who will resent any zoological invasion of their specialist arena.
But I believe that this approach can be of great value and that, whatever its
shortcomings, it will throw new (and in some ways unexpected) light on the
complex nature of our extraordinary species.
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