232 APES AND MONKEYS 



The gorilla is polygamous in habit, and he has an incip- 

 ient idea of government. Within certain limits he has a 

 faint perception of order and justice, if not of right and 

 wrong. I do not mean to ascribe to him the highest 

 attributes of man or to exalt him above the plane to which 

 his faculties justly assign him ; but there are reasons to 

 justify the belief that he occupies a higher social and 

 mental sphere than other animals, except the chimpanzee. 



In the beginning of his career of independent life the 

 young gorilla selects a wife with whom thereafter he appears 

 to sustain the conjugal relation, and he maintains a certain 

 degree of marital fidelity. From time to time he adopts a 

 new wife, but does not discard the old one. In this man- 

 ner he gathers around him a numerous family, consisting 

 of his wives and children. Each mother nurses and cares 

 for her own young, but all of them grow up together as 

 the children of one family. The mother sometimes cor- 

 rects and sometimes chastises her young. This presup- 

 poses some idea of propriety. 



The father exercises the function of patriarch in the sense 

 of a ruler, and the natives call him ikomba njina, which 

 means "gorilla chief." This term is derived from the third 

 person singular of the verb kamba, " to speak " — i kamba, 

 " he speaks." Hence " spokesman," or one that speaks for 

 others. To him all the others show a certain amount of 

 deference. Whether this is due to fear or respect is not 

 certain ; but here is at least the first principle of dignity. 



The gorilla family of one adult male and a number of 

 females and their young practically constitutes within 

 itself a nation. There do not appear to be any social 



