SUB-HUMAN CULTURE BEGINNINGS 



33 1 



not possess culture because they follow 

 one another's example. If one ape de- 

 vised or learnt a new dance step, or a 

 particular posture, or an attitude toward 

 the object about which the dance revolved; 

 and if these new acts were taken up by 

 other chimpanzees, and became more or 

 less standardized; especially if they sur- 

 vived beyond the influence of the inventor, 

 were taken up by other communities, or 

 passed on to generations after him, — in 

 that case we could legitimately feel that 

 we were on solid ground of an ape culture. 

 But of this there is as yet no indication. 

 It is the same with chimpanzee fashions 

 in smearing white paint, or teasing chick- 

 ens, which Koehler describes. These are 

 comparable to the vogue which a game 

 or social manner or dress fashion has 

 among ourselves; to the fact that the first 

 boy who brings out his kite or his mar- 

 bles in spring is almost certain to set 

 other boys of his school to bring out their 

 kites and marbles. What is cultural in 

 such phenomena is not the fact that one 

 individual leads and others follow, but 

 the game or fashion as such. The kite, 

 the manner of manipulating the marbles, 

 the cut of a garment, the tipping of the 

 hat, remain as cultural facts after every 

 physiological and psychological consid- 

 eration of the individuals involved has 

 been exhausted. Of any such institu- 

 tional residuum of unmitigatedly cultural 

 material, there is as yet no demonstration 

 among the apes. 



THE USE OF TOOLS BY THE APES 



When it comes to our third criterion, 

 that of tools, the case is different. The 

 anthropoids use tools ; and they make them. 

 Chimpanzees take up sticks to draw to 

 themselves food which is beyond reach of 

 their arms. They beat with sticks for 

 the same purpose, or cast ropes or rope- 

 like objects. If the desired food is out of 



reach overhead, jumping to reach it has 

 led to failure, and there is no other indi- 

 vidual about that can be climbed onto 

 and used as a take-off for a higher leap, 

 many of them finally have recourse to 

 moving a box or other convenient ob- 

 ject under the prize. If, after they have 

 learned to use a box, the food is hung 

 still higher, they learn to pile a second 

 box on the first; and the more versatile 

 ones will pile three or four. Gorillas 

 will also do this. As Koehler justly 

 points out, the piling of the second box 

 on the first is psychologically a quite 

 different thing from moving the first 

 box; there is in it the element of combina- 

 tion, or construction. The difference is 

 like that between rolling a stone and 

 building with stones. 



If the convenient reaching tool hap- 

 pened to be a bundle of straws, one chim- 

 panzee, finding the straw too soft to move 

 a banana, without hesitation stiffened the 

 bundle by doubling it. Even then the 

 tool was ineffective, so she redoubled it. 

 That it was now too short to reach the 

 banana rendered the result ineffectual, but 

 does not detract from her credit as an 

 inventor: she got the problem and knew 

 what to do about it. 



Especially interesting is the observation 

 that two canes were joined one into the 

 other to draw in food which lay beyond 

 the reach of a single cane. This is in- 

 dubitable tool making; especially when a 

 stick is chewed down to fit into the hollow 

 of a cane. 



How far chimpanzees under proper 

 stimuli might progress in devising tools 

 for themselves is difficult to say; just as 

 the observations leave it somewhat ob- 

 scure how far slower-witted individuals 

 tend to profit by the discoveries of a more 

 inventive one. There are however some 

 interesting observations as to the circum- 

 stances of the process of invention. 



