| Sunday, January 18, 2009 1:08PM | | | | Apes, Out of the Human Shadow | Posted By: Boria Sax
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| Tags: Apes, bonobos, chimpanzees, Hanuman, Old Monkey | By emphasizing their kinship with us, we can easily consign apes to a role as children or simply as "inferior" people. If, as some researchers estimate, chimpanzees have 98% of the same DNA as human beings, does that mean that they are only 2% inferior? Or that gorillas are only 3 or 4 % inferior? Whatever legal implications people may see in this idea, it certainly will not make apes seem very interesting.
And if we choose to regard apes as children, it must be children who will never grown up. This may address Victorian fantasies about the innocence of childhood, which we often see in the fantasy of bonobos as "hippy chimps," but this is a very limited, and superficial, appeal. It is the sort of media fad that the public is bound to tire of after a while. If it raises money for the preservation of bonobos, it will have done some good. some good. But if we make their preservation contingent on acting out a Victorian fantasy, it is not likely to help in the long run. What happens if, as is already occurring, research challenges popular images of bonobos? Or what happens when our fantasies change?
To appreciate apes we may sometimes need to forget about their kinship with us and concentrate instead on their unique abilities. I remember seeing one gibbon at the Bronx Zoo, who was hanging by onto a rock face by one foot, while playing with a flower in his hands and occasionally smiling at the public as if to say, "Can you do this?"
Many Asian myths and legends show an appreciation of apes and monkeys that is seldom found in Western culture, where, since Antiquity, people have been more fixated on their resemblance to human beings. In the west, apes have generally been a symbol of foolishness, while Asian cultures accord them secret wisdom.
The Chinese stories of Old Monkey, who became a Buddha yet remained an ape, and the Hindu stories of Hanuman both show a visit of apes that do not exist in the shadow of human beings. According to one tale, Hanuman, son of the wind god Vayu, once looked up at the sun, thought it was a beautiful fruit, and leaped up to pick it. Indra, the god of the sky, furious at seeing his realm invaded, hurled a thunder bolt at Hanuman, at which Vayu relatiated by summoning a furious wind. Recognizing his mistake and anxious to avoid a war, Indira apologized, and granted Hanuman invulnerability to weapons in compensation. But to this days, monkeys have swollen jaw, marking the place where Hanuman was struck by Indira's thunder bolt.
Perhaps the mistake of Indira was to mistake apes for human beings? | | | |
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