Jan 16 2009
A Primate’s Advertisement of Power
They rush about, hurl sticks and rocks, drag branches, slap the ground or stamp on it, leap into the trees to sway branches violently.
- Jane Goodall (6)[T]he LORD hurled large hailstones down on them from the sky, and more of them died from the hailstones than were killed by the swords of the Israelites. (Joshua 10:10)
With threat displays the dominant primate advertises his potential to cause damage. He (or she) “goes through the motions” and/or harms some other object/individual.
Among stumptail macaques, threatening displays may simply consist of facial expressions: a staring gaze, partially open-mouthed, teeth-baring, eyebrows raised. The stumptail may even lower its torso and head, but not to signal smaller size, but its intent to lunge. And lunge it occasionally will. As will it engage in more active advertisements of its potential and inclination to do harm. Push, hit, bite. In its repertoire it also has a type of hostile hop as well as a branch-shake. (7)
Our more closely related cousins, NFL football players, will make displays when feeling dominant (after scoring, making a violent tackle . . . ), or to send an indirect threat to competitors. These include swagger-dances, “spiking’ the ball, flexing muscles, yelling, standing erect with chin high, hovering/stepping over another player, etc.
Seriously, the “higher” the primate the more distilled and indirect the display may be. A smart chimp or person will pick up on more subtle clues, so subtle clues can often be used. Rather than hurling rocks, pushing branches and chasing others, a chimp may opt for a relatively placid swagger instead. The primate swagger is akin to the round-armed bicep and pectoral flex of the muscle man. It says, “I’m not pushing or punching you, but I very well could.”
After thousands of hours of observing chimpanzee behavior, Jane Goodall listed the following as some of the threatening signs chimps send: head tip, hitting toward, flapping (slapping movements in the air), sitting hunched (shoulders raised, arms out front), the quadrupedal hunch, making branches sway, throwing (rocks, branches, other loose objects), flailing (or hitting toward with stick or branch), bipedal swagger (foot to foot, arms “akimbo”), running upright, and charging. (8)
A very closely related species of the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes), is the bonobo (Pan paniscus). Many have argued that this equally close cousin of Homo sapiens is a relatively pacifist species. (We’ll examine that point in detail down the road.) Nonetheless, it, too ,will engage in threat displays.
“According to Randall Susman, bipedalism accounts for less than 10 percent of bonobo movement in the canopy, however. It is often used to try to intimidate elephants or unfamiliar fieldworkers from above. Bonobo scare tactics consist in branch waving, angry shouting, and urinating on the surprised targets.” (9)
Urinating on those below? Clever. Yet in that semi-humorous account of aggressive bonobo behavior, we see a number of elements common to primates in general. Particularly the standing taller (or acquiring a higher position), making a visible fuss, generating noise, and generally sending the signal that the viewer is lesser than the viewee. Less powerful.
In the following Bible verses we can plainly see the primate tendencies of the religious leaders and their “great” alpha.
They brought the sacred stone out of the temple of Baal and burned it. They demolished the sacred stone of Baal and tore down the temple of Baal, and people have used it for a latrine to this day. (2 Kings 10:26-27)
The LORD answered Moses, “Is the LORD’s arm too short? You will now see whether or not what I say will come true for you.” Numbers (11:23)
O LORD, when you went out from Seir, when you marched from the land of Edom, the earth shook, the heavens poured, the clouds poured down water. The mountains quaked before the LORD. (Judges 5:4-5)
[H]e [the LORD] swore to them with uplifted hand that he would make them fall in the desert. (Psalms 106:26)
Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away, his hand is still upraised. (Isaiah 9:17)
O LORD, your hand is lifted high, but they do not see it. (Isaiah 26:11)
I [God] myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm in anger and fury and great wrath. (Jeremiah 21:5-6)
He stood, and shook the earth; he looked, and made the nations tremble. The ancient mountains crumbled and the age-old hills collapsed. (Habakkuk 3:6)
His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation. He has performed mighty deeds with his arm. (Luke 1:50-51)
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(6) Goodall, J., My Friends the Wild Chimpanzees, National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C., 1967.
(7) Harvey, N. C., “Social and Sexual Behavior During the Menstrual Cycle in a Colony of Stumptail Macaques” in Hormones, Drugs & Social Behavior in Primates, New York, SP Medical & Scientific Books, 1983.
(8) Goodall, J. The Chimpanzees of the Gombe: Patterns of Behavior, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1986, p.314,315
(9) de Waal, F., “The Chimpanzee’s service economy: Food for grooming” in Evolution and Human Behavior, Volume 18, Issue 6 , November 1997, Pages 375 386, p. 18
