Mar 05 2009
Mike – Supernatural Master of Chimps
For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you. (Isaiah 64:3)
In the early 1960s Jane Goodall observed a low-ranking male rise to the top of a chimpanzee hierarchy. The way “Mike” did it was most ingenious. He and his troop lived in the forest around Goodall’s base camp. Sometimes the chimps would venture directly into Goodall’s camp and even steal food and other items. What Mike stole allowed him to muscle his way into alpha position. No, it wasn’t a chimpanzee bible he quoted to others on their Sabbath — Bananaday. What he stole allowed him to do what Jesus did in the Gospels: perform dynameis, or “mighty deeds.” (43)
Mike stole empty kerosene cans. These he hit and tumbled ahead of him as part of a threat display, charging toward startled others. And that is how “he bluffed his way to alpha position in 1964.” (44) To maintain his position as most high, the smart chimp repeated his impressive, clamorous displays.
In a real sense, Mike used shock and awe to work his way to the top. While customary bluffs included charging, stamping the ground and shaking branches, Mike caused a ruckus the likes of which had never been seen or heard by his compatriots. His was supernatural feat — at least to the other chimps. No sound like that had ever been heard in their natural habitat.
Raise the signal to go to Zion! Flee for safety without delay! For I am bringing disaster from the north, even terrible destruction.” (Jeremiah 4:6)
Goodall related, in detail, an episode of Mike performing one of his dynameis. With apparent, deliberate planning the chimp watched six other adult males quietly grooming one another. After minutes of watching, Mike picked up two metal cans by their handles. He walked upright into position. The other males kept grooming. Mike began to rock, his hair erect. And then he charged toward what otherwise would have been superior males, tumbling and banging the cans ahead of him. The other chimps were frightened enough to flee. Mike caused in the others feelings of submission. Or, in the least, he triggered the instinct to show subordinate behavior.
Mike frequently strung displays of his “mighty deed” in succession. But not immediately. He’d wait until calm had returned then wrecked it again. “Since he learned to keep as many as three banging and bounding [cans] ahead of him as he charged, flat out, toward his rivals, it is scarcely surprising that his bluff was so effective.” (45)
Jesus and stories of other deities also tell of an upstart rising to the top by not one, but a number of miraculous feats. Repeated efforts were made not so much to argue a point but to establish and maintain a new relationship. What relationship? Of one being greater, the others lesser.
Goodall reported that Mike eventually “calmed down and became a benign alpha. He was exceptionally generous in sharing meat . . . . a zealous groomer, devoting more time than is usual in a high-ranking male to the grooming of subordinate.” (46)
And when the demon was driven out, the man who had been mute spoke. The crowd was amazed and said, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.” (Matthew 9:33)
Mike was one inventive social climber. When his kerosene cans were taken away, he searched Goodall’s camp for other suitable objects, including boxes, tripods and small pieces of furniture. When those were removed from his display arsenal, “he made extensive use of natural objects.” He once used three palm fronds at once to suitably disturb his audience. “Bygott comments that Mike tended to approach camp silently and, if he saw other males there, would burst upon them in a vigorous display, startling and scattering them.” (47)
A third of your people will die of the plague or perish by famine inside you; a third will fall by the sword outside your walls; and a third I will scatter to the winds and pursue with drawn sword. “Then my anger will cease and my wrath against them will subside, and I will be avenged. And when I have spent my wrath upon them, they will know that I the LORD have spoken in my zeal. (Ezekiel 5:12-13)
Mike’s display would frequently terminate on the very spot competing males had been peaceably sitting. And some would return to gesture submissively and groom him.
Is it a terribly far stretch to speculate that praising a god is to verbally groom him? Is it a likewise terrible stretch to conjecture that Jesus became the new spiritual alpha of the Bible stories by likewise performing unexpected feats and deeds that confounded and impressed his audience?
How did Jesus rise to the status of master? Not by erudition, but by power. A power perceived as supernatural.
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(43) Shorto, R. Gospel Truth: The New Image of Jesus Emerging from Science and History, and Why it Matters, Riverhead Books, New York, 1997, p. 123
(44) Goodall, J. The Chimpanzees of the Gombe: Patterns of Behavior, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1986, p.75
(45) Goodall, J. 1986, p. 426
(46) Goodall, J. 1986, p. 75
(47) Goodall, J. p. 427
