Oct 08 2009
God and Grooming the Greater with Our Tongue
A crucial element of my Almighty Alpha thesis is grooming behavior. Namely, is it manifest in religion? Does a “grooming instinct” play a role in the formation and persistence of religious ideation and ritual? Furthermore, how might we account for the transition from the primates’ physical grooming behavior to the uniquely human variant of vocal grooming?
Dogs and cats, and other species lacking opposable thumbs, will use their tongues to literally groom conspecifics. We humans use our tongues, though not applied directly to the body of others. Instead, we use our larynx and tongue to generate and shape the atmospheric vibrations we breathe toward others, aiming to stroke not their fur favorably, but their brains by way of what their auditory nerves perceive.
Many species vocalize. Non-verbal vocalizations are likely the bridge to verbal grooming. How is this possible? Grooming vocalizations initially accompanied primate grooming behavior. Of the physical kind. They then become the primary behavior itself. Somewhat like Pavlov’s bell:the audible ringing was first an accompaniment to the salivation-inducing presentation of meat. And then the sound of the bell alone did the trick.
Among primates, grooming is “generally accompanied by lip-smacking” (46). As William McGrew has written in his book on the chimpanzee culture, “Chimpanzees are well known to accompany social grooming with specific noises, e.g. lip-smack, tongue-click, teeth-clack, the Bronx cheer’, or raspberry, etc.” (47)
Nearly half a century ago, in an essay about primate allogrooming, John Sparks explored the evolutionary origins of the lip-smack, concluding it was derived “from a licking or lip-moistening movement, and is functionally related to grooming behaviour, but it has undergone some evolutionary change and appears even in the grooming context to have evolved a typical intensity.” (48) From there, how many steps led from non-verbal vocal “grooming” to verbal grooming?
Frans de Wall — a heavyweight in the primatology field, if there ever was one — has already documented the first step in the evolutionary pathway to grooming at a distance (beyond arm’s reach):
“Lipsmacking is a series of rapid lip and tongue movements carried out by an individual with brief glances at the partner. Rhythmic smacking is most commonly heard after grooming, but it may also be performed at a distance, accompanied by raised eyebrows, as a visual signal of friendly intentions.” (49)
Maybe it isn’t so crazy to postulate that via soundwaves primates can groom one another at a distance. Yet perhaps “groom” isn’t the perfect term. At least for what humans do. But what shall we call it? Small talk? Gossip? Those don’t work either. Consider this hypothetical example of a telephone conversion between a husband and wife post-conflict:
Husband: Hi sweetie. How is your day going?
Wife: Good. And yours?
Husband: Fine. About last night . . . . I’m sorry.
Wife: Yah, me too. I love you so much.
In the above verbal exchange, very little information is exchanged. In fact, the same end-result might be accomplished with a conversation devoid of words, consisting solely of suitably toned sounds.
Husband: Arrrr-ahhhar?
Wife: Arrr. Raahhhraar?
Husband: Rahrar. Mmmmm-ohnnnn.
Wife: Mmmmm-ohnnnn. Ohnnnn.
Would human eavesdroppers know exactly what the above exchange meant? Probably not. But the individuals involved certainly would. Just as a pair of grooming primates would comprehend (on some level) that their activity was serving to repair their relationship after a conflict, or to strengthen it as protection against future challenge.
Our own behavior makes so much sense to us simply because it feels natural. Yet visit a radically different culture and some of what they do may strike you as alien and weird. Two grown men holding hands? How weird. Similarly, consider this observation about male behavior not in another country, but from another primate species -
“Male baboons typically approach one-another with friendly gestures, such as lip-smacking, after which they proceed to hip-grasping and mounting postures.” (50)
To humans, the above behavior may seem odd. But our own social behavior would likely provoke as much head-scratching to the truly objective mind.
We are a preeminently verbal species. A huge proportion of our behavior is verbal behavior. And that makes understanding our behavior more difficult. Particularly if we get too caught up in the words, causing us to lose sight of the other elements of vocalizations.
“In baboons, vervets, and macaques, grunts serve this function: they are highly predictive of friendly behavior, and listeners respond accordingly.” (51)
How often have not the actual words but the delivery, tone of voice, body language and whatnot expressed more about another individual, their perceived intentions and the state of your current relationship to him/her? I bet more times than you realize.
Given that human chit-chat serves purposes beyond the exchange of information, do any of these purposes reflect an orientation toward the creation and maintenance of hierarchical social structures? The chimpanzee’s grooming-like vocal behavior certainly shows evidence of this. The pant-grunt, the hoo, whimpering: these are customarily “directed by a subordinate to an individual of higher social rank.” (52) In fact, de Waal pegs pant-grunting as “the chimpanzee’s most reliable status indicator” [bold mine]. (53) These pant-grunts are frequently accompanied by “deep bowing movements.” (54) Are the bowing movements the Pavlovian meat, the pant-grunts the bell? Sometimes these elements are paired to produced the desired response,which is not salivation but feelings of leniency and goodwill in the greater toward the lesser. Call it evolutionary conditioning or perhaps genetic learning.
Human beings, of course, are biological creatures through-and-through. Evolution has shaped us no less than it has chimpanzees. And that shape is manifest in the hairy religions we have created.
In my subsequent post of this series I will more explicitly explore how human vocal behavior plays a role in dominance hierarchies, and how this is manifest in the practice of religion. Stay tuned.
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(46) Sparks, J., “Allogrooming in Primates: a Review,” in Morris, D. (ed.) Primate Ethology, Aldine, Chicago, 1967
(47) McCrew, W. C., The Cultured Chimpanzee: Reflections on Cultural Primatology, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 135
(48) Sparks, J., 1967, p. 154
(49) 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.106
(50) de Waal, F. “Conflict as negotiation,” in McGrew, W. C. , Marchant, L. F. & Nishida, T., Great Ape Societies, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1996, p. 165
(51) Cheney, D. L., & Seyfarth, R. M. Baboon Metaphysics: The Evolution of a Social Mind, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2007, p.76
(52) Goodall, J. The Chimpanzees of the Gombe: Patterns of Behavior, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1986, p. 129
(53) de Waal, F., “Conflict as negotiation,” in McGrew, W. C. , Marchant, L. F. & Nishida, T., Great Ape Societies, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1996, p. 166
(54) de Waal, F. Peacemaking Among Primates, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1989, p. 44
