Bonobos

I shuffled my feet and scraped the sides of my cup of Dippin’ Dots, approaching another exhibit. This one was larger than those surrounding it, encircled in thick glass and sparse crowds of gawking tourists. 

“The bonobos,” my mother informed me.

I nodded, tired and heat-sick. My view of the exhibit cleared up as children wandered away. I moved in closer to get a look and sat down, feet against the glass. There were six apes that I could see: four fully grown, two noticeably smaller. 

I pulled on my mom’s shirt. “Babies!”

“Infants,” she provided. “Like how a baby cat is a kitten; a baby monkey is an infant.”

I thought that was funny. Infant, like a little human baby. Did we have the name first, or did they?

One of the big apes holding an infant – the mom, I understood – came closer. She put her baby down and approached me, separated only by glass. She put her hand against my sandaled foot. 

My mom laughed. “Maybe she recognizes you as one of her own,” she joked. “My little monkey!”

I stared into the bonobo’s almost human eyes. It was like she recognized me, like she knew something that I didn’t. It was only a moment before the ape removed her hand from the glass and my mom pulled me back to my feet to move on. The encounter stuck with me, though.

Bonobos are the closest living relatives to humans, sharing almost 99% of our genome. In fact, they are more closely related to humans than they are to orangutans or gorillas. It’s strange, then, that there is such a large intellectual divide. Why is it that humans can talk, write, and build skyscrapers while bonobos are relegated to zoo exhibits and dwindling numbers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo? Are they so uncultured, so unevolved? If you ask me, I think they are wiser than any man.

Why should a bonobo talk to a human? For all of history, man has conquered and colonized. If our closest animal relatives were to communicate with us, we would certainly do the same to them! We’d give them jobs with menial wages, make them pay taxes, treat them as strange, inferior humans. If I were a bonobo, I certainly would not talk to a man. You give an inch, man takes a mile. But does this mean that they cannot talk? I wouldn’t be so sure.

I know what I saw that day in the mama bonobo’s eyes. I saw recognition, I saw understanding. I saw a potential for communication and I saw a rejection of that possibility. I saw her back as she walked away from me, understanding that I was human, and therefore not worth her time. 

I have seen the way these great apes look into cameras and play with their handlers. I will not say that human-like behavior is proof of a potential for speech, but it makes me wonder. Where is the line between man and ape? If we could be quiet for long enough, would we hear an echo, a foreign word from those Congolese forests?