What Kind of Animals Are We?

                                                                         image from confidentcameramoms.com

Once Upon a Time
In a Galaxy far, far away
A Mouse chewed through a Lion's bonds
And a Father prepared a feast for his profligate Son.

Is there one of these stories you do not know?

Like many humans I've thought about what separates us from the other animals on our planet Earth. I always argue with myself and others that humans are simply one among many animals. Yet I continue to look for that which sets us apart. And, truth be told, makes us special. Of course being a human makes me want us to be special.

Many years ago I met Jane Goodall. She was speaking to a group at the University of Oklahoma, home of the Institute for Primate Studies. Dr. William Lemmons and researcher Dr. Roger Fouts were studying primate behavior and communications to better understand the development of human communication.

You may remember that Dr. Fouts worked with the famous chimpanzee Washoe teaching her American Sign Language for the Deaf. And that's an interesting story in itself -- but maybe for a different day.

Back to Dame Goodall.

Being me, I hurried out and bought her book In the Shadow of Man and read it before I went to hear her speak. She documented observations of chimpanzees making and using tools. Most particularly modifying twigs to fish for termites and leaves to absorb water for drinking from a source too difficult to access directly with mouth or tongue.

Before that I had accepted, as had many better educated than I, that the thing that makes humans different is their ability to fashion and use tools. Oh, I was so smug because I am a member of such a superior tribe.

Hah! Have you watched videos of crows doing what crows can do. Click here. Okay, the crow in this video did not make any tools, but he certainly  used tools to get his treat. And, shoot! The crow is not even in our Class -- taxonomically speaking. You know -- Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, etc.

And that brings us back to the opening lines of this blog post. Stories. My daughter pointed out to me this morning that humans are story-telling animals. It's how we understand ourselves and the world around us. It's how we teach our children what they need to know to be successful or even just so-so humans.

I know who I am because I know my stories. And I know who you are because of the stories you tell me about you. Sometimes we tell stories about other beings to explain ourselves.

And we find those stories in as many ways as there are us.

We hear stories in music. Think of Sergie Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf," or John Williams' scores for the Indiana Jones movies and the Star Wars movies.

We see them in dance. "The Nutcracker" is the first to come to my mind. And if you've never seen Dubstep, click on it and watch a few minutes. This young man is amazing.

The visual arts tell some of the best stories. In fact, sometimes when we see sculptures or paintings or photos we see our own stories -- my immigrant ancestors arriving in New York Harbor and the average-joe farm families they founded.

                            

                                     image from en.wikipedia.org      image from madisonartshop.com

We tell scary stories about fictional creatures to safely test how we might deal with terror. We tell scary true stories to learn how our brothers and sisters have dealt with terror. We tell our stories to people we do not know who do not know about our world. We listen to their stories and get to know a little more about them and their world.

And, in the best of both worlds, we discover how much we have in common and how much we are all deserving of respect and admiration.

We are story-telling animals. We humans.

G for Goodall

                                                  How I Met Jane Goodall

           In 1974, I worked as a reporter for a small-town daily newspaper and the man I was married to, worked for the Lincoln Park Zoo in Oklahoma City. Zoo stories were easily available for my feature articles. Plus, let’s face it, photos of animals at the zoo need not meet professional standards to attract attention, and attention was my first priority as a reporter. Front page and all that.

          Dr. Roger Fouts was at the University of Oklahoma’s Institute of Primate Studies then. You may be familiar with his work with the chimpanzee Washoe who not only learned to communicate using American Sign Language for the Deaf, but taught a young chimpanzee to also use ASL.

Dr. Fouts arranged for Jane Goodall to speak on campus. It was not well-publicized. People at the zoo were told about it and that’s how I heard about it. Dr. Goodall was not that well-known here then.

I had read her book In the Shadow of Man. And I was very interested in hearing her speak. The book discussed her work with chimpanzees in Tanzania, including the first recorded observations of chimpanzees fashioning and using tools. Observations that led anthropologists to rethink the definition of ‘human.’

There were no more than 50 people there to hear her speak, so I did get to meet her and she signed my paper back copy of her book. She was very quiet to the point of shyness. She wore little make-up and had her hair pulled back in a ponytail. Not a typical celebrity, at all.

In 2007, she was back in Oklahoma as part of Oklahoma City University’s Distinguished Speakers Series. Maybe because of programs on public television or national geographic, whatever, now the woman was famous. I can’t tell you how many people were there, but the place was packed.

After her presentation, my daughter and I waited in a line snaking back and forth through the gym to get her signature and exchange a few words with her. Of course she didn’t remember me, but she did remember that time she spoke at OU. She thought those people then constituted a ‘crowd.’

She still was very quiet, though more calm than shy, I think. She still wore little make-up and her hair in a ponytail.