From the Field Notebook of Stephen Heyer

There was a place where the hot lowland jungle rose into the misty, chilly mountains, and there a troop of chimpanzee became famous with Western scientists and primatologists for their unique winter morning song.

It had been observed that in the winter the big males camped in a certain, sheltered grove of trees. Each morning they would rise, then shortly after they moved off, they each in turn would sing a haunting song that to human ears went something like " oooOWHHOOOoooooOWHHOOOoooooo".

Now, while male chimpanzee often called to each other, nothing like this had ever been heard before. There was much learned discussion about the ability of the higher primates to develop a local culture and what exactly this unique local behavior meant to the chimpanzee themselves.

The animal behaviorists claimed that the cold, densely forested, misty mountains made it difficult for the apes to communicate with their normal gestures and expressions. That this particular group was embarking on the long road that would finally lead to true language.

The Darwinian sociobiologists held that the males were engaging in a form of sexual competition, that they were competing to impress the females with their intelligence and creativity.

Of course, all of the humanities, arts and media studies people knew exactly what was going on. The chimpanzee were singing for its own sake and for the joy of the morning's sun. They had discovered Art.

Eventually, the troop became so accustomed to human presence that it became possible to follow them quite closely without upsetting their normal behavior patterns. Thus, a television documentary team was able to gain permission to film a full day in the lives of the famous singing chimpanzee, even though that would mean the camera crew sticking closely on their heels.

At first all went well, the commentator and camera crew quietly moved into position in the freezing pre-dawn darkness and when the apes awoke shortly after dawn they were undisturbed by the men and their equipment. They stretched and moved off as usual, the cameras sticking right behind to film the ceremony of the morning song for the first time.

The chimpanzees pushed through the dense foliage around the creek to their normal crossing point and immediately started their song. Desperately, the men rushed forward through the undergrowth to film the event before it was over.

Down the steep bank they plunged, into the shallow creek, holding the precious cameras high. Then, as the freezing water reached each man's crotch, he joined the chimpanzee in their song:

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Any reproduction without the prior permission of the author is forbidden.
Copyright 1998 Stephen Heyer