Mountain apes, acting together, stalk and capture Toltecha and Raven with the clear intention of eating them. The apes are bipeds, have opposable thumbs, chatter, respond to a syllable howled by the largest, wield clubs of bone, throw rocks and bind their prisoners' hands behind them with vine which one of their number had carried around his waist. However, they bind clumsily, discard captured guns and even knives and are easily discouraged from pursuing when Raven has untied his bonds, broken free and wrought considerable damage, even killing the leader. Tolteca's verdict is: "'Proto-intelligent -...'" (p. 618)
However, this particular band of apes is more intelligent than those living nearer to human beings. The apes most frequently observed have not started to use tools even despite seeing human beings doing so. Raven hypothesizes that inbreeding of a mutation has increased the intelligence of the band that had attacked him and Tolteca which has started to develop tools even despite not seeing human beings doing this. Further, even these more intelligent apes lack the means to break into houses in order to attack human beings during Bale time. Therefore, they are not the cause of violence during Bale time.
Instead of welcoming Raven's investigation of this mystery, Elfavy denounces his interest in the matter as an "'...obsession...'" (p. 622) We should by now have realized that there is something odd about her resistance to this enquiry.
1 comment:
In fact, chimps routinely use tools in the wild.
I saw a chimp in captivity sit down near my brother.
My brother took out a pack of cigarettes and a box of matches and offered them.
The chimp opened the pack, took out two cigarettes, put them in his mouth and lit them both with a match, handed one of them to my brother, and then they sat there smoking together for about five minutes.
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