M’Pungu between Charles Darwin and Wolfgang Köhler: the changing human perceptions of great apes

ABSTRACTThis article, a contribution to the growing field of animal-human history, traces scientific understanding of the great apes over the course of two centuries, with an emphasis on the period from 1850 to 1920. It sets the changing perceptions of apes within the context of intellectual developments, including the revolution sparked by Darwin and continued by a number of lesser-known scientists who studied apes. The important economic and societal advances required to arrange for the transportation of apes from Africa to Europe and their subsequent captivity there are also discussed. The path-breaking studies of apes by the German behavioral scientist Wolfgang Köhler in the 1910s, which laid the foundation for the work of later scientists like Jane Goodall, were based on a gradual shift in the perception of animal intelligence in the broader scientific world, followed by nearly a century of German primate research, observations of gorillas in Germany’s sophisticated zoos, and public funding for the study of primates.KEYWORDS: Animal historyGermanyDarwinian revolution AcknowledgementI am grateful to Dr. Alan Maricic for his research assistance on this article, and to the journal’s anonymous referees for their insightful comments.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer, ed., The Great Ape Project: Equality Beyond Humanity (New York: St. Martin’s, 1994).2 As is the case with any work on the “silent” in history who have not left their own sources behind, be they women of the lower classes or the environment, it is nevertheless possible to provide analysis of the relationship between the voiced and the unvoiced based on the documents at our disposal. See the thoughtful article, Erica Fudge, “A Left-Handed Blow. Writing the History of Animals,” in Nigel Rothfels, ed., Representing Animals (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003), 3–183 Cyrus Ingerson Scofield and Doris Rikkers, The Scofield Study Bible: King James Version (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), Genesis 9:2, 17.4 Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England, 1500–1800 (London: Allen Lane, 1983), 31.5 Thomas, Man and the Natural World, 31.6 It has been one of the singular contributions of animal history to de-center the human being as the driver of History. See for example Erica Fudge, Animal (London: Reaktion Books, 2004), 12–14; and Erica Fudge, Quick Cattle and Dying Wishes: People and their Animals in Early Modern England (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018), 16.7 Erica Fudge, Brutal Reasoning: Animals, Rationality, and Humanity in Early Modern England (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006), 2.8 Harriet Ritvo, The Platypus and the Mermaid and Other Figments of the Classifying Imagination (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 15.9 The extent to which Descartes’ claim that animals do not experience pain has been misrepresented continues to be debated. Scholars who argue that Descartes’ theories did not lay the foundation for cruelty to animals include John Cottingham, “’A Brute to the Brutes?’: Descartes’ Treatment of Animals,” Philosophy 53, no. 206 (1978): 551–559; Peter Harrison, “Do Animals Feel Pain?” Philosophy 66, no. 255 (1991): 25–40; and Lex Newman, “Unmasking Descartes’s Case for the Bête Machine Doctrine,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 31, no. 3 (2001): 389–425. A firm rebuttal of these positions is found in Michael Miller, “Descartes on Animals Revisited,” Journal of Philosophical Research 38 (2013): 89–114.10 John Berger, About Looking (New York: Vintage International, 1991), 11.11 Fudge, Brutal Reasoning, 157.12 Ritvo, Platypus, 191.13 George Page, Inside the Animal Mind: A Groundbreaking Exploration of Animal Intelligence (New York: Doubleday, 1999), 11.14 Londa Schiebinger, “The Gendered Ape: Early Representations of Primates in Europe,” in Marina Benjamin, ed., A Question of Identity: Women, Science, and Literature (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1993), 124.15 As Harriet Ritvo has recently argued, animal history as a discipline continues to reflect the political movements of the day. As animal rights have come to the fore in the twenty-first century, more historians have emphasized animal agency in their examinations of animals in the past. See her “Recent Work in Animal History (and How We Got Here),” Journal of Modern History 94, no. 2 (2022): 404–419.16 For an insightful analysis of the emergence of the animal welfare movement in the US from these circumstances, see Ernest Freeberg, A Traitor to His Species: Henry Bergh and the Birth of the Animal Rights Movement (New York: Basic Books, 2020).17 Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist (New York: Norton, 1991), 452.18 Schiebinger, “The Gendered Ape,” 125.19 Thomas, Man and the Natural World, 35.20 Raymond Corbey, The Metaphysics of Apes: Negotiating the Animal-Human Boundary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 54.21 Ibid., 88.22 Hans Werner Ingensiep, Der kultivierte Affe: Philosophie, Geschichte und Gegenwart (Stuttgart: S. Hirzel Verlag, 2013), 11.23 Mustafa Haikal, Master Pongo: A Gorilla Conquers Europe (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2020), 8.24 Harro Strehlow, “Beiträge zur Menschenaffenhaltung im Berliner Aquarium unter den Linden. I. Der Gorilla M’pungu,” Bongo 9 (1985): 69. An outstanding account of Du Chaillu and the effect of his gorilla discoveries on Victorian society is found in Monte Reel, Between Man and Beast: An Unlikely Explorer and the African Adventure that Took the Victorian World by Storm (New York: Anchor Books, 2013).25 Haikal, Master Pongo, 2.26 Although Owen and Huxley were at the forefront of the debate, there were other participants of notable standing, including Thomas Bell, president of the Linnean Society, and anti-Darwinist until his death. See David Allen, The Naturalist in Britain: A Social History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 160.27 Desmond and Moore, Darwin, 451.28 Janet Browne, Charles Darwin: The Power of Place (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), 135.29 Desmond and Moore, Darwin, 508.30 Ibid., 453.31 Browne, Charles Darwin, 159.32 Haikal, Master Pongo, 19.33 Janet Browne, Charles Darwin, 156.34 Fudge, Animal, 16. See also Mitchell Ash, “History of Science,” in Mieke Roscher, André Krebber, and Brett Mizelle, eds., Handbook of Historical Animal Studies (Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2021), 265–266.35 Fudge, Animal, 21. Other works that use animal history to interrogate questions of dominance include Sara Amato, Beastly Possessions: Animals in Victorian Consumer Culture (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018); and Louise Robbins, Elephant Slave and Pampered Parrots: Exotic Animals in 18th Century Paris (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002).36 Reel, Between Man and Beast, 194.37 Desmond and Moore, Darwin, 426.38 Gary Bruce, Through the Lion Gate: A History of the Berlin Zoo (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 5.39 Harro Strehlow, “Beiträge zur Menschenaffenhaltung im Berliner Aquarium unter den Linden. Teil III. Orang Utans und Schimpasen,” Bongo 14 (1988): 99.40 Strehlow, “Beiträge, Teil III,“ 101.41 In two separate years, 1876 and 1883, the aquarium exhibited the three types of anthropoid – gibbon, chimpanzees, and orangutans. Strehlow, “Beiträge, Teil III,“ 102–103.42 See Hans-Ulrich Wehler, The German Empire, 1871–1918 (New York: Berg, 1997), 175–176.43 For more on Carl Peters and his many articles justifying colonialism, see Christian Geulen, “The Final Frontier,” in Birthe Kundrus, ed., Phantasiereiche: Zur Kulturgeschichte des deutschen Kolonialismus (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2003), 48.44 Jürgen Zimmerer, Deutsche Herrschaft über Afrikaner: Staatlicher Machtanspruch und Wirklichkeit im kolonialen Namibia (Munster: LIT, 2004), 15.45 Birthe Kundrus, Moderne Imperialisten: Das Kaiserreich im Spiegel seiner Kolonien (Cologne: Böhlau, 2003), 40.46 David Ciarlo, Advertising Empire: Race and Visual Culture in Imperial Germany (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 309.47 Kundrus, Moderne Imperialisten, 223.48 On the “totalitarian” control of the African population, see the earlier important work: Helmut Bley, South-West Africa under German Rule, 1894–1914 (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1971). An excellent discussion of this work is found in George Steinmetz, The Devil’s Handwriting: Precoloniality and the German Colonial State in Qingdao, Samoa, and Southwest Africa (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 2007). There is an increasing view that the Herero genocide was a precursor to the Holocaust. See Jürgen Zimmerer, Von Windhuk nach Auschwitz? Beiträge zum Verhältnis von Kolonialismus und Holocaust (Berlin: LIT, 2011); and Jürgen Zimmerer, ed. Völkermord in Deutsch-Südwestafrika: Der Kolonialkrieg (1904–1908) in Namibia und seine Folgen (Augsburg: Ch. Links Verlag, 2011).49 Kundrus, Moderne Imperialisten, 216.50 An insightful analysis of nature as a resource to be exploited by the colonizers, see Takashi Ito, “History of the Zoo,” in Mieke Roscher, André Krebber, and Brett Mizelle, eds., Handbook of Historical Animal Studies (Oldenbourg: De Gruyter, 2021), 445–446. The imperialism associated with zoos is also explored in Julia Hauser, “Global History,” in Mizelle, 217.51 Julius Falkenstein, “M’pungu,“ Die Gartenlaube 33 (1876): 558.52 The animal had cost the princely sum of 20,000 marks. Bernhard Grzimek, “Die Gorillas außerhalb Afrikas. Eine Übersicht,” Der zoologische Garten 20 (1953): 180; Strehlow, “Beiträge zur Menschenaffenhaltung im Berliner,” 67–69. The gorilla Jenny was exhibited in Wombwell’s menagerie in England in the 1850s as a chimpanzee. See F. Weinland, “Gorilla lebend in Europa,” Der zoologische Garten 4 (1863): 220; and Don Cousins, “Gorillas in Captivity Past and Present,“ Der zoologische Garten 42 (1972): 251. The first mountain gorilla exhibited in Germany was at the Hannover zoo in 1964. See Cousins, 258.53 Cousins, “Gorillas in Captivity Past and Present,“ 264.54 Haikal, Master Pongo, 80.55 Ibid., 82.56 Strehlow, “Beiträge, M‘pungu,“ 72.57 Haikal, Master Pongo, 83–8458 Strehlow, “Beiträge, M‘pungu,“ 72–73. The London Zoo would not acquire its own gorilla until 1887, and its first mountain gorilla in 1938. Cousins, “Gorillas in Captivity Past and Present,“ 251–252.59 When he died in November 1877, scientists blamed at first the northern climate, suggesting that M’Pungu was better off during his sojourn in London and its “warm moist climate” the previous summer Anonymous, 22.11.1877 Nature, 70. Note that these are short updates without author attribution.60 Thomas Traill, “Observations on the Anatomy of the Orang Outang,” Memoirs of the Wernerian Natural History Society III (1821): 1–49, https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/172098#page/15/mode/1up; W.J. Broderip, “Observations on the Habits etc. of a male Chimpanzee, Troglodytes Niger, Geoff, now living in the Menagerie of the Zoological Society of London,” The London and Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science 8 (1836): 161–168; Willim Vrolik, Recherches d’anatomie comparée sur le chimpanzee (Amsterdam: J. Müller, 1841). It was not only the European academic community who studied primates, of course. In the US, Thomas Savage and Jeffries Wyman published their observations of the London chimpanzee Geoff as well. See Thomas Savage and Jeffries Wyman, “Observations of the External Characters and Habits of the Troglodytes Niger, Geoff, and on its Organization,” Boston Journal of Natural History 4 (1843): 362–376, https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/27851#page/415/mode/1up.61 Harro Strehlow, “Beiträge zur Menschenaffenhaltung im Berliner Aquarium unter den Linden. II. Weitere Gorillas,“ Bongo (1987): 106.62 See Erica Fudge, “What was it like to be a Cow? History and Animal Studies,” in Linda Kalof, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 258–278.63 Robert Hartmann, Der Gorilla: Zoologisch-Zootomische Untersuchungen (Leipzig: Veit, 1880).64 Hartmann, Der Gorilla, 115, https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/206573#page/123/mode/1up (accessed January 7, 2022).65 Hartmann, Der Gorilla, 126.66 Ibid., 140.67 Bruce, Through the Lion Gate, 44–96.68 Anonymous, 29.11.1877 Nature XVII, 89. The autopsy uncovered a number of human-made objects in his stomach – the button of a glove, iron wire, and pins.69 Haikal, Master Pongo, 96.70 Ibid., 106.71 Theodor Bischoff, Über die Verschiedenheit in der Schädelbildung des Gorilla, Shimpanse und Orang-Outang, vorzüglich nach Geschlecht und Alter, nebst eine Bemerkung über die Darwinische Theorie (Munich: Verlag der k. Akademie, 1867), 74, https://books.google.ca/books?id=4EUAAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false.72 Ibid., 74.73 Ibid., 77–78.74 Ibid., 78.75 Ibid.76 Carl Vogt, Vorlesungen über den Menschen, seine Stellung in der Schöpfung und in der Geschichte der Erde (Giessen: Ricker, 1863), 284.77 Strehlow, “Beiträge, Teil II,“ 107.78 Falkenstein, “M’pungu,“ 557.79 See note 77 above.80 Horst Gleiss, Unter Robben, Gnus und Tigerschlangen.: Chronik des zoologischen Garten Breslaus 1865–1965 (Wedel: Natura et Patria Verlag,1967), 58–59. Given that her weight remained more or less consistent throughout her time in the zoo, the zoo director of the era, Friedrich Grabowsky, concluded that Pussy was full-size upon arrival. Friedrich Grabowsky, “Beitrag zur Biologie des Gorilla,“ Jenaische Zeitschrift für Naturwissenschaft 41 (1906): 609.81 Gleiss, Unter Robben, Gnus und Tigerschlangen, 59.82 Ibid., 75.83 Ibid., 75. Although the Dublin zoo was not a major factor in the history of captive gorillas, it did possess one that was the longest living in captivity after Pussy, from 1914 to 1917. Cousins, “Gorillas in Captivity Past and Present,“ 256.84 Bernhard Blaszkiewitz, “Vom Spitzhörnchen zum Orang-Utan – Hundert Jahre Primatenhaltung in Zoologischen Gärten,“ Bongo 13 (1987), 55.85 Joachim Oppermann, “Tod und Wiedergeburt. Über das Schicksal einiger Berliner Zootiere,“ Bongo 24 (1994): 80–83.86 Strehlow, “Beiträge, Teil III“ 100.87 Ibid., 102.88 Ibid., 109.89 Grzimek, “Die Gorillas außerhalb Afrikas,“ 181. A gorilla in the wild typically eats roots, leaves, sprouts, and bulbs. Clemens Maier-Wolthausen, Hauptstadt der Tiere: Die Geschichte des ältesten deutschen Zoos (Berlin: Ch. Links, 2019), 14. A 1950s survey revealed the wide disparity in gorilla food. About two-thirds of those in captivity received animal protein, including in Paris, which fed its gorilla a fried steak daily, and the Rotterdam gorilla Sophie was fed three raw eggs weekly, including the shell. Others received pureed liver, twelve raw eggs daily (Big Boy of Cincinnati), chicken liver, and horse meat (Bronx zoo), while Amsterdam fed its gorillas cheese on occasion. Colorado and Milwaukee fed its gorillas dog biscuits. Grzimek, “Die Gorillas außerhalb Afrikas,“ 183.90 Falkenstein, “M’pungu,” 557.91 Strehlow, “Beiträge, Teil III,” 101.92 An excellent summary of cause of death for almost all gorillas in captivity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is found in Cousins, “Gorillas in Captivity Past and Present.“93 Blaszkiewitz, “Vom Spitzhörnchen zum Orang-Utan – Hundert Jahre Primatenhaltung in Zoologischen Gärten,” 52.94 Cousins, “Gorillas in Captivity Past and Present,“ 252.95 Grzimek, “Die Gorillas außerhalb Afrikas,“ 173. The Frankfurt zoo held the distinction of keeping a gorilla, Tommy, in captivity the longest in Germany at nine years, besting the Breslau Zoo and the Berlin Zoo which had kept gorillas for seven and a half years, the latter being the iconic Bobby.American zoos met with much greater success, however. Philadelphia’s Bamboo arrived in 1927 and died in 1960 at the age of 33. The same zoo would set a record with Massa, a gorilla that lived to the age of 53. By 1967, there were ninety-three captive gorillas in Europe and 100 in the US. See Baszkiewitz, “Vom Spitzhörnchen zum Orang-Utan – Hundert Jahre Primatenhaltung in Zoologischen Gärten,” 56; and Cousins, “Gorillas in Captivity Past and Present,“ 271.96 Although there were other stations established to study primates, Tenerife was the first state-sponsored institution to do so. See Harro Strehlow, “Die Teneriffa-Schimpansen und der Zoologische Garten Berlin,” Bongo 25 (1995): 47. In the late 1990s, there was a debate between Ronald Ley and Marianne Teuber as to whether or not Köhler used the station to spy for Germany during WW I. This amounted to little more than a tempest in a teapot. See Ronald Ley, “Köhler and espionage on the island of Tenerife: a rejoinder to Teuber,” American Journal of Psychology 110, no. 2 (1997): 277–284.97 Strehlow, “Teneriffa-Schimpansen,” 48.98 Ulrich Kattmann, “Piecing Together the History of Our Knowledge of Chimpanzee Tool Use,” Nature 411, no. 6836 (2001): 413.99 Jane Goodall, “Tool-Using and Aimed Throwing in a Community of Free-Living Chimpanzees,” Nature 201 (1964): 1264–1266. Goodall’s most important finding was that chimpanzees fashioned tools with foresight, rather than simply using objects that they found. See Robert Kohler, Inside Science: Stories from the Field in Human and Animal Science (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019), 129. Somewhat forgotten in the history of chimpanzee research is the work of Henry Nissen, who studied chimpanzees in Guinea in the 1930s. His stays were short, however, and as a result he was not able to conduct in-depth studies. See de Waal, “A century,” 56.100 Max Rothmann, “Ueber die Errichtung einer Station zur psychologischen und hirnphysiologischen Erforschung der Menschen Affen,“Berliner Klinische Wochenschrift 42 (October 1912): 1983.101 Helmut Lück, “Vor 100 Jahren: Wolfgang Köhler auf Teneriffa,“ Psychologische Rundschau 65, no. 1 (2014): 30.102 Hans-Lukas Teuber, “Wolfgang Köhler zum Gedenken,“ Psychologische Forschung 31, no. 1 (1978), 2.103 Rothmann, “Ueber die Errichtung einer Station zur psychologischen und hirnphysiologischen Erforschung der Menschen Affen,“ 1984.104 Rothmann, “Ueber die Errichtung einer Station zur psychologischen und hirnphysiologischen Erforschung der Menschen Affen,“ 1985.105 Teuber, “Wolfgang Köhler zum Gedenken,“ 3.106 Ibid., 9–10.107 Frans de Waal, “A century of getting to know the chimpanzee,” Nature 437 (September 2005): 56.108 Strehlow, “Teneriffa-Schimpansen,“ 50.109 Lück, “Wolfgang Köhler auf Teneriffa,“ 176.110 Page, Inside the Animal Mind, 109–110. Köhler’s experiments have been repeated many times since, producing remarkably similar results.111 Corbey, Metaphysics, 85.112 Rudolf Bergius, III. The German term that Köhler used was Einsicht which is separate and apart from intelligence. See Lück, “Wolfgang Köhler auf Teneriffa,” 174.113 Hans-Lukas Teuber, “Wolfgang Köhler zum Gedenken,“ Psychologische Forschung 31, no. 1 (1978): VI.114 Marianne Teuber, “The Founding of the Primate Station, Tenerife, Canary Islands,” American Journal of Psychology Vol 107, no. 4 (1994): 1243.115 Michael Sokal, ”The Gestalt Psychologists in Behaviorist America,” American Historical Review 89, no. 5 (1984): 1240–1263.116 Ehsan Masood, ”Researchers rally to save primate pioneer's station,” Nature 380 (1996): 375.117 Sokal, “The Gestalt Psychologists in Behaviorist America,” 1245, 1248, 1251, 1256.118 Lück, “Vor 100 Jahren,“ 30. Teuber, “Wolfgang Köhler zum Gedenken,“ XI. Gabriel Ruiz and Natividad Sanchez, “Wolfgang Köhler’s The Mentality of Apes and the Animal Psychology of his Time,“ Spanish Journal of Psychology 17 (2014): 2.119 Teuber, “The Founding of the Primate Station, Tenerife, Canary Islands,” 6.120 Ibid., 16.121 Strehlow, “Teneriffa-Schimpansen,“ 51.122 Ruiz and Sanchez, “Wolfgang Köhler’s The Mentality of Apes and the Animal Psychology of his Time,“ 5.123 Ibid.124 Ibid., 11.125 ZA der Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR, II-XI-125 “Albert-Samson-Stiftung,” 2.10.1919 letter. It is often forgotten that Köhler did experiments with orangutans too, but these remained unpublished. He was nevertheless intrigued by their resemblance to humans. Ingensiep, Der kultivierte Affe, 190.126 Maier-Wolthausen, Hauptstadt der Tiere, 87.127 ZA der Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR, II-XI-125 “Albert-Samson-Stiftung,” 21.6.1920 letter from director of Hamburg Zoo to Prof. Dr. Kraepelin, Psychiatric University Clinic, Munich.128 ZA der Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR, II-XI-125, “Albert-Samson-Stiftung,” August 1920 contract between Albert-Samson Curatorium and Berlin Zoo.129 ZA der Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR, II-XI-125, “Albert-Samson-Stiftung,” 27.9.1920 letter from Ludwig Heck.130 ZA der Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR, II-XI-125, “Albert-Samson-Stiftung,” Undated letter from Prof. H. Ziemann to Heck.131 Strehlow, “Die Teneriffa-Schimpansen,” 52.132 Strehlow, “Teneriffa-Schimpansen,” 51.133 J. von Allesch, “Über die drei ersten Lebensmonate eines Schimpansen,“ Sitzungsberichte der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften no. 2 (1921): 672.134 Allesch, “Über die drei ersten Lebensmonate eines Schimpansen,“ 672. It is remarkable that early researchers had virtually no understanding of mating habits of primates. Only in the late twentieth century were scientists able to decipher the complex role that sexual intercourse played in primate societies. Frans de Waal has brilliantly observed that chimps employ power to mediate sexual issues, while bonobos employ precisely the reverse. See Page, Inside the Animal Mind, 154.135 Allesch, “Über die drei ersten Lebensmonate eines Schimpansen,“ 674–685.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.Notes on contributorsGary BruceGary Bruce is Professor of European history at the University of Waterloo and author of several books, including most recently Through the Lion Gate: A History of the Berlin Zoo.