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Log Doll: Pretence in Wild Chimpanzees

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Book cover The Chimpanzees of Bossou and Nimba

Part of the book series: Primatology Monographs

Abstract

An infant chimpanzee named Jokro, who suffered from flu-like symptoms, died in 1992. Jokro was a 2.5-year-old female infant. The mother continued to carry the dead body of her deceased infant for weeks after death. The author witnessed Jokro’s decline for about 2 weeks and the mother’s care of her dead infant for about 4 weeks post death. The elder sister also took care of her younger sibling. She carried a log doll when the mother took care of the dying infant. This kind of behavior is known as “pretence.” This chapter aims to illuminate a mimetic process observed among wild chimpanzees. This tragic event also tells us about how chimpanzees perceive illness and death.

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References

  • Biro D, Humle T, Koops K, Sousa C, Hayashi M, Matsuzawa T (2010) Chimpanzee mothers at Bossou, Guinea carry the mummified remains of their dead infants. Curr Biol 20:R351–R352

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Acknowledgments

Thanks are due to Y. Sugiyama for his guidance and to J. Koman, T. Camara, and G. Goumy for their assistance in the field research. The video of Jokro’s story (19 min) may be viewed for free at: http://www.pri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/chimp/Bossou/Jokro.html. The English narration was done by Dr. Dora Biro and the French narration was done by Dr. Laura Martinez.

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Correspondence to Tetsuro Matsuzawa .

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© 2011 Springer

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Matsuzawa, T. (2011). Log Doll: Pretence in Wild Chimpanzees. In: Matsuzawa, T., Humle, T., Sugiyama, Y. (eds) The Chimpanzees of Bossou and Nimba. Primatology Monographs. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-53921-6_14

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