Bush Meat

1. A few facts

You live in the lush arboreal forest where your species evolved.
You live in the canopy inside a single bend in a great river
nursing at the breast until five years old
& with nothing but a lifetime of naps, casual sex, and lifelong
friendship to which to look forward.

Unless your more warlike cousins the Chimps show up.
Then you duck the nuts rocks & fruit they throw, but they
seem to have the sense not to try
to take your tree or eat you.

And then again, there are, of course, your more distant cousins, the humans, who
have no sense whatsoever.
They respect your territory no more than anyone else’s.
And they will eat you. In fact do.

All is not entirely, always, well, even in your own world, even
without the Chimps and the humans.
If your influential mother dies, yr in for tough times, the other
kids will pick on you, bite your hand, but
then some other kids will come
‘round & check it out, lick it,
show you sympathy.

In that regard, you are more like a human than a Chimp.
(Humans being known for their profound sympathy for the suffering of other creatures.)
(Chimps being obvious natural born killers, which distinguishes them from humans.)

The bonobos seem to have learned things from the gorillas, who, in earlier days
shook food freely down at them from trees.
After the humans killed the gorillas this stopped happening.

But the bonobos had learned to do it their way, and
occasionally, when the humans weren’t killing each other & eating Chimps
a little food still fell like manna.

When it hit the ground the humans took it. Fortunately,
Bonobo culture had by then developed other food gathering mechanisms.

2. A few quotes

“Bonobos call loudly to each other when they bed down for the night and this makes them easy targets.”

(It should be pointed out that Bonobos don’t make those noises during sex,they
have casual sex all day, they make those noises when they want a little rest.)

“In a starving country forest animals are destined for the pot.”

Humans have a thing called war, a highly ritualized form of Chimp quarrel.

“A new bonobo study will bring badly needed cash to the community.”

When they are shooting and eating you you better learn your country, where
to run and hide, hide your mate young & community how
to steer clear of Chimps & humans. Gorillas would
probably be OK. If there were any.

“It would be hard to be a Bonobo in an urban environment.”

One-third got killed in their own country during the war, when
they had it a little worse than the humans in Baghdad . . .
(at this writing, stay tuned . . .)