Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
even as André received her, he again had to explain gracefully to the chiefs why they shouldn't do
this.
He named the bonobo Henriette, after his sister. He and his wife washed and fed her, amazed
at how affectionate the tiny creature was, clinging to them, looking in their eyes the way their own
children did. He told his wife about the Lola ya Bonobo sanctuary in Kinshasa, which he knew
about from Pierre Kakule, but with the war he couldn't take the bonobo there. They decided to raise
her, feeding her, speaking to her, letting her be part of their family.
He was amazed how quickly she learned from them, following in their daily rituals. But she
was a baby, and housebreaking her would take some time. One afternoon, when he was on duty,
Henriette went into the sleeping quarters of the household's military guards. André had told them to
keep their door shut since Henriette liked to explore. Inside, she defecated on the bed of Kokongo,
a severe man who, when he saw what she had done, beat her to death with a stick.
André came home a few days later, and when his wife told him, he could hardly breathe. He
learned that the guards had given Henriette to the neighbors, who had begged for the carcass and
eaten it. André wanted to punish Kokongo, to punish all of them, but this would achieve nothing.
He sat the men down, and, barely able to control his fury, he said, “You have just killed our national
symbol.”
The men struggled to understand, and André explained—the rarity of bonobos, that they lived
only in the Congo, that they were intelligent and capable of emotions like humans. He repeated de-
tails that Pierre Kakule had told him, how bonobos gave birth only every five years, how they built
their homes in trees and lived in complex social groups.
Afterward, André considered what else he could do to educate people. Henriette was the gentlest
individual he had ever known. He'd seen so much war, so much death, and the idea of a creature
who didn't kill made him wonder how humans could lose themselves so deeply in violence. Could
people live similarly, resolving disputes without murder? Why shouldn't humans make peace like
bonobos, he asked himself. Why shouldn't this be their credo?
He decided to found Action Communautaire pour la Protection des Primates de Kasai
(ACOPRIK). He spoke to those who'd thought he was crazy, the governor and other powerful men
in the region. He asked them to join and support his project, and they did, listening to him—a man
whose conviction they had come to respect, if only because it could not be swayed—as he promised
that conservation would be the future of Sankuru.
