Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
gaze was unwavering, and he directed the trackers with reserved, almost imperceptible gestures, his
quiet authority reassuring. He moved silently as we followed him into the smothering dark of the
forest, along a narrow path. When I first met him a few days before and sat down to interview him
about his work as a tracker, I was nervous. Having read Paul Raffaele's account of visiting Koko-
lopori in
Among the Great Apes
, I knew that Léonard believed Raffaele to be a sorcerer and feared
him. The topic offered no indication as to what Raffaele might have done to appear that way, but
whatever it was, I didn't want to do the same. I must have come across as excessively polite and
cautious, since Léonard later made efforts to speak to me on a number of occasions, as if to reas-
sure me. Finally, I couldn't resist asking about Paul Raffaele, and when I did, a cautious, angry look
came into Léonard's eyes. He and the others explained that Raffaele showed them a photo of him-
self holding a large snake. I knew the image; it was his topic's author photo, in which an anaconda is
wrapped around him. But for the Bongandu, nothing could be worse, as snake venom kills people,
especially children, every year. They could conceive of no reason for a man to toy with snakes in
this way, or—worse—to reveal his power to them, as if threatening them. The explanation surprised
me and made me realize how easy it is to overlook a foreign culture, to project one's own values on
another and speak before getting a sense of the person spoken to. Raffaele is an experienced travel-
er, and it's a mistake anyone could make.
The foliage on either side of the trail was nearly impenetrable, and I kept my headlamp aimed
just before my feet so as not to trip on roots or branches. It had rained all night, the first rain since
our arrival in Djolu. A nimbus of mist hung about tree trunks, and after half an hour, the sky began
to pearl, dawn infusing low clouds.
Only when we passed small slash-and-burn tracts along the path could I see the outline of tree-
tops. Often, where the dense forest had been cut away, oil palms, native to West and Central Africa,
grew in the openings. One nearly blocked the trail, its wet fronds brushing my shoulders. Then we
were back in the dense forest, mushrooms along a rotting log like a line of white disks in the dark,
vines as thick as my arms dangling from trees.
For a while, the footpath was deep and narrow, cut by years of rain, no wider than my boot, and
I had to place my feet carefully, one in front of the other, to keep from tripping. The weeds were
shoulder-high, pushing in from either side, soaking my sleeves. I had yet to put my poncho on, the
drizzle too faint to be bothersome and the heat of my body drying me.
Suddenly, a large white moth was flying just above my right shoulder, keeping pace, following
my headlamp's gauzy beam through the humid air. It fluttered off, vanished. The ground before me
dropped, descending steeply toward a stream, and when I glanced up from my feet, I had a vista of
the exposed, rising forest on the opposite slope. The trees reared up, immense, pale pillars lifting
the dark canopy high against a faintly silver sky.
When Léonard motioned us to stop, we had been walking for over an hour. We sat along a log.
Gray light filtered down. We put on our ponchos as the drizzle intensified, seeping through the can-
opy and gathering on the bottoms of branches in large drops that plummeted the distance to strike
loudly against the dead leaves of the forest floor.
Léonard told us that the bonobos had made their nests in the top of a tree bigger and higher than
the others, a dense weave of vines hanging from it, like the tangled rigging of a ship. A hundred feet
up, the trunk forked and then, higher, forked again, each branch as big as the trunks of nearby trees.
Bonobos' nests serve an important role in the rainforest ecosystem. As a group travels each day,
sometimes as many as seven miles, they consume large quantities of leaves and fruit. Almost every
