§ 4 Psychology of the Hunting-pack
Possibly our ape-like ancestor was more sociable than any of the anthropoids; but sociability in ape-life would in no way account for our present character as men: nothing accounts for it, except the early formation of the hunting-pack. Since, however, we can know nothing of that institution directly, we must try to learn something about it from the parallel case of dogs and wolves. Galton remarks how readily the proceedings of man and dog “are intelligible to one another. Every whine or bark of the dog, each of his fawning, savage, or timorous movements is the exact counterpart of what would have been the man’s behaviour, had he felt similar emotions. As the man understands the thoughts of the dog, so the dog understands the thoughts of the man, by attending to his natural voice, his countenance, and his actions.”37 No more, if as much, could be said of the terms upon which we stand with a tame chimpanzee, in spite of greater physical and facial resemblance and nearer kinship. What can connect us so closely in mind with an animal so remote from us in lineage and anatomy as the dog is? Adaptation to the same social conditions, the life of the hunting-pack.
(1) The master-interest of every member of the pack lies in the chase, because success in it is necessary to life. To show how this passion actuates ourselves, I quote Mr. F. C. Selous; who, during an expedition in Canada, roused a caribou stag within twenty yards, saw “the dreadful terror” in his eyes, and shot him. “Did I feel sorry for what I had done? it may be asked. Well! no, I did not. Ten thousand years of superficial and unsatisfying civilisation have not altered the fundamental nature of man, and the successful hunter of to-day becomes a primeval savage, remorseless, triumphant, full of a wild, exultant joy, which none but those who have lived in the wilderness, and depended on their success as hunters for their daily food, can ever know or comprehend.”38 To the hunter my paradox must seem a truism. And that the hunter temporarily released from civilised restraints, who suffers such intoxication, merely renews old savage raptures is shown by the following curious parallel: a Bushman, returning from a successful hunt to the wagons of the traveller Baines—“Behold me!” he shouted, “the hunter! Yea, look on me, the killer of elephants and mighty bulls! Behold me, the big elephant, the lion! Look on me, ye Damaras and Makalaka; admire and confess that I am a great Bull-calf.”39
Again, since the interest of the chase culminates in the kill—for this is the condition of making a meal—to kill becomes, in some predatory animals, a passion that is often gratified without regard to their needs. Wolves often slay many more sheep than they devour: a sheep-dog that undergoes reversion kills by night the sheep on neighbouring farms without any call of hunger; and, says Mr. Thompson Seton (writing of the natives of North Canada), “the mania for killing that is seen in so many white men, is evidently a relic of savagery; for all these Indians and half-breeds are full of it.”40 They fired at everything they saw. The manners of my own pack—now long dispersed—were very similar to the Indians’; and the sport of pigeon- or of pheasant-shooting has been reduced to its last element—skilful slaying.
The disposition to slay is reinforced, when prey makes serious resistance, by anger; and generally by a distinct tendency, sometimes called “destructiveness,” perhaps a latent character derived from the monkeys, and which I take to be partly a play-impulse and partly an expression of curiosity.
(2) The gregariousness of the pack is variable; probably, amongst wolves, it was much greater anciently than it is to-day. There are conflicting statements about the gregariousness of wolves that have been studied in different countries. Couteulx de Canteleu (France) says: “The wolf is an enemy of all society; when they assemble it is not a pacific society, but a band of brigands.”41 Thompson Seton (Canada) says: “Wolves are the most sociable of beasts of prey; they arrange to render one another assistance. A pack seems to be an association of personal acquaintances, and would resent the presence of a total stranger.”42 Gregariousness of wolves must be reduced by failure of game (as by the destruction of bison in North America), and still more by the encroachments of civilisation (as in France). The primitive human pack, probably, was more constantly gregarious than wolves are: (a) because its individuals, having no instinctive or traditionary knowledge of hunting, were more dependent on co-operation; and (b) because the long youth of children made it necessary for parents to associate with the pack during their nurture—else no pack could have existed; for whilst wolves are nearly full-grown at eighteen months, apes are not mature until the eighth or ninth year. At a later period, after the invention of effective weapons, an individual became, for many kinds of game, less dependent on co-operation; but by that time, the hunting-grounds of a pack were circumscribed by those of other hostile packs; so that no one dared go far alone.
(3) With gregariousness went, of course, (a) perceptive sympathy—every animal read instantly in the behaviour of others their feelings and impulses; (b) contagious sympathy—the impulses of any animal, expressed in its behaviour, spread rapidly to all the rest; and (c) effective sympathy, so far (at least) as that all united to defend any associate against aggression from outside the pack. Perceptive and contagious sympathy, however, extend beyond the limits of the pack or the species. Most of the higher mammalia can read the state of mind of others, though of widely different kinds, in their expression and behaviour; and many are liable to have their actions immediately affected by signs of the emotional impulses of others, especially fear. These modes of sympathy, therefore, though liveliest amongst gregarious animals, are not dependent on specific gregariousness.
(4) The pack has a disposition to aggression upon every sort of animal outside the pack, either as prey or as a competitor for prey: limited no doubt by what we should call considerations of prudence or utility; which must vary with the size of the pack, the prowess of its individuals, the possession of weapons, etc. After the invention of weapons and snares, many savage tribes can kill every sort of animal in their habitat, as the palæolithic Europeans did many thousands of years ago. From the outset the human pack must have come into competition with the true carnivores, must have defended itself against them, may have discovered that attack was the safest defence, and may have been victorious even without weapons. Mr. G. P. Sanderson writes: “It is universally believed by the natives (of South India) that the tiger is occasionally killed by packs of wild dogs.... From what I have seen of their style of hunting, and of their power of tearing and lacerating, I think there can be no doubt of their ability to kill a tiger.... Causes of hostility may occasionally arise between the tiger and wild dogs through attempted interference with each other’s prey.”43
(5) A hunting-pack, probably, always claims a certain territory. This is the first ground of the sense of property, so strongly shown by domestic dogs: the territorial claims of the half-wild dogs of Constantinople are well known. To nourish a pack the hunting-grounds must be extensive. Mr. Thompson Seton says that in Canada the wolf has a permanent home-district and a range of about fifty miles.44 Very many generations must have elapsed before the deviation of our forebears from anthropoid habits resulted in the formation of so many packs as to necessitate the practical delimitation of hunting-grounds. Then the aggressiveness of the pack turned upon strangers of its own species; the first wars arose, and perhaps cannibalism on the part of the victors. It is certain that, in North America, wolves kill and eat foxes, dogs, coyotes; and it is generally believed that wolves will eat a disabled companion; though, according to Mr. W. H. Hudson, a wolf will only eat another when it has killed that other, and then only as the carrying out of the instinct to eat whatever it has killed.45 It may be so.
(6) A pack must have a leader, and must devotedly follow him as long as he is manifestly the best of the pack; and here we have a rudimentary loyalty.
(7) Every individual must be subservient to the pack, as long as it works together; and this seems to be the ground of the “instinct of self-abasement” (McDougall), so far as the attitudes involved in such subserviency are due to a distinct emotional impulse, and are not rather expressive of fear or of devotion.
(8) The members of the pack must be full of emulation; in order that, when the present leader fails, others may be ready to take his place.
(9) For the internal cohesion of the pack, there must be the equivalent of a recognised table of precedence amongst its members; and this is reconciled with the spirit of emulation, by fighting until each knows his place, followed by complete submission on the part of the inferior. Mr. Th. Roosevelt says of a pack of dogs employed in bear-hunting, “at feeding-time each took whatever his strength permitted, and each paid abject deference to whichever animal was his known superior in prowess.”46 Mr. W. H. Hudson writes of dogs on cattle-breeding establishments on the pampas, that he presumes “they are very much like feral dogs and wolves in their habits. Their quarrels are incessant; but when a fight begins the head of the pack, as a rule, rushes to the spot,” and tries to part the combatants—not always successfully. “But from the foremost in strength and power down to the weakest there is a gradation of authority; each one knows just how far he can go, which companion he can bully when in a bad temper or wishing to assert himself, and to which he must humbly yield in his turn.”47 The situation reminds one of a houseful of schoolboys, and of how ontogeny repeats phylogeny. Where political control is very feeble, as in mining camps or backwoods settlements, civilised men revert to the same conditions. Fifty years ago, “all along the frontier between Canada and the United States, every one knew whom he could lick, and who could lick him.”48 Amongst Australian aborigines, we are told that “precedence counts for very much.”49
(10) A pack of wolves relies not merely upon running down its prey, but resorts to various stratagems to secure it: as by surrounding it; heading it off from cover; driving it over a precipice; arranging relays of pursuers, who take up the chase when the first begin to flag; setting some to lie in ambush while the rest drive the prey in their direction. Such devices imply intelligent co-operation, some means of communicating ideas, patience and self-control in the interests of the pack and perseverance in carrying out a plan. Failure to co-operate effectually is said to be punished with death. Primitive man, beginning with more brains than a wolf, may be supposed soon to have discovered such arts and to have improved upon them.
(11) When prey has been killed by a pack of wolves, there follows a greedy struggle over the carcass, each trying to get as big a meal as possible. Mr. Th. Roosevelt writes of dogs used in hunting the cougar (puma): “The relations of the pack amongst themselves (when feeding) were those of wild beast selfishness.... They would all unite in the chase and the fierce struggle which usually closed it. But the instant the quarry was killed, each dog resumed his normal attitude of greedy anger or greedy fear toward the others.”50 As this was a scratch pack of hounds, however, we cannot perhaps infer that a naturally formed pack of wolves is equally discordant, or that the human pack was ever normally like that. Galton, indeed, says: “Many savages are so unamiable and morose as to have hardly any object in associating together, besides that of mutual support;”51 but this is by no means true of all savages. At any rate, the steadier supply of food obtained by our race since the adoption of pastoral or agricultural economy, with other circumstances, has greatly modified the greedy and morose attitude in many men and disguised it in others; though it reappears under conditions of extreme social dislocation, and it is a proverb that “thieves quarrel over their plunder.” In the original pack such a struggle over the prey may have subserved the important utility of eliminating the weak, and of raising the average strength and ferocity. But some custom must have been established for feeding the women and children. No doubt when fruits were obtainable, the women and children largely subsisted upon them. But the strong instinct of parental care in Primates, the long youth of children, and the greater relative inferiority of females to males (common to anthropoids and savages) than is found amongst dogs and wolves, must have made the human pack from the first differ in many ways from a pack of wolves.
So much, then, as to the traits of character established in primitive man by his having resorted to co-operative hunting: they all plainly persist in ourselves.
On our intelligence life in the hunting-pack had just as revolutionary an influence, as already explained in the first chapter. The whole art of hunting had to be learned from its rudiments by this enterprising family. With them there was no inherited instinct or disposition, and no tradition or instruction, as there is with the true carnivores: they depended solely on observation, memory, inference. With poor olfactory sense (as usual in apes) prey must be followed and inconvenient enemies outwitted, by acquiring a knowledge of their footprints and other visible signs of neighbourhood, and by discrimination of all the noises they make. The habits and manners of prey and of enemies, their favourite lairs, feeding-grounds and watering-places, their paths through forest, marsh, thicket and high grass, must all be learnt: so must their speed, endurance, means and methods of attack and defence. The whole country within the range of the pack must be known, its resources and its difficulties; and whenever new territory was entered, new lessons in all these matters had to be learned. This must have entailed a rapid natural selection of brains. Only a rapidly developing, plastic brain could have been capable of the requisite accommodation of behaviour in such conditions: a mechanism was required by which more and more new lines of specialised reaction were related to numerous newly observed and discriminated facts.
The very crudest weapons may be handled with variable dexterity; the best handling must be discovered and practised; and this had a high selective value for the hands as well as for the brain. Probably crude weapons were very early used; for some monkeys (and baboons generally) throw sticks or stones, or roll stones down upon an enemy. In Borneo, Wallace came upon a female orang who, “as soon as she saw us, began breaking off branches and the great spiny fruits [of the durian] with every appearance of rage, causing such a shower of missiles as effectually kept us from approaching too near the tree. This habit of throwing down branches has been doubted; but I have, as here narrated, observed it myself on three separate occasions.”52 The importance of the observation consists in its proving the existence in an anthropoid of the impulse to use missiles under the occasional stress of anger; so that it might be expected rapidly to develop under the constant pressure of hunger. The use of clubs and stones induced the discrimination of the best materials for such weapons, and where they could be found; and, in process of time, brought in a rough shaping of them, the better to serve their purposes. Then came the invention of snares and pitfalls and the discovery of poisons.
Thus the primitive human, or prehuman mind, was active in many new directions; and depending for its skill, not upon instinct or imitation, but upon observation and memory and inference, it was necessary for it to arrange ideas in a definite order before acting upon them, as in making weapons or planning a hunt; indefiniteness or confusion in such matters was fatal. The contrast between growing memory of the past and present experience, between practical ideas and the actions realising them that had been suspended until the right moment came, furthered the differentiation of self-consciousness amidst the world; the contrasts of co-operation and greed, of emulation and loyalty and submission, of honour and shame, furthered the differentiation of self-consciousness amidst the tribe.
If it be asked—how much of all this development attributed to the hunting-pack might have been brought about just as well by the formation of a defensive herd, such as we see in cattle and horses?—a definite answer can be given. The herd is, of course, marked by (2) gregariousness, (3) perceptive and contagious sympathy and sometimes effective sympathy in common defence, (7) recognition of leaders (all herds that travel have leaders), (8) emulation, (9) precedence; but not by (1) interest in the chase and in killing, nor (4) aggressiveness, nor (10) strategy and perseverance in attack, nor (11) greed; and herd-life affords no conditions for the development of intelligence and dexterity, nor for any of the physical characters that distinguish man. Herd-life does not involve the great and decisive change which is implied in the evolution of human nature. We must conceive, then, of the primitive human mind as a sort of chimpanzee mind adapted to the wolfish conditions of the hunting-pack. Wolves themselves have undergone no great development, compared (say) with cats, for want of hands and other physical advantages which we had to begin with. If some species of baboon had taken to the hunting-life, there might have been very interesting results.