A bit about baboons

Our family lived on the slopes of Kenya’s Mt Elgon, whose square peak lies in Uganda.  A couple of miles’ jog-trot from our house, the scrub and swamp and sky-high grass, would bring one to the cliffs.

They were big cliffs, ravined with dense forest, splashed with streams, roped with strangler-figs, where the superbly marked forest leopards lounged all day, studying the habits and economy of the farms below.  Here, too, the massive hill baboons strode arrogantly or sat, inscrutable, their hands hanging over their knees.

In that isolated region, hundreds of miles from museums and reference books, farmers and hunters often had their own names for the wildlife they encountered.  They would speak of “hill baboons” and “forest baboons” as if they were different species, and perhaps they were.  There may have been some geographical overlapping of the great Olive baboon (Papio anubis) and the more slender Yellow baboon (Papio cynocephalus) from further south; unless the forest baboon was but an arboreal race of P. anubis.

The forest baboons did seem to be lighter-boned than the hill-dwellers, the guard hairs of their coats green-grey rather than brown-grey.  Perhaps because of the lush cover of their equatorial habitat made them difficult to find and therefore less persecuted, they were not as savage nor as resourceful, I think, as the hill baboons.  It is the latter I recall.

I used to sit for hours up on the cliffs, time being nothing to a ten or twelve year old, watching my favourite troop go about their business.  Life was fairly peaceful for them at that time as most of our men were away with the war. (The Second World War, dear; don’t be catty.)  I was too stupid to be afraid of them.  To me they were just mammals, to be treated with a certain respect like anybody’s mother or father, and they were used to me too, though I doubt if there was a split second, ever, when several were not watching me.

Many references place the weight of an adult male baboon as “up to 90 lbs”.  I can well believe it.  Huge and heavy-shouldered the males lorded the troop with swift cuffs and barking comments.  Only the very young were allowed familiarities and they could be more gentle with these tinies than the mothers.  I wasn’t fooled.  I had seen those same baby-fondling hands hurl boulders – more often than not right-handed – with frightening force and accuracy at something that threatened them – boulders that I could barely lift at all, let alone throw beyond my toes.

I wasn’t greatly concerned with the adults, however.  It was those of my own, comparative, age-group that fascinated me.  What wild games they worked up – pulling each others’ tails at moments of most dangerous and precarious balance; racing past some crusty old male within inches of reach; teasing snakes to infuriation; and running endless games of tag up and down the precipices.

In quieter moments they would sometimes sit in a rough circle in a place where there were pebbles or loose stones.  One would deliberately turn over a pebble, intensely watched by the others.  Then they would each focus on the pebbles nearest to them until another baboon turned one over.  This might go on for some time, each baboon turning only those closest to him, his eyes constantly flashing to the faces of his companions, ever watchful for the lifted brows and colouring lids denoting anger.

Sometimes one would suddenly leap backwards with a squall of fury, like a cowboy at a poker game leaping up to pull his six-gun on a cheat.  The game might then turn into rowdy swearing contest, the angriest going through the motions of picking up stones, though I have never in my life seen a baboon actually throw a stone at another.  More often it would dissolve into a genuine grub hunt or a mutual grooming session.

I can’t remember quite when I thought to join them, nor the first time that I did so.  Higher up the mountain, on my uncle’s farm, I had seen grubby little herd-boys playing with young baboons and thought nothing much of it.  And I had approached “my” troop before once or twice in an effort to rescue the young dassies they sometimes found and carted around with them, with rough gentleness, until the poor little things died of starvation.

In spite of my excellent manners – walk on all fours like a good baboon, avoid the grown-ups, keep eyes politely averted, at the least sign of animosity put cheek to the ground – the adults didn’t like me playing with their children.  But the children (safely out of reach) probably considered themselves too agile to be caught by their fathers, too old to listen to their mothers, occupied as the latter ere with new babies.

I tried without success to find a pattern to their pebble-turning game, which probably stemmed from serious insect hunting.  The Africans said they were playing dama (or tsoro). I quickly got fed up and played only a few times.

I wish now that I had taken it all so much for granted.  I wish I had noted more carefully of only little males, as I supposed, threw those seemingly uncontrollable fits of fury, indulged in the really dangerous games; if more males than females defied the less serious warnings of their elders and at what age discretion prevailed.  I wish I had more positively studied the adults’ behaviour – found out, for example, how they decide who will be sentry.

I wish I had known how short was my time with them.  Because one school holiday, all unprepared I reached the age of puberty and my troop would no longer let me near them.