He stared at me balefully from the shadows. “Go away,” he snarled. “Just go away and leave me alone.”
I went away and left him alone.
5
I hadn’t planned for this—or for anything at all, in fact—so I didn’t know what to do. I checked into the cheapest motel I could find and went out for a steak and a couple of drinks to think things over. By nine o’clock, I hadn’t made any progress, so I went back to the carnival to see what was going on out there. I was in luck, of sorts—a cold front was moving in, and a nasty light rain was sending the merrymakers home with their spirits dampened.
Do you suppose they’re still called roustabouts? I didn’t ask the one I found closing down the sideshow tent. He looked to be about eighty, and I offered him a ten for the privilege of communing with nature for a while in the person of the gorilla who was no more Gargantua than I was. He didn’t appear to consider any of the ethical aspects of the matter but distinctly sneered at the size of the bribe. I added another ten, and he left a light burning by the cage when he hobbled off. There were folding chairs set up on several of the performers’ stages, and I dragged one over and sat down.
Ishmael gazed down at me for a few minutes and then asked where we had left off.
“You’d just finished showing me that the story in Genesis that begins with the Fall of Adam and ends with the murder of Abel is not what it’s conventionally understood to be by the people of my culture. It’s the story of our agricultural revolution as told by some of the earliest victims of that revolution.”
“And what remains, do you think?”
“I don’t know. Maybe what remains is to bring it all together for me. I don’t know what it all adds up to yet.”
“Yes, I agree. Let me think for a bit.”
6
“What exactly is culture?” Ishmael asked at last. “As the word is commonly used, not in the special sense we’ve given it for the purposes of these conversations.”
It seemed like a hell of a question to ask someone sitting in a carnival sideshow tent, but I did my best to give it some thought. “I’d say it’s the sum total of everything that makes a people a people.”
He nodded. “And how does that sum total come into existence?”
“I’m not sure what you’re getting at. It comes into existence by people living.”
“Yes, but sparrows live, and they don’t have a culture.”
“Okay, I see what you mean. It’s an accumulation. The sum total is an accumulation.”
“What you’re not telling me is how the accumulation comes into being.”
“Oh, I see. Okay. The accumulation is the sum total that is passed from one generation to the next. It comes into being when … When a species attains a certain order of intelligence, the members of one generation begin to pass along information and techniques to the next. The next generation takes this accumulation, adds its own discoveries and refinements, and passes the total on to the next.”
“And this accumulation is what is called culture.”
“Yes, I’d say so.”
“It’s the sum total of what’s passed along, of course, not just information and techniques. It’s beliefs, assumptions, theories, customs, legends, songs, stories, dances, jokes, superstitions, prejudices, tastes, attitudes. Everything.”
“That’s right.”
“Oddly enough, the order of intelligence needed for the accumulation to begin is not terribly high. Chimpanzees in the wild are already passing along tool-making and tool-using behaviors to their young. I see that this surprises you.”
“No. Well … I guess I’m surprised that you cite chimpanzees.”
“Instead of gorillas?”
“That’s right.”
Ishmael frowned. “To tell the truth, I have deliberately avoided all field studies of gorilla life. It is a subject I find I do not care to explore.”
I nodded, feeling stupid.
“In any case, if chimpanzees have already begun to accumulate knowledge about what works well for chimpanzees, when do you suppose people began to accumulate knowledge about what works well for people?”