![]() Two more Kahama were killed, and one vanished, either killed by the Kasekela or having left the region altogether. Goliath died from his wounds the next day.Įventually, Hugh, a chimp who founded the sepratist Kahama tribe, went missing, likely killed by the Kasekela. After the attack, his murderers repeatedly drummed on tree trunks, hurled rocks, and threw branches while calling out, as if in triumph. Five Kasekela males, his former friends, turned on him. Next was old Goliath, a high ranking male back when the two chimp groups were united. The second victim was beaten to death for 20 minutes by three males. Over the next four years, more of the Kahama males were picked off in a similar manner. After 10 minutes of the whirling tornado of screeching chimps, the northerners left, leaving Godi on the forest floor to die from his injuries. ![]() The other five caught up, then bit, pounded, and stamped on Godi while he was pinned to the ground. A chimp grabbed Godi’s legs and threw him to the ground. He jumped down and ran, with the Kasekela males on his heels. The northerners approached silently Godi was not aware of their presence until it was too late. Males from the two groups would screech at each other and display their strength, before retreating back to their home territory.Īnother year passed until first blood was drawn on January 7, 1974, by a war party of six Kasekela males, who ambushed Godi, a southern male, as he was eating fruit from a tree. Two years after the split, tensions escalated further. A brother duo named Charlie and Hugh would occasionally lead a war party of six males north into enemy territory, an unambiguous display of strength to the Kasekela.Īround the same time, the northerners kept out of the area used by the breakaway group, and a borderline was formed. Over a span of eight months, the separatists, which included nine adults and their young, claimed the southern portion of Kasekela territory as their own, and formed their own clan, dubbed the Kahama. In 1971 the Kasekela tribe began to splinter, after the death of its former leader. The park is also home to a tribe of chimpanzees that Goodall named the Kasekela, and for a bloody time in the 1970s, this tribe turned the woodlands, valleys and rainforests of the park into a battlefield during the first-ever documented chimpanzee war. Famed primatologist Jane Goodall won renown here for her groundbreaking studies of the native chimpanzee population. Gombe National Park lies on the western edge of Tanzania, bordered by the vast blue expanse of Lake Tanganyika. Perhaps then, it shouldn’t be surprising that this notion was challenged by our closest living relatives. Sure, other animals might occasionally scuffle over food, territory and other resources, but true war in the anthropomorphic sense, intact with all its violence, brutality and tribalism, was thought to be a unique component of human nature. For centuries, it was long accepted that humans were the only creatures complex enough to wage war. ![]()
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