“The midwife’s tale begins with a simple constraint. Large-brained, bipedal hominids cannot exist without assisted childbirth. To pass a large-brained fetus through a narrow pelvic opening, especially the first time she tries to do it, a hominid mother needs help. Neither she nor her child will survive without it. Assisted childbirth allowed mother and infant to survive, and their hominid descendents to evolve. The unique human anatomical syndrome of large brain and narrow pelvis adapted to upright walking evolved in the context of assisted childbirth, as did speech and language. Assisted childbirth evolved in the context of mutual grooming. Midwifery, in a way, is a specialized, elaborated case of mutual grooming” (Strickland 2007: 31).

“Schematically, mutual grooming consists of two components: a manual component and an oral component. The technical skills required for midwifery evolved out of the manual component of grooming; speech evolved out of the oral component. For the sake of argument, the midwife’s tale calls the oral component of mutual grooming the lipsmack, and the manual component, the handpick. Lipsmack and handpick are the primitive features of grooming, shared by all nonhuman primates. In hominids, the derived homologues of these two features are speech and the technical skills required for assisted childirth. In other words, the lipsmack evolved into speech; the handpick, into assisted childbirth. Assisted childbirth breaks the anatomical constraints of bipedalism, allowing a large brain — filled with all things human — to evolve. In humans, language and manual skills are so closely tied together because both evolved out of the oral and manual components of mutual grooming within the context of assisted childbirth” (ibid.).

In February 2007, living in Monteverde, Costa Rica, with Rebekah, I tried to arrange some two decades of scattered thoughts about the origin and evolution of language into some sort of coherent text entitled, alternatively, “The Midwife’s Hypothesis: Assisted Childbirth and the Origins of Language,” or, “The Midwife’s Tale: Assisted Childbirth and the Origin of Language,” the theme, or “argument,” of which I summarized as follows (§ 1):

About ten years earlier, not long after returning from Paris to Philadelphia with Janine in late June 1997, I read Robin Dunbar’s Grooming, gossip and the evolution of language, eagerly expecting to find in that book a detailed theory of how a widespread primate facial gesture associated with affiliation, grooming, and intimate social contact — the lipsmack, the often repetitive cyclic structure of which is similar to the syllabic repetitions of speech — could have evolved into human language. I was disappointed, however, to find the lipsmack mentioned only once, its theoretical implications left undeveloped despite occurring in Dunbar’s vivid, tender description of just the sort of ontogenetically charged social context I expected the author to further elaborate the phylogenetic potentials of, i.e., that of a baboon grandmother, Persephone, grunting to initiate, and then lipsmacking while grooming her primiparous daughter, Jojo, and Jojo’s newborn infant (§ 3):

“Take, for instance, Jojo, who has just given birth to her first offspring. She cradles it in her arms, at once puzzled by this strange, wet thing and unsure what she should do. Already alert, the baby struggles to turn its head, as though surprised by the unfamiliar sights and sounds that surround it. They are not alone for long. Jojo’s mother, Persephone, comes across. She peers down at the baby, sniffs it tentatively, and reaches out a hand to touch its rump. Persephone gives a quiet grunt and begins to groom Jojo, leafing through her fur, busying herself with the rituals of social interaction. But she cannot take her mind off the baby and keeps pausing to reach down and groom its head briefly, making smacking noises with her tongue and lips as she does so” (Dunbar 1996: 2; emphasis added).

So, while Dunbar’s (1996) theory indeed posits “that language evolved as a kind of vocal grooming” (78), he almost completely overlooks the specific forms of close-up facial communicative gestures and vocalizations actually used during grooming — the grunt and lipsmack, barely remarked in passing — and instead has language more abstractly evolve out of generic “conventional contact calls so characteristic of the advanced Old World monkeys and apes” (115), calls which are not used during grooming at all, even though, yes, one readily concedes that “contact calling functions as a kind of grooming-at-a-distance” (115). If language is, indeed, “a kind of vocal grooming” — which I agree, it is — then is it not more parsimonious to simply posit that language evolved out of the modes of communication actually used during grooming and other close-up interactions?

But language is also a kind of vocal attack, a means of hurting without making contact.

“One day, a young female [gelada] was attacked by her harem male for straying too far away from the rest of the group. He stood over her, threatening and grinding his teeth in high dudgeon. The female’s mother was feeding about five yards away at the time. She looked up the moment the commotion started, but made no effort to intervene. Eventually, his point made, the male turned and stalked off to start feeding a few yards away. As the victim walked disconsolately back towards the rest of the group, her mother called to her with a soft grunt. The victim at once turned and walked over to her mother, who then began to groom her” (Dunbar 1996: 25–26; emphasis added).

Grooming is caring for each other. Both midwifery and medicine, including that performed by "medicine men," are forms of caring for each other.

“Joan Silk, Dorothy Cheney and Robert Seyfarth have recently reported vocal forms of reconciliation, similar to those just described in the gelada, in chacma baboons inhabiting the Okavango swamps of Botswana. They found that dominant females will give conciliatory grunts when approaching lower-ranking females with whom they want to interact. More importantly, they are more likely to grunt before approaching a female they have threatened earlier than one they haven’t” (Dunbar 1996: 26).

As studies of the close-up vocal communications of non-human primates become more refined, we learn that there is much more there than simply expression of emotions or group members to maintain contact. • Monkeys and apes have language. The question then becomes, not how human language evolved from "contact calls," or how human language is unique, but how can we learn the languages of monkeys and apes; and what are the homologies between human language and non-human primate language? • Monkeys and apes give birth in the presence of other group members, both male and female, but typically female, and some even seem to "assist" in the birth process. • Bonobos seem to be born occiput posterior; chimpanzees both occiput posterior and occiput anterior, possibly with rotation, as in humans. • Human mothers, once the shoulders of the infant have been delivered, are able to reach down and, in the manner of bonobos, pull the infant out and onto themselves, as 29 out of a sample of 100 women were observed to do (Trevathan 1987: 162).

“Schematically, mutual grooming consists of two components: a manual component and an oral component. The technical skills required for midwifery evolved out of the manual component of grooming; speech evolved out of the oral component. For the sake of argument, the midwife’s tale calls the oral component of mutual grooming the lipsmack, and the manual component, the handpick. Lipsmack and handpick are the primitive features of grooming, shared by all nonhuman primates. In hominids, the derived homologues of these two features are speech and the technical skills required for assisted childirth. In other words, the lipsmack evolved into speech; the handpick, into assisted childbirth. Assisted childbirth breaks the anatomical constraints of bipedalism, allowing a large brain—filled with all things human—to evolve. In humans, language and manual skills are so closely tied together because both evolved out of the oral and manual components of mutual grooming within the context of assisted childbirth.”

At every "stage" in its life, the animal is adapted, or shows adaptions to the environment at a given stage of is development. We have large brains in order that they may be eaten. Sacrifice of the first born — selection for large-brained infants: not "natural," but human selection for food, nutritional value of high-energy brain!!??!! • first-born lower survival rate? due to inexperience of mother, as well as more brain damage during birth as the mother has not yet been opened? • hence need to "open" women as among Australian Aborigines : introcision or use of olisbos plus gang-rape by classificatory relatives before being given to husband (male complement is circumcision and subincision — ritual/cultural practice not "stolen" from women, nor necessarily symptom of vagina envy — but the male complement of female practice) (prevalence of microliths in archaeological record: evidence of introcision/subincision? areas sans microliths are areas with "Venus-figurines," i.e., olisboi? • such episiotomies à l'avance, as it were, render sacrifice of first-born unnecessary, increase survival rates of mother and infant?

We have large brains in order to provide padding during the birth process. We have large brains in order to perform all the things newborns do, and infants do, and so on. We have large brains in order to survive infections.

Early in Robin Dunbar’s Grooming, gossip and the evolution of language (1996), there is a particularly vivid, tender description of a baboon mother

Jojo, who has just given birth to her first offspring. She cradles it in her arms, at once puzzled by this strange, wet thing and unsure what she should do. Already alert, the baby struggles to turn its head, as though surprised by the unfamiliar sights and sounds that surround it. They are not alone for long. Jojo’s mother, Persephone, comes across. She peers down at the baby, sniffs it tentatively, and reaches out a hand to touch its rump. Persephone gives a quiet grunt and begins to groom Jojo, leafing through her fur, busying herself with the rituals of social interaction. But she cannot take her mind off the baby and keeps pausing to reach down and groom its head briefly, making smacking noises with her tongue and lips as she does so (Dunbar 1996: 2).

These "smacking noises" involving lips and tongue are known as lipsmacks,

communicating and gr of just the sort of ontogenetically charged social context I expected the author to further elaborate the phylogenetic potentials thereof, i.e., that of a baboon grandmother, Persephone, grunting to initiate, and then lipsmacking while grooming her primiparous daughter, Jojo, and Jojo’s newborn infant: eagerly expecting to find therein a detailed theory of how a widespread primate facial gesture associated with affiliation, grooming, and intimate social contact — the lipsmack, the often repetitive structure of which is similar to the syllabic repetitions of speech — could have evolved into human language. I was disappointed, however, to find the lipsmack mentioned only once, its theoretical implications left undeveloped despite occurring in Dunbar’s

since despite remarking in passing two vocalizations and associated with close-up grooming, states that language "has its origins in the conventional contact calls so characteristic of the advanced Old World monkeys and apes opts instead tries to derive language from vocalizations typically associated, not with grooming at all, but its exact opposite, despite the title of his book, instead of exploring — but with typically associated with contexts the sort of convoluted deploys a argument which Language as vocal grooming — yes: but not derived from long-distance contact calls! Other primates are already vocalizing while grooming; are of an idea I first began toying with In the spring of 1989 I was taking a graduate course in phonology and phonetics with Peter MacNeilage at the University of Texas, Austin. , I think, that the lipsmack

Medicine Women

“Certain women of outstanding intellectual ability were admitted to the esoteric knowledge of native-doctors. A woman of this type, if associated from an early age with a close relative who possessed the ‘power,’ and who was willing to guide and train her, became a ‘clever’ woman; she would not however have the full ‘power’ and control over magical phenomena, as would her male associates. Her duties would be confined mainly to the carrying out of some methods of curative magic, midwifery, divination, love magic, and the foretelling of future events, as well as — by reason of her psychic powers — the instantaneous knowledge of distant events” (Berndt 1947: 331).

“In the Crow and Robin Red Breast myth, the Wood-pecker magically ‘sung’ a tree to come down low, within easy reach of his arm, so that he could rescue the children of the two wives of Robin Red Breast, who had been seduced by Crow after the latter had speared their husband. Prior to this, the two women, who were ‘clever,’ and possessed a certain amount of magical ‘power,’ had used as a decoy their excreta, which talked to Crow while they themselves endeavoured to escape his vigilance” (Berndt 1947: 330). Is the “excreta” menstrual or birth fluid? Or feces/urine?

Birthworks

Observations on parturition in a variety of primates; pelvic anatomy; bipedalism.

Handskills

What primates do with their hands during ditto as well as grooming.

Mouthsigns

What primates do with their mouths during ditto; emotive facial gestures; lipsmack.

Bloodcodes

Menstruation; birthblood; cervical plug; placenta; lochia; vernix caseosa; red ochre and grease.

Matrilines

Female process of production.

Dialectics

Symbolization; totem; taboo; transgression.

Ideologies

Patriarchal appropriation; despotic potentials; territories (?).

Alienation

Socio-symbolic complexity and economic simplicity versus economic complexity and universal prostitution/alienation; combinatorics and sharing.

Mitologías

Language is an institution; mythologies; cosmologies; todo es libre.

References

List of works consulted.