Project Nim

A chimpanzee infant

left with his mother is a thing, a lump.

Taken away, he acquires

human psychological test performances

which are well-nigh unbelievable.

Nim was born

at the primate centre in Oklahoma

and I went out there to get him.

I had never been near

that many chimpanzees.

It was frightening, intimidating,

and I knew Dr Lemmon and his wife

were watching me

to see what kind of a mother would I be.

Carolyn, Nim's mother,

was sitting right there holding Nim,

and she knew what was going

to happen better than I did.

She had had six of her previous babies

removed, apparently, in the same way.

When the time came

to take Nim from his mother,

she instantly took on this drama,

this feeling of

something about to happen.

And Dr Lemmon shot her

with a tranquilising gun

And then said,

"Quick, we have to get him

before she falls over and falls on him. "

She was trying to protect him

and cradle him.

So, he raced in and got Nim

and handed Nim to me

and said, "Go back. "

You know, go back in the other space.

He was very dense.

Unlike a human baby that has fat,

he was dense and hard.

He didn't struggle.

He didn't try to get away.

He just screamed.

As much as he may be screaming

and protesting, he's also clinging.

He was attaching for dear life.

Wouldn't it be exciting

to communicate with a chimp

and find out what it was thinking?

If they could be taught to articulate

what they were thinking about,

this would be an incredible expansion

of human communication,

and possibly give us some insight

into how language, in fact, did evolve.

And that's essentially

why I started Project Nim.

I don't know what

was in his mind, but he just called.

He was asking me to bring

an infant chimpanzee into my home,

raise this infant as if he were a child,

and see if he acquired language

as a function of being part of a family.

Stephanie was

a former student of mine.

She had a large family of her own

children and her husband's children,

was exceedingly empathic and warm.

A chimp could not have a better mother.

I know nothing

about chimpanzees,

and I never actually

sat down to study them

as one could have.

As I should have, perhaps.

But my appetite and my drive

to have that intimate a relationship

with an animal was...

Nothing would have stopped that.

The fact that we could share language

with an animal

seemed like a very radical possibility

at that time.

It had been known for some time

that chimps aren't able to make

the sounds of human language.

Do this, Viki.

So why not teach them sign language?

The real breakthrough would be

if, like human children, a chimpanzee

could create grammatical sentences.

So, without much preparation

and without really asking permission

of my children, my husband,

I said, "Fine, I can do it.

"I even have the funds to do it with.

We don't need to worry about money. "

And so it was launched.

The experiment was launched.

When Nim came to New York,

he was barely two weeks old.

The idea was that he would be treated,

in every way, like a human infant.

I had recently moved to

a brownstone on the Upper West Side

with my three children

and with my husband,

who had four children, Wer Lafarge.

Wer was a poet and a writer.

He redefined himself, became what,

at that time, was called a rich hippie.

A new husband, new family, new house,

and I brought Nim into

that rather turbulent situation.

It just happened.

There was no family discussion about,

"Should we? Shouldn't we?"

It was just, "Oh, we're having a chimp. "

We're going to teach it sign language.

And then the reality of it is sort of

hitting you that it's really...

You know, it's alive,

it's not a doll, it's not a toy,

it's not a human, it's a chimp

and it's an amazing, sweet little

newborn baby, needy creature, so...

I think I fell in love instantly.

Nim didn't like Wer.

And Wer didn't like him.

Almost instantly I saw how complicated

this was going to be.

I think Wer went along with it.

It was clearly Stephanie sort of saying,

"Let's have a chimp. "

It was the '70s!

I breast-fed him

for a couple of months.

It seemed completely natural.

Everything was about treating him

like a human being.

By the time I had Nim, of course,

I felt very comfortable with babies.

I wasn't prepared at all

for the wild animal in him

and the drive.

By the time he was

three months old, I think,

and starting to be ambulatory,

he was just right there,

nothing passive, nothing passive, ever.

I think he figured that he could just

get in between Wer and Stephanie

on some level.

And Wer put his arm around her,

and Nim just, you know,

half asleep, having a bottle,

turned and bit Wer on the arm

quite hard.

He didn't want Wer in the picture.

He wanted Stephanie all for himself.

Wer definitely

felt excluded.

Nim had just become part of my being.

That was incompatible

with the role that I played as wife.

"Herb's coming,

Herb's coming, Herb's coming. "

"Herb's coming" was a big deal.

I would just go over and visit,

just to see what his state was

and how he was getting along.

Herb was

infinitely exciting.

I admired his intellect and his goals

and his arrogance, all those things.

There was something that didn't

sit right with me about him.

The people that I am

the closest to, throughout my life,

are people that I have had

some period of sexual contact with.

I don't think

that the previous sexual relationship

between Herb and myself

made a difference to the project at all,

other than it was part of the glue

that allowed it to happen.

Herb didn't come very much.

He wasn't part of

the caretaking package at all.

Young newborn chimps

are always raised by their mothers,

not by their fathers.

And I didn't see any way

of trying to change...

Or any point in trying to change that.

For better or worse,

I never regarded him as a child.

I regarded him

as an intelligent, personable centre

of a scientific project.

I had an implicit faith

that Nim would learn signs.

We had to wait and see.

How do they start

teaching the child to sign?

Does the child just watch and...

Whatever. I don't know.

It was a problem. We were trying

to teach this chimp sign language

and nobody in the house

really was fluent in sign language.

We would mould his hand into

the sign for "drink", which is this,

and then give him the bottle to drink.

It just happened.

It was just amazing.

And I thought, "Piece of cake. "

I was absolutely delighted.

He picked up quite a few signs

after that rather quickly.

"Eat", "me", "Nim"

were part of his first signs.

"Hug" was another one.

And it was as if, then,

"Okay, we're off.

"Now we just got to

build up the vocabulary. "

As much as we were moulding him,

we were moulding these damn hands

and all this stuff,

he was starting to mould us.

He knew every dynamic

that was in the room, instantly.

He knew when you were upset.

Whatever had happened in,

you know, a 13-, 14-year-old's life.

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