Somewhere between present day Uganda and Rwanda in the Albertine Rift Mountains, lived a stable and orderly family of mountain gorillas; let’s call them the Smokey Family. The family consisted of the silver-backed male leader called Hokey who stood at 1.72m tall, weighed about 200kg and had an arm span of 2.5m; three other male gorillas, two younger brothers, Korkey and Porky, with ambition to take over from Hokey when the opportunity presented itself; with a third brother called Kokey, who used to be the leader but was vanquished by Hokey in a violent fight that left Kokey permanently lame and a much weaker silverback who was allowed to remain with the family by the grace and favour of the new leader, Hokey. Four adult females and five infant gorillas completed the family.
As the leader/head of the family, Hokey had specific responsibilities and privileges. He decided when the family should move to new pastures, when to stop for feeding or resting, keep the peace amongst the family members ad protect them from usurpers/ predators, even at the ultimate loss of his own life. In return, his decisions were final and non-negotiable. The female members were his exclusive chattel to enjoy as and when he felt like it. Young pretenders to his leadership such as his siblings or even his own sons knew to respect this code until they felt ready to challenge him for the leadership; a gamble that may or may not pay off. This attempt at taking over amongst mountain gorillas often, but not always, ended in violent and damaging confrontation, which occasionally meant the death of one or more family members. Nevertheless, the principle of change of leadership was understood and accepted by all: power is never given, it is taken by force.
The other principle mountain gorillas lived by was their non-territorial attitude, as their nomadic lifestyle meant they had the freedom to roam around the forest searching for vegetation and fruits between the foot of the Mountain and all the way up to the summit. As a result, they infrequently resorted to violence except when outsiders threatened their stability or safety.
These principles of strong and knowledgeable leadership; respecting the family hierarchy; maintaining family stability, and avoiding violent confrontation only when necessary, helped the mountain gorilla to survive for thousands of years in relative peace.
One day, the Smokeys were slumbering under the shade of trees at the foot of a mountain resting after lunch. As usual, Hokey sat by himself planning for when to move and in which direction to find more food. Korkey and Porky, the two younger silverback siblings sat together and made little or no attempt at disturbing the peace. Kokey, the vanquished previous leader, as was his habit, remained aloof and disengaged from the others, save for traveling with the others on the orders of Hokey. Finally, the females and the youngsters, occupied the shaded areas of two adjacent trees. The adults made little or no noise and kept an eye out in case Hokey decided it was time to move. The youngsters made a great deal of noise by tumbling, play-fighting and jumping on one of the adults. The youngest family member even dared to jump on Hokey by way of tempting him to join in the fun. Eventually, the mother got up and collected her son in case Hokey finally snapped and sent the little one into orbit.
Suddenly, there were rustling and shuffling noises which got louder by the second. Hokey sensed danger and signaled to the family to get closer together but well behind him. They all did but with Korkey and Porky taking a slight forward position in case they were needed to join battle. After a tense period of the noise growing louder and closer, another mountain gorilla family began to emerge in ones and twos. They were no more than 10 meters away from the Smokeys, however, they never stopped or even looked in the direction of Hokey and his family. Eventually, the tense situation came to an end, Hokey relaxed his shoulders and sat back under his chosen tree. The others followed his lead and returned to their slumber, relieved that the other family had no intention to do them harm.
All the Smokeys relaxed and considered the matter closed. All except Hokey who had a few thoughts on his mind. He noted the other family were descending from a higher position on the mountain. Up until then, Hokey’s strategy was to stay at the foot of the mountain and circumvent it to look for food variety. After due consideration, he concluded that there were plenty of vegetations and fruit trees at the base of the mountain so, why expend energy ascending a mountain looking for the same type of food? The second thought Hokey had was the general state of good health of the other family members. Most notably, their silverback leader was appreciably bigger and therefore stronger than him. Hokey did not like that comparison and had this uneasy feeling that one day, his family might abandon him and join the bigger and stronger family. Hokey concluded that the other family were healthier with a bigger silverback because their diet from higher up on the mountain must have been more nourishing than what was available to the Smokeys at the base of the mountainqw23. Hokey made his mind up that he and his family would now abandon their old habit of traversing the foot of the mountain and attempt to climb to the next level. Being a self-absorbed leader, he never considered why the healthier family were coming down the mountain; his focus was set on getting himself to be bigger and stronger than the other family’s silverback.
Having started his introspection by worrying about being a lesser leader than some other silverback, he then worked out a solution to his imagined problem, he was ready to remedy the situation. Hokey got up and the other family members followed suit. Hokey headed for the clearing in the forest where the other family of gorillas had emerged. The other adult family members were surprised but dared not lodge a complaint or refuse to follow. Progress was slow, due to the fact the incline was steep and unfamiliar. After about two hours of faltering ascent, the sun set, and the sky darkened. Hokey decided that if he, the strongest member of the family was tired, other members must be exhausted. With a sharp gesture with his head, everyone understood it was time to prepare for a night’s sleep. The adults gathered leaves and branches and began to make their beds for the night. Male adults slept apart from one another with a respectful extra distance from Hokey. The females made beds large enough to accommodate their off springs.
In the morning, Hokey woke up and looked around. He was impressed with the view and relative coolness of the terrain. He thumped his chest with delight and self-congratulations and dreamt of getting bigger and stronger. He then sent out one of his subtle head gestures declaring it was time to search for food. As was his habit at the foot of the mountain, he traveled in a clockwise direction looking for bamboo, vegetation or even fruit. They found food but nowhere near as abundantly as on the forest floor. Around midday, they rested then carried on searching in the afternoon, with similar results to the morning’s efforts. The second and third days were replicas of the first day. Members of the family began to display restless behaviour and Hokey had to intervene to bring order back to the unit. As though to prove all was under control and that he knew what he was doing, Hokey carried on with their daily routine certain that soon their luck would change, and they would find food in abundance. They finally did.
A hundred or so meters ahead, Hokey could see a fairly large piece of land with bamboo, wide variety of vegetations, and low hanging fruit. His pace quickened with excitement, and so did the others as they absorbed what was ahead of them. As the family got to within 50 meters of what looked like paradise, 15 fully grown gorillas came charging towards them baring their teeth, chest beating and whooping in the most violent and spine-chilling manner. The leader of the belligerent gorillas, who weighed at least 300kg in his boxer shorts, and stood at 1.8m in his stockings, with an arm span of some 3.0m, ran ahead of the others towards the Smokeys. The sight of him was truly awesome, even Hokey found the experience disturbing and frightening.
Hokey realised the odds were against him and his family so he did the sensible thing and turned 180 degrees, thus signalling to his family members to do the same, a command they were more than happy to obey. The sight of the Smokeys retreating was enough for the other family to halt their own charge and stand their ground, whooping and chest beating by way of saying “stay away from our feeding ground or you will get what you deserve”.
The Smokeys retreated to a safe distance and sat under a cluster of trees catching their breath and regaining their composure. Like the other family members, Hokey finally caught his breath but found it impossible to put the experience behind him; he needed to understand what had happened and what to do about it should it happen again. This was the first time anyone in that family had experienced a claim to a territory; that was not the mountain gorilla’s way of life.
As everyone made their beds for the night, Hokey had no time for sleep. He needed to devise a new approach to his and his family’s ascent to the top of the mountain. Instead of reverting to the traditional way of living he was born into, by returning to the base of the mountain and living a relatively contented and peaceful life, he resolved to take a risk and carry on up the mountain. Now he wanted to grow to be as big, if not bigger than the fertile land-owning silverback who chased him and his family away earlier that afternoon. Having made his mind up on the next steps, Hokey allowed himself to go to sleep for the night.
In the morning, Hokey got up and signalled to the others to follow him. They were surprised and shocked that Hokey headed up the mountain instead of descending to the relative safety of the mountain base where food supply was abundant and the climate less exposed. Korkey was particularly surprised but also vocal in expressing his views. He stood his ground and refused to carry on. Hokey, who already had his ego bruised badly from the previous day’s events, was not in the mood to tolerate a member of his own family undermining his authority. So, before the relatively mild protest could turn into a full mutiny, Hokey charged at Korkey and began beating him with his huge fists. Everyone except Porky stood and watched. Porky however ran and joined the fray by beating Korkey too, thus signalling where his loyalties lay. Finally, Korkey managed to disentangle himself and ran away to a safe distance.
The family fell in line and followed Hokey on the ascending path. The procession was Hokey, followed by Porky, then the females and youngsters and bringing up the tail were Kokey and Korkey; thus, a new hierarchy was established.
Over the coming days and weeks, two things came to define the Smokeys. Firstly, life was getting harder, the weather much colder and the food was less abundant. There was more friction amongst the family members and Hokey had to intervene more frequently than normal to stop matters from getting out of hand. On the whole, everyone was getting weaker and less effective than before but, they consoled themselves with the fact that they were living an exclusive life of being high up the mountain.
The second change was in Hokey himself. In his own mind, he was getting bigger and stronger than the biggest gorilla they had encountered on their upward journey. In reality however, Hokey was getting weaker and smaller than before. To make matters worse, he became more paranoid with the persistent thought that his family were plotting against him. He would not tolerate the others, including the youngsters, play fighting or approaching him to entice him to come out of his shell. The only one who could safely approach him without being growled at was Porky who re-enforced Hokey’s authority by following him without protest and by attempting to discipline the others when they did something likely to upset Hokey.
Things came to a head and a tragic end when one day, the Smokeys inadvertently entered another family’s fertile patch. Again, the family that lay claim to that land came out to ward the intruders off. This time however, Hokey truly believed he was the biggest and strongest silverback on the mountain so, he was ready to challenge the other silverback who could legitimately lay claim to being the strongest and biggest of them all.
It took a single fist blow to send Hokey to the ground with a broken jaw. Foolishly, Porky saw his opportunity to shine so he squared up to the gigantic silverback. He too was seen off with a single blow to his chest that broke three of his ribs and knocked the wind out of his lungs. Seeing the two most senior members on the ground, the other Smokeys offered no resistance and assumed the submissive posture of dropping their arms down, and half turning away with their eyes looking down.
The following day, Hokey with terrific pain from his broken jaw, got up and began to walk. This time however, he chose the downwards direction of the path. One by one, the other family members got up and followed him.
It took the family about ten days to return to the foot of the mountain. By the time they arrived at their original grazing grounds, the family was no longer a family. The harmony and order had disappeared. Hokey was still the leader, in name only. As a matter of fact, there was no one who could be a leader so, they thought they may as well stick with the one they had. To say the family learnt a lesson was to suggest that they realised what had gone wrong and corrected their way accordingly. What they had learnt however, was that all their bad luck and misadventure was never their fault; it was others who did wrong by them.
Over the coming weeks, the family no longer existed as a single functioning unit. First, Korkey left the group and took his eldest sibling Kokey with him as their experience up on the maintain brough them together. One day, the Smokeys encountered three male gorillas led by a powerful silverback who was built like a whale with a belligerent attitude to go with it. They looked like anything but a family. In fact, they seemed to have lost their own and were looking for a ready-made family. Hokey and Porky instinctively realised the three male gorillas’ intentions and out of pride but lacking the physical strength to mountain a decent defence of their family unit they stood their ground. After a couple of minutes of chest beating, teeth baring and aggressive whooping on both sides, the three intruders charged and a brief but violent fight took place. Three minutes later, Hokey and Porky were injured and bleeding profusely and on their way to oblivion; they had lost the entire family, including their authority, power base and dignity. Their female members of the Smokeys had no choice but to accept the new regime and went along with their young trailing behind. The Smokey Family was consigned to oblivion
