Mind 838
20th-century cameras have allowed us to look into the eyes of the wildest of ani-
mals. There is no corner of nature, however remote or small or dangerous, that
does not appear in intimate proximity on television screens. At the same time,
researchers into animal behaviour and its genetic sources are developing ever more
sophisticated techniques for seeing the mechanisms and achievements of the natu-
ral world. There is a new kind of relationship, based on technical sophistication
and the knowledge of experts, between humans and the rest of nature. Photog-
raphers and scientists are the wizards, if not the shamans, of our age, making revela-
tory journeys into places where, in the course of ordinary life, the rest of us cannot
go. We rely on them to show us the world that is not human.
This ever-increasing closeness to the natural world influences our sense of the
dividing line between human and animal. We discover an unexpected complexity
of animal systems and learn about the intricate links between one animal and
another. We find that there are divisions of labour, with one part of an animal
community raising newborns, others getting food, and others defending the group.
We are shown the sophisticated behaviour required to capture or evade capture,
elaborate forms of courtship, and myriad forms of communication. We discover
that leaf-cutter ants make gardens and harvest crops; that gannets can recognize
their own nests among a hundred thousand others; that humpback whales coord-
inate their fishing; that in some species, monkeys can warn one another about
several different kinds of impending danger; that male fruit flies sing elaborate love
songs to court females. These are occupations and purposes that we understand.
They depend upon qualities, characteristics and motivations that humans also
possess. Detailed portraits of the natural world again and again reveal similarities
between humans and other beings. The evidence of DNA, with its apparent over-
lap of gene sequences between mushrooms and people, is the newest way in which
the lines between us and the rest of nature can seem to be uncertain.
This apparent blurring of the divide could also be seen as an echo of shaman-
ism. Perhaps the boundaries around the human are less definite, more porous,
than most scientists and many farmers have tended to suppose. Animal rights
advocates often make this kind of argument; they point out that the use of animals
for experiments, or even as food, depends on human beings keeping animals in a
separate and inferior moral category. The promise of Genesis is integral to the
domestication of animals and to their use as a resource. The exiles from Eden go
forth and have dominion.^10
In fact, real shamans – as opposed to those who provide wildlife programmes
for television or make new-age forms of argument – say that humans and animals
exist in separate domains. In the shamanic myths of very ancient times, humans
and animals lived in the same circumstances, able to speak and procreate with one
another. But these myths also tell of how ancient times yielded to an era in which
the divide between humans and other creatures became much clearer. Indeed, the
need for shamans, or for spirit possession, derives from the periodic need to cross