The Silken Sad Uncertain Rustling of Each Primate Curtain

There's something Shakespearean in Koko's "dead drapes."

That final curtain call...

Lately, Maureen and I have been asking Koko about her feelings about death. Koko has seen dead animals on the road, and suffered the loss of her pet goldfish, tadpole and toads. Besides this, she has inflicted death on many insects. The feelings she expresses about death are all the more interesting because so far as we know subjects like burial have never been discussed in any detail in her presence. On December 8, 1978, Maureen asked Koko to pick the gorilla skeleton from among pictures of four types of animal skeletons. After Koko picked the correct skeleton, Maureen asked Koko whether the gorilla was alive or dead.

KOKO: Dead drapes.

MAUREEN: Let’s make sure, is this gorilla alive or dead?

KOKO: Dead good bye.

MAUREEN: How do gorillas feel when they die—happy, sad, afraid?

KOKO: Sleep.

Koko seems to think of death as peaceful and secure. Several times she has used the word drapes [which she asks to have closed when she is scared, or wants to go to sleep] to modify death. This impression is reinforced by the way she links the feeling of death with sleep. There is also evidence that this is not a case of mere confusion, since Koko gets quite upset when asked what will happen when she or I dies. Once when Maureen asked, “Do you think Penny will die?” Koko fidgeted for about ten seconds and then only signed, damn! On the other hand, if the talk is about death in general Koko does not find the subject terrifying:

MAUREEN: Where do gorillas go when they die?

KOKO: Comfortable hole bye.

MAUREEN: When do gorillas die?

KOKO: Trouble old.

We do not know where Koko got the idea that the dead go to a hole, unless it was from leafing through magazines (she is an avid “reader” of National Geographic). She has occasionally said hole, when asked where one goes when dead. Once, asked what makes her nervous, she said Stop hole. She said this before we knew of her association of holes and death. But again, her frequent use of the word comfortable reinforces the impression given by her use of the word drapes—that death is peaceful and secure. Finally, although she may see death as peaceful, she seems to realize that creatures die when in trouble or old.