THE SECRET ORIGINS OF BOWING

Most people going to Ueno Zoo want to see the pandas first. I can’t blame them, but for me the first stop is always the chimps. Not only are these creatures fascinating and expressive, but they’re our nearest relatives in the animal kingdom, so it’s only common courtesy. With a 99 percent similarity in their DNA, chimps are also the species that can tell us the most about ourselves. That’s why scientists and anthropologists study them exhaustively for clues about the origins of human nature and human behavior.

Chimps also have a peculiar significance here in Japan because they expose the deep, dark roots of one of the most common forms of behavior: the art of bowing.

For someone from the rough-and-ready West, bowing may seem the epitome of polite civilized behavior. But the only reason we see it like this is because we associate it with the polite and civilized Japanese. The truth is that the essence and origins of bowing are a lot less dignified than the people who use it. This is why the chimps are so important: Believe it or not, they bow too (although they haven’t yet been observed exchanging meishi).

In his 1991 book The Behavior Guide to African Mammals, the respected biologist Richard D. Estes described various forms of chimp behavior, including bowing. As he put it:

"A chimp bows by facing the receiver with the elbows bent lower than the knees so that the head is lowered and the rump is in the air."

I hope you’re not trying this at home.

Estes added that this is done by a subordinate (especially a female) when approaching a male that has performed a threatening display. In other words, it is a way for the weak and submissive to appease the aggression of the strong and dominant.

This has been the perception of bowing in many cultures across history. In the West, the act was associated with the feudal order of nobles and peasants, or with defeat in battle—social inferiors and the defeated were expected to bow to their social betters or military conquerors. Societies that practice lots of bowing are also considered hierarchical and undemocratic.

Bowing in Japan, however, is seldom seen in such negative terms. While degrees of bowing are indeed used to suggest degrees of superior social or company rank, most people tend to see the act as a slightly awkward mutual exchange of sincere feeling, or as a way of showing respect to older people. But watching the chimps at Ueno Zoo and further, reading Estes’s account of their behavior, reveals a more troubling aspect.

According to anthropologist Desmond Morris, bowing has its roots in a similar act, also described by Estes, that is a lot more explicit. Estes calls it "social presenting." 

It is identical to the act already described, but now with the rump facing the receiver. Estes mentions that this is performed by females to males and by subordinate males to more dominant males. He also calls it a submissive stance performed by the victim after suffering an attack—making it sound almost like an act of rape.

So, if we use chimp behavior as a window into our own distant, ape-like past, we can see an unbroken line of development from an act in which our weaker ancestors presented their rumps to our aggressive alpha male ancestors as a form of sexual appeasement, through the various forms of prostration and kowtowing, to the innocuous sight of a couple of Japanese salarymen banging heads together as they swap business cards.

Does it matter if bowing has such ignoble origins? Maybe not. But if you saw someone picking their nose, you wouldn’t want to shake their hand, would you? This is kind of how I feel now when I see someone beginning to tilt at the hip in an act of obeisance.