ABSTRACT
This chapter uses the term 'anthropocentrism' as it is understood by anthropologist Philippe Descola. This is one of a handful of ontologies with which cultures endeavour to make sense of the world. In September 1906, a pygmy named Ota Benga was exhibited in the monkey house by the New York Zoological Park. The motif of a simian Adam and Eve would appear regularly in illustrations to popular books of natural history throughout the Victorian era. Both zoomorphism and anthropomorphism are based on an assumption of radical human distinctiveness, they are often, as examples in this chapter will demonstrate, found together. The Greek idealisation of the human figure seems intended in part to distinguish people sharply from simians and other animals by emphasising such features as high foreheads, ease of balance on two feet, and a relative lack of body hair. For much of the Middle Ages, apes and monkeys in Western art were generally devils.
