The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright

Along time ago, humans used to walk on legs and arms, just like all the other four-limbed creatures. Humans were faster than hares, leopards or rhinos. Legs and arms were closer than any other organs. They had similar corresponding joints: shoulders and hips; elbows and knees; ankles and wrists; feet and hands, each ending with five toes and fingers, with nails on each toe and finger. Hands and feet had similar arrangements of their five toes and fingers from the big toe and thumb to the smallest toes and pinkies. In those days, the thumb was close to the other fingers, the same as the big toe. Legs and arms called each other first cousins.

They helped each other carry the body wherever it wanted to go: the market, the shops, up and down trees and mountains, anywhere that called for movement. Even in the water, they worked well together to help the body float, swim or dive. They were democratic and egalitarian in their relationship. They could also borrow the uses of the product of other organs, say, sound from the mouth, hearing from the ears, smell from the nose, and even sight from the eyes.

Their rhythm and seamless coordination made the other parts green with envy. They resented having to lend their special genius to the cousins. Jealousy blinded them to the fact that legs and hands took them places. They started plotting against the two pairs.

Tongue borrowed a plan from Brain and put it into action immediately. It began to wonder, loudly, about the relative powers of Arms and Legs. Who was stronger, it wondered. The two cousin limbs, who had never been bothered by what the other had and could do, now borrowed sound from Mouth and began to claim they were more important to the body than the other. This quickly changed into who was more elegant; Arms bragged about the long, slim fingers of its hands, at the same time making derisive comments about Toes being short and thick. Not to be outdone, Toes countered and talked derisively about thin fingers, starving cousins! This went on for days, at times affecting their ability to work together effectively. It finally boiled down to the question of power; they turned to other organs for arbitration.

It was Tongue who suggested a contest. A brilliant idea, all agreed. But what? Some suggested a wrestling match – leg and arm wrestling. Others came up with swordplay, juggling, racing, or playing a game like chess or checkers, but each was ruled out as hard to bring about or unfair to one or the other limb. It was Tongue once gain, after borrowing thought from Brain, who came up with a simple solution. Each set of organs would come up with a challenge, in turns. Arms and Legs agreed.

The contest took place in a clearing in the forest, near a river. All organs were on maximum alert for danger or anything that might catch the body by surprise, now that its organs were engaged in internal struggle. Eyes scanned far and wide for the tiniest of dangers from whatever distance; Ears primed themselves to hear the slightest sound from whatever distance; Nose cleared its nostrils, the better to detect the scent of any danger that escaped the watchful Eyes and the listening Ears; and Tongue was ready to shout and scream “Danger!”

Wind spread news of the contest to the four corners of the forest, the water and the air. Four-legged animals were among the first to gather, many of the big ones holding green branches to show they came in peace. It was a colorful crowd of Leopard, Cheetah, Lion, Rhino, Hyena, Elephant, Giraffe, Camel, long-horned Cow and short-horned Buffalo, Antelope, Gazelle, Hare, Mole and Rat. Water-dwellers Hippo, Fish and Crocodile spread their upper parts on the banks, leaving the rest in the river. The two-leggeds, Ostrich, Guinea Fowl and Peacock, flapped their wings in excitement; birds chirped from the trees; Cricket sang all the time. Spider, Worm, Centipede and Millipede crawled on the ground or trees. Chameleon walked stealthily, carefully, taking its time, while Lizard ran about, never settling down on one spot. Monkey, Chimpanzee and Gorilla jumped from branch to branch. Even the trees and the bush swayed gently from side to side, bowed, and then stood still in turns.

Mouth opened the contest with a song:
We do this to be happy
We do this to be happy
We do this to be happy
Because we all
Come from one nature

Arms and Legs swore to accept the outcome gracefully – no tantrums, threats of boycott, strikes or go-slow.

Arms issued the first challenge: They threw a piece of wood on the ground. The leg, left or right or in combination, was to pick up the piece of wood from the ground and throw it. The two legs could consult each other at any time in the contest and deploy their toes, individually or collectively, in any order to effect their mission. They tried to turn it over, push it; they tried all sorts of combinations, but they could not pick it up properly. And as for moving it, the best they could do was kick it a few inches away. Seeing this, Fingers borrowed sound from Mouth and laughed and laughed. Arms, the challenger, paraded themselves as in a beauty contest, showing off their slim looks, and then in different combinations picked up the piece of wood. They threw it far into the forest, eliciting a collective sigh of admiration from the contestants and spectators. They displayed other skills: They picked tiny pieces of sand from a bowl of rice; they threaded needles; they made little small pulleys for moving heavier wood; made some spears and threw them quite far, moves and acts that the toes could only dream about. Legs could only sit there and marvel at the display of dexterity and flexibility of their slim cousins. The arms of the spectators clapped thunder in admiration and solidarity with fellow arms, which upset the legs a great deal. But they were not about to concede: Even as they sat there looking a little bit glum, their big toes drooling little circles on the sand, they were trying to figure out a winning challenge.

At last, it was the turn of Legs and Toes to issue a challenge. Theirs, they said, was simple. Hands should carry the whole body from one part of the circle to the other. What a stupid challenge, thought the arrogant fingers. It was a sight to see. Everything about the body was upside-down. Hands touched the ground; the eyes were close to the ground, their angles of vision severely restricted by their proximity to the ground; dust entered the nose, causing it to sneeze; Legs and Toes floated in the air. Nyayo juu, the spectators shouted and sang playfully.

Nyayo Nyayo juu*
Hakuna matata
Fuata Nyayo
Hakuna matata
Turukeni angani

But their attention was fixed on the hands and arms. Organs that only a few minutes before were displaying an incredible array of skills could hardly move a yard. After a few steps, the hands cried out in pain, the arms staggered, wobbled, and let the body fall. They rested and then made another attempt. This time they tried to spread out the fingers, the better to hold the ground, but only the thumbs were able to stretch. They tried cartwheels, but this move was disqualified because its completion involved the legs as well. It was the turn of the toes to laugh. They borrowed thick throatal tones from Mouth to distinguish their laugh from the squeaky tones the fingers had used. Hearing the scorn, the arms were very angry, and they made one last desperate attempt to carry the body. They did not manage a step. Exhausted, the hands and fingers gave up. The legs were happy to display their athletic prowess: They marked time, trotted, ran, made a few high jumps, long jumps, without once letting the body fall. All the feet of the spectators stamped the ground in approval and solidarity. Arms raised their hands to protest this unsportslimbship, conveniently forgetting that they had started the game.

But all of them, including the spectators, noticed something strange about the arms: The thumbs which had stretched out when the hands were trying to carry the body remained separated from the other fingers. The rival organs were about to resume their laughter when they noticed something else: Far from the separated thumb making the hands less efficient, it enhanced their crasping and grasping power. What’s this? Deformity transformed into the power of forming!

The debate among the organs to decide the winner went on for five days, the number of fingers and toes on each limb. But try as they could, they were not able to declare a clear winner. Each set of limbs was best at what they did best; none could do without the other. There began a session of philosophical speculation: What was the body anyway, they all asked, and they realized the body was them all together; they were into each other. Every organ had to function well for all to function well.

But to prevent such a contest in the future and to prevent their getting in each other’s way, it was decided by all the organs that thenceforth the body would walk upright, feet firmly on the ground and arms up in the air. The body was happy with the decision, but it would allow children to walk on all fours so as not to forget their origins. They divided tasks: The legs would carry the body, but once they got to the destination, the hands would do all the work that needed making or holding tools. While the legs and feet did the heavy duty of carrying, the hands reached out and used their skills to work the environment and ensure that food reached the mouth. Mouth, or rather its teeth, would chew it and send it down the throat to the tummy. Tummy would squeeze all the goodness and then pour it into its system of canals, through which the goodness would be distributed to all the nooks and crooks of the body. Then Tummy would take the used material into its sewage system, from which the body would deposit it in the open fields or bury it under the soil to enrich it. Plants would bear fruit; hands would pick some of it and put it in the mouth. Oh, yes, the circle of life.

Even games and entertainments were divided accordingly: Singing, laughing and talking were left to the mouth; running and soccer largely left to the legs; while baseball and basketball were reserved for the hands, except that the legs were to do the running. In athletics, the legs had all the field to themselves, largely. The clear division of labor made the human body a formidable bio machine, outwitting even the largest of animals in what it could achieve in quantity and quality.

However, the organs of the body realized that the permanent arrangement they had arrived at could still bring conflict. The head being up there might make it feel that it was better than the feet that touched the ground or that it was the master and the organs below it were servants only. They stressed that in terms of power, the head and whatever was below it were equal. To underline this, the organs made sure that the pain and joy of any one of the organs was felt by all. They warned the mouth that when saying “my this and that,” it was talking as the whole body and not as the sole owner.

They sang:
In our body
There’s no servant
In our body
There’s no servant
We serve one another
Us for Us
We serve one another
Us for Us
We serve one another
The tongue our voice
Hold me and I hold you
We build a healthy body
Hold me and I hold you
We build a healthy body
Beauty is unity
Together we work
For a healthy body
Together we work
For a healthy body
Unity is our power

This became the “All Body Anthem.” The body sings it to this day, and this is what tells the difference between humans and animals, or those that rejected the upright revolution.

Despite what they saw, the four-legged animals would have none of this revolution. The singing business was ridiculous. The mouth was made to eat and not to sing.

They formed nature’s conservative party and stuck to their ways, never changing their habits.

When humans learn from the net-work of organs, they do well; but when they see the body and the head as parties at war, one being atop of the other, they come close to their animal cousins who rejected the upright revolution.

*Up with legs
There’s nothing to worry about
Follow the legs
There’s nothing to worry about
Let’s fly in the sky

Reprinted with permission. First published in 2016 by the Jalada Africa Trust in its inaugural Translation Issue.

Originally reprinted in Spring 2017 issue of UCI Magazine