Jungle Tales of Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs

Cover via AmazonJungle Tales of Tarzan is the sixth book in the Tarzan series by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This book can be found for free at Gutenberg.org. This book, unlike the first five, is actually a collection of short stories about Tarzan before he becomes Lord Greystoke. I will write about each of the stories as I read them.

Tarzan's First Love

The first short story is "Tarzan's First Love." I really enjoyed the slow buildup of tension when Burroughs began to describe Teeka. He does a wonderful job of describing her beauty. But slowly, we begin to realize that what is turning Tarzan on for his first crush is not a human at all. Rather, it is one of the hairy apes with whom Tarzan grew up with.

Then, there is the unfavourable comparison between Tarzan and the beauty of the regular apes. His eyes are small and white rather than bloodshot. His nose is narrow and small rather than wide and large. His skin is smooth and hairless, while theirs is very hairy. The comparison and contrast treatment between Tarzan and the ape is favourable for the ape. Somehow, that is quite a brilliant bit of prose. After all, is not beauty in the eye of the beholder? How aptly he describes how beauty is truly a matter of perspective.

He has a great fight with one of the bull apes who had been his friend over her. But, even as he fights with him and wins his right for her, even as Targa, his competition is stolen from the tribe of apes by a tribe of human warriors, and he puts his arm around her hairy form, he realizes that they are too dissimilar from each other for him to start a physical relationship with her.

The Capture of Tarzan

In "The Capture of Tarzan," Tarzan puts himself at risk for Tantor, the elephant who is his friend. The tribe of warriors are trying to kill his friend, Tantor, for his tusks. They lay a large pit filled with spikes along the path of Tantor. Then, they try to chase him into it.

By chance and perhaps from curiosity about the activities of those black men, Tarzan discovers the purpose of the trap. He knows that Tantor is about to stumble into the trap. He therefore steps in front of Tantor's path and sends him through the jungle to safety. Unfortunately for Tarzan, however, he himself loses his footing and falls into the pit to be captured by the warriors.

The tribesmen prepare for a feast for which Tarzan is the main course. Earlier, though, he had heard Tantor call for Tarzan, and Tarzan returned the call. Tarzan manages to work his way through the ropes which had bound him so that he could fight his captors. However, he was not strong enough to resist all of them. At the last moment, Tantor wrecks his way into the village and rescues Tarzan.

The Fight for Balu

 Balu is the Kerchak word for 'baby.' Balu is the baby of Teeka. The family of Balu, Teeka, and Taug, make up a family which Tarzan envies. He envies the affection they have for each other: The ape-boy craved affection. From babyhood until the time of her death, when the poisoned arrow of Kulonga had pierced her savage heart, Kala had represented to the English boy the sole object of love which he had known. One might say that he is like the swan growing up amongst ducks.

The God of Tarzan

The word 'god' confused Tarzan. He reads a lot about the deity, but cannot find pictures or any information that can help him find what god really is. The apes of his tribe try to tell him that the moon, Goro, is god. However, no matter how hard Tarzan tries, he cannot seem to reach the moon. He calls on it, but it does not listen.

Briefly, he becomes interested in the ritual practices of the tribe as he wonders if there is a relationship between god and the practice of the witch doctor. He concludes, however, that it is all fake. After it is revealed to him that the tribe did not live up to the idea Tarzan had concocted in his search for god. As a result, he is angered, and moves to kill Mbonga, the chief of the village. To save his life, Mbonga begs to be spared. This begging actually stops Tarzan from killing him.

A little later, Histah (the snake) attacks Teeka. Teeka, despite the danger to herself, launches herself at the snake to save her baby. Tarzan throws himself into the mix and saves her.

Ultimately, these two experiences brings Tarzan to believe that God is he that makes people or animals do things that are good. He is also the one that creates the things that are good. But, a moment later, he finds himself wondering who it was that created the hateful creature, Histah.

Tarzan and the Black Boy


The feeling of loneliness grows in Tarzan. He attempts to make a Balu for himself out of a black boy, Tibo, from the neighbouring tribe.

Image via WikipediaThis story had a few problems with it for me. The primary problem that I have is with the seeming treatment of blacks as inferior to whites. This can be found where he wrote: Tibo, the little black boy, lacked the divine spark which had permitted Tarzan, the white boy, to benefit by his training in the ways of the fierce jungle. In imagination he was wanting, and imagination is but another name for super-intelligence. This was a sad paragraph to read. At times, in the earlier books which I had read, I thought that the black tribesmen had been given a higher elevation than the white man because of his ability to survive. However, in this case, it seems clear that he is saying that a black boy and a white boy dropped in a tribe of apes would have had a remarkable difference due to this idea of the lack of an imagination. However, he kind of contradicts this idea when Tibo is stuck in a cave, trying to hide away from a couple of hyenas which are trying to make a quick meal out of him: Real and apparent dangers are less disconcerting than those which we imagine, and only the gods of his people knew how much Tibo imagined. If Tibo, being black and therefore lacking an imagination, truly lacked an imagination that allowed him to reach the intellectual height of Tarzan, then this excerpt would seem to contradict that idea. How might he imagine so many terrors beyond if he lacks an imagination?

Later, in the story "Tarzan Rescues the Moon," he rescues a brave black man because of his admiration of the man's courage. However, that does not mean Burroughs is making up for the racist remark concerning the lack of creative and imaginative ability inherent in the black man.

In any case, Tarzan fails to rear his adopted son. No matter how hard he tries, he comes to realize that there's not a lot that he can do to take the place of Tibo's mother. Tibo does not grow to become stronger, but rather weakens. He cannot enjoy the repast that Tarzan tries to provide to him. The mother, on the other hand, is shown to be a woman of remarkable courage. She is painted as ugly to my own sensibilities. However, her courage in trying to find her son is quite remarkable. She will stop at nothing to save her son. Inevitably, Tarzan realizes that he must give up Tibo into the care of the mother.

The Witch Doctor Seeks Vengeance

In the previous tale, Tibo's mother, Momaya, had agreed to a price with a terrible witch doctor should he return her son to her. However, before she reaches the village, Tarzan returns Tibo to her. However, the price of the rescue Bukawai demands. She refuses to pay him, as she knows he had nothing to do with Tibo's return. However, he has everything to do with his second disappearance.

Tarzan gets involved when Momaya starts to cry and wail. When he is on the verge of killing the woman who made the horrible noise, he realizes that it is the mother of his briefly adopted/kidnapped son. She begs him to return the boy to her, but he does not understand anything. It is only later he chances upon the trail of the boy and the witch doctor that he pieces together the reason why Momaya was begging him for something. He does not know their language.

The End of Bukawai

By chance or by fate, Tarzan happens to be sitting in the very tree which is struck by lightening. This sends Tarzan to the ground, unconscious. Bukawai happens upon Tarzan, and binds him to feed him to his hyenas. Before it is too late, however, Tarzan escapes and returns the favour to Bukawai.

The Lion

In this tale, a lion makes off with one of the apes of Tarzan's tribe. Tarzan faults this tragedy on the lack of an organized defence on the part of the ape tribe. While the other apes of the tribe are ready to let nature take its course, to allow the she-ape to become the lion's dinner, Tarzan realizes that if they allow the cat this dinner, the cat will return for more of them until, perhaps, there are none of them left. Thus, he does all he can to harass the lion and steal his meal from him. Of course he succeeds.

As a joke, he steals a lion skin and fur from Mbonga's tribe. With it, he tricks his ape tribe into believing that he is a lion looking for a new prey. He is convinced that they have already forgotten his admonition to stand vigilant against predators. However, he is mistaken. This very nearly results in his destruction. Only Manu, the little monkey whom Tarzan has formed a relationship with, manages to rescue Tarzan from the onslaught of apes who are about to kill him.


The Nightmare

Tarzan has been very unsuccessful at getting fresh game. As a result, he is very hungry. Mbonga's tribe has happened upon a dead elephant, and taken it back for consumption. Tarzan makes his way into the tribe after it has partied and mostly fallen asleep. He steals some of the meat.

However, Tarzan's stomach is not used to fermented meat. It causes him to have terrible nightmares and makes him sick. He very nearly loses his life when he does not believe a gorilla wants to kill him. This dream begins what will soon become a regular outing to his subconscious world: It was indeed quite preposterous, yet he saw it all with his own eyes--it was nothing less than Histah, the snake, wreathing his sinuous and slimy way up the bole of the tree below him--Histah, with the head of the old man Tarzan had shoved into the cooking pot--the head and the round, tight, black, distended stomach. As the old man's frightful face, with upturned eyes, set and glassy, came close to Tarzan, the jaws opened to seize him. The ape-man struck furiously at the hideous face, and as he struck the apparition disappeared. 

At the conclusion of the story, he swears himself off of eating elephant meat.


The Battle for Teeka

A wandering ape from another tribe happens upon Teeka, and decides that he wants her for a mate. Though he cannot catch her, he is able to catch her baby, Gazan. As a result, he is able to snatch her. Gazan is left for dead. But, Tarzan finds him still alive.

Taug and Tarzan make chase, ultimately overtaking Toog. A battle ensues in which, of course, Teeka is rescued.

A Jungle Joke

I do like Burroughs' sense of irony in his treatment of those who choose to be cruel to the animals. This concerns Mbonga's tribe and their efforts to trap a lion so that they might torture it before killing it in a mock hunt. They place a goat in the cage in order to draw a lion in. Tarzan steals the goat, and decides to eat it for himself.

Tarzan manages to capture the witch doctor and put him in place of goat. So, when the tribesmen return to the cage, they find that a lion has been captured, and that the lion has mauled to death the witch doctor, Rabba Keba. The tribe decides to kill and torture the lion that night despite the loss of their witch doctor.

As a joke, Tarzan dresses himself as the lion with the costume he had stolen before. He then enters the tribe and frightens them half to death. He then reveals that he is in fact Tarzan. After recovering their courage, they try to kill him. But, he escapes momentarily. When he returns, it is to release the lion kept in captivity. They think that it is Tarzan, again, playing his trick. Of course, it's the lion which returns to the tribesmen their just desserts.

Of the stories in this collection, I would have to say this is perhaps my favourite. I do hate animal cruelty, or any type of sadistic cruelty at all.

Tarzan Rescues the Moon

This was another interesting story. The tribe has grown overtired of Tarzan, his tricks, and his unusual behaviour (for an ape), and has managed to chase him out of the tribe for trying to save a brave black man from their assault. Well, this is but one of many odd behaviours which collectively made the tribe weary of Tarzan's existence with them. While gone, the moon undergoes an eclipse, and disappears. The tribe believes this to show that what Tarzan had thought was true. That here was evidence that the moon was indeed being devoured by the lions and panthers that made up the stars.

To rescue the moon, Tarzan shoots his arrows at the night sky. Soon after, they watch the moon reemerge and believe that the lions have released the moon. This gives him a higher status. They thereafter believe him to be greater than they are.
 
Conclusion

I actually rather enjoyed this book. It was a good light hearted read. Enough time has passed between my first reading of these books and the last that it is very much like reading them for the first time. A diet of all Balzac is no better than an exclusive diet of Burroughs and his ilk. Somewhere there is a happy mixture of the light and the heavy, the simple and the complex. It really is a good escape from the real world into a fantasy where one gets to enjoy a view of the world from a near super hero.