Mangani

Mangani is the name of a fictional species of great apes in the Tarzan novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and of the invented language used by these apes. In the invented language, Mangani (meaning “great-ape”) is the apes’ word for their own kind, although the term is also applied (with modifications) to humans. The Mangani are represented as the apes who foster and raise Tarzan. The Mangani are described by Burroughs as approximately man-sized, and appear to be a species intermediate between gorillas and chimpanzees. He also described them as “man-like apes which the natives of the Gobi speak of in whispers; but which no white man ever had seen [before Tarzan]’ (Jungle Tales of Tarzan: “The Battle for Teeka”) implying a connection to the Almas or Yeti. There have been several attempts to identify the fictional Mangani with an actual primate species. Science fiction author Philip José Farmer speculated they might be a variety of australopithecines such as Australopithecus in his pseudo-biography of Tarzan, Tarzan Alive. Walt Disney Pictures’ 1999 animated feature film Tarzan, its sequel Tarzan & Jane and prequel Tarzan II, and the television series The Legend of Tarzan based on it, portray the apes who raised Tarzan as gorillas, though in the books gorillas, called Bolgani by the Mangani, are explicitly stated to be a separate species. As described by Burroughs, Mangani are organized in tribal bands ruled by dominant males, or “kings”, which subsist by foraging for fruit, grubs, insects, and sometimes meat, in localized territories. Tribes are generally identified by the names of their kings. Burroughs portrays the Mangani (and indeed most jungle animals) as susceptible to occasional bouts of madness in which they will lash out violently and unpredictably at other living creatures in their vicinity. Tarzan is raised in the tribe of Kerchak, based in the coastal jungle of equatorial Africa, as shown in Tarzan of the Apes and Jungle Tales of Tarzan. As an adult he comes to lead this tribe; later, he becomes accepted in other tribes of Mangani, such as the tribe of Molak in The Beasts of Tarzan. Tarzan continued to associate occasionally with his original tribe until cast out in Tarzan and the Golden Lion, as the result of a Tarzan impersonator having murdered one of its members. Altogether, Mangani appear in 15 of the Tarzan books; the first through seventh (Tarzan of the Apes, The Return of Tarzan, The Beasts of Tarzan, The Son of Tarzan, Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar, Jungle Tales of Tarzan, Tarzan the Untamed), the ninth (Tarzan and the Golden Lion), the 11th and 12th (Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, Tarzan and the Lost Empire), the 14th (Tarzan the Invincible), the 18th (Tarzan and the Leopard Men), the 20th (Tarzan and the Forbidden City), the 23rd (Tarzan and the Madman), and the 26th (Tarzan: The Lost Adventure)…