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The Jungle Tales of Tarzan: A Morphological Study Based Upon  Vladimir Propp’s Structural Theory of Folktales by David Arthur Adams [First published in the Fantastic Worlds of ERB #47, Spring-Summer 2000] e-Text Reference: Jungle Tales of Tarzan

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Foreword

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Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote two stories intended specifically for children.  They are: The Tarzan Twins  (1926) and Tarzan and the Tarzan Twins with Jad-Bal-Ja, the Golden Lion  (1928).  These have been considered to be among ERB’s lesser writings until they were realized to be little masterworks in the genre of fairy tales when I applied Propp’s system of structural analysis to them.

 The great, Russian folklorist,  Vladimir Propp (1895-1970) published his first book, Morphology of the Folktale  in 1928.   Though well-received, the book remained in relative obscurity until it was translated into English in 1958.  It is not my intent to argue the validity of Propp’s theories since this article is meant for a popular audience more interested in the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs rather than arcane studies on the folktale.

   The interesting thing about Propp’s work is the fact that he developed a method to study the folktale according to the functions of its dramatis personae.  He claims that these “functions” or acts of a character are limited in number and follow a more or less identical sequence.   The word “morphology” simply means the study of forms -- the study of component parts in their relationships to each other and to the whole -- in other words, the study of the story’s structure.

 Since Edgar Rice Burroughs is recognized as being a great story teller, I wondered if Propp’s functions could be applied to his two Tarzan Twins stories.  After finding them to be exemplary examples of the wondertale , or fairy tale, I turned my attention to his earlier stories, the Jungle Tales  of Tarzan  of 1916-1917.  My findings are outlined in the following article.

 Burroughs wrote his Jungle Tales in two batches:  (1-8) in 1916, and (9-12) in 1917.  These short stories are a rarity with Burroughs the novelist.  The stories are related to each other, yet each one is complete in itself.  Unlike the Tarzan Twins stories, these tales were not intended specifically for children, however, they do follow the sequence of Propp’s functions remarkably well.

 A brief summary of the structure of each tale is listed below.  It will be useful to notice the range of Propp’s functions in each tale before delving into the analysis itself.

 Propp employs 31 functions or actions to be found in each story.  A folktale in its complete form will use all of these functions.  None of the Jungle Tales follow Propp’s functions as well as the Tarzan Twins stories, which are both complete examples of folktales since they employ all 31 functions.

 Only three of the Jungle Tales (numbers 1-3-10) start with Propp’s beginning functions, however, these all end early since the stories are linked and completed in other tales.

 Most of the tales begin with function VIIIa.  One member of a family either lacks something or desires to have something.  This is the place in the folktale that Propp notes as being exceptionally important, since by means of an act of villainy or the desire to eliminate something lacking, the actual movement of the tale is created.

   It is remarkable that all of these tales follow the Propp functions in order.  Burroughs did not always include the final function XXXI.  The hero is married and ascends the throne because they were intended to be open-ended enough for the sequence to continue.  We might also assume that in creating this series of linking short stories, Burroughs did not feel the need to go through Propp’s introductory steps with each tale.

 Although the Jungle Tales of Tarzan do not follow Propp’s functions completely, this study reveals that they are closely related to the folktale structure, and demonstrate ERB’s innate ability as a natural story teller.

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 Propp’s focus is upon the specific actions of characters.  A further thematic analysis can reveal the relationship between these stories in other ways.

 A.  Taug & Teeka are central in tales, 1,3,5,8,10, 12.
 B.  The natives of Mbonga’s village are central in tales 2,4,5,6,7,9,11.
   (the Tibo/Bukawai tales are 5,6,7)

 Thus, ERB roughly alternates his tales between stories describing Tarzan’s relationships with the ape tribe and Tarzan’s relationships with the natives.

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[The  items in Roman numerals are Propp’s “functions”.  The small case explanations which sometimes immediately follow the functions are also Propp’s own words.  These explanations have been greatly reduced for this brief paper.]

 1- Tarzan notices the danger to Teeka and ropes the great cat, preventing the kill, but he is chased up a tree.  For the time being, Teeka chooses to sit beside Tarzan.
 2 - Tarzan decides to return to the ape tribe.  Along the way he meets his friend, Tantor, the elephant.  He spends some time with him, then goes off in search of food.  While he is away, the purpose of the pit occurs to him.  It is to capture his friend, Tantor!
 3 - Sheeta, the leopard, sees the helpless balu and begins worming his way stealthily forward, his belly close to the ground.
 8 - Numa attacks the zebra, but a snapping twig robs him of his meal.
10- Toog approaches Teeka;  she bares her fans and sends Gazan, her balu, into a tall tree.  Teeka runs away, so Toog pursues Gazan and shakes him out of the high branches.  Gazan falls to the ground at Teeka’s feet still and motionless.  Toog carries Teeka off into the jungle.

 1- Tarzan watches Mbonga’s warriors build a cage on the jungle trail. Taug gets trapped in the cage.  When Tarzan discovers Taug’s plight, he is pleased because now he can have Teeka for his own.
 2- The warriors frighten Tantor to cause him to run toward the pit with Tarzan close behind.  He has heard the shouts and has interpreted them correctly.
 3 - Tarzan and Sheeta stand on either side of the balu baring their fangs and snarling at each other over the little creature.
 4 - He is especially puzzled over the meaning of the word, ‘God.”
 5 - Tarzan observes that all the creatures of the jungle have their own kind, except himself.  He feels sad and lonely.
 6 - Tarzan goes to the native village and hears a great wailing.  He is annoyed at the sound and thinks he might be fun to drop into the village and kill the howling one.  (He has already had his revenge for the death of Kala.  He now derived excitement and pleasure from baiting the blacks.)
 Tarzan recognizes the wailer as Momaya, the mother of Tibo.  She throws herself at Tarzan’s feet, babbling in a tongue Tarzan did not understand.
 7.  One day Tarzan’s rope was caugt in a branch overhead.
 8 -  Tarzan and the apes see the lion coming and they all scatter except Tarzan.  He tries to rally the bulls to fight, but the lion carries off Mamka,  a mother ape.
 9 - He watches the blacks in the village of Mbonga having a feast of elephant meat.  He does not know that it is tainted.
10 - Tarzan is passing time at his parent’s cabin among their bones.  He is playing with a bag of coins when one rolls under the bed containing his mother’s bones.  Tarzan finds a box of cartridges and puts  a handful of them into his pocket pouch he had taken from a black warrior he had slain.  He returns to the scattered tribe, searching for Teeka and Gazan.
 Meanwhile, Taug had found the hyena with the apparently  lifeless body of Gazan.  He kills the hyena and feels sorrow as any other father might feel sorrow at the loss of a little child.  Tarzan arrives upon this scene and finds that Gazan is not dead and appraises that a stranger bull has hurt Gazan and carried off Teeka.
11- Tarzan knows from past experiences that the blacks would torture the captured lion.  He has feelings of revulsion at this practice.
12 - While exploring at night, Tarzan comes upon a party of half a dozen black warriors around a fire - - evidently a hunting party from the village of Mbonga caught out in the jungle after dark. There is a thorn boma around the camp.  Maneating lions circle the boma, so the natives throw firebrands at them.  Finally a lion leaps over the boma, and the man on guard leaps over the other side, running for a tree.  The lion picks up  a screaming Negro, leaps out to Sabor, his mate, and the lions feed on him.

 2- Tarzan drops directly in front of the charging elephant and commands him to stop.  He kicks aside some branches and shows Tantor the pit.
 4 - Since the moon does not answer him, Tarzan decides to search for God at the village of Mbonga.  He sees the witch doctor perform strange ceremonies and decides that he must be God.
 5 - Tarzan carries Tibo through the trees to the Mangani.
 6 - Bukawai returns to Momaya and demands payment again.  She refuses, saying that he has taken the child himself.  Bukawai tells her than Tarzan (the white jungle god) has taken Tibo.  She tells him that she cannot afford the new higher price.  Bukawai agrees to make a deal, so three warriors sit down to bargain with him.
 7 - Another day Tarzan is caught in a thunderstorm.  (He compares the storm with hunting lions.)
The tree that shelters him from the storm is struck by lightning, and he is rendered unconscious.  Bukawai, the evil witch doctor, is led to the ape-man by his two hyenas.
 8 -  Tarzan returns to the apes in the morning, planning to give them a scare since he thinks that by now  they have forgotten to post a sentry.  He brings Manu, the monkey, with him to watch the fun.
 9 - Tarzan falls asleep and enters a dream.
10 - Toog returns to his tribe with Teeka.  They are both bloody and battered from the difficult journey.  Toog shows his new she to two bulls.  She snarls at them, but they envy Toog because she is beautiful.  A monkey warns the apes that Tarzan and Toog are coming, so they hide in wait for them along the trail.  When the heroes arrived, they are warned of the ambush by Teeka.  The apes did not foresee that she might betray them.
11 - Before Rabba Kega can rejoin his fellows, Tarzan drops from the tree above upon his shoulders.  Tarzan’s fingers around his throat prevents him from crying out.
12 - In the morning, Taug tells Gunto about Tarzan’s strange thoughts.  Gunto recalls Tarzan’s other strange behaviors and remarks that “Tarzan is not an ape.  He will bring Numa to eat us, as he is bringing him to eat Goro.  We should kill him.”  Taug is appalled at the suggestion, but others joined the plotters.  Tarzan is several miles away lolling upon the broad head of Tantor, the elephant.  He tells Tantor his philosophy of a good life.

 2 - Tantor, realizing the danger, turns away and runs into the jungle to safety.  Tarzan has foiled the plans of the natives.
 4 - Tarzan drops from the trees directly in front of the witch doctor and asks him, “Are you God.”  The witch doctor tries several spells on Tarzan to make him go way, including saying “Boo!” at him.
 5 - Tibo is more terrified than ever, but the exchange of remarks between Tarzan and the apes is a comic competition:  abridged as follows:
 Tarzan:  This is Tarzan’s Go-bu-balu.  Do not harm him, or Tarzan will kill you.
 Ape:  It is a Gomangani.  Let me kill it.
 Tarzan:  Go away or Tarzan will kill you.
 Teeka:  It is a Gomangani.  It will kill my balu.  Take it away, Tarzan.
 Tarzan:  It could not harm Pamba, the rat.  Let Gazan play with it.
 6 -  Rabba Kega, the local witch doctor engages in a magic contest with Bukawai.  Bukawai says that he sees Tibo in great danger, while Rabba Kega says he is already dead at the bottom of the river.
 7 - Bukawai finds Tarzan helpless, so he binds him and carries him back to his cave.
 8 -  Tarzan enters the ape’s camp dressed in the lion skin, but Gunto is on guard and spies him.
 9 -  He has a nightmare about a lion who climbs his tree and follows him into the upper terraces.
10 - Toog strikes Teeka down, and the 3 apes attack Tarzan and Taug. Tarzan kills one with his knife and hurries to Taug’s aid, who is fighting the other two.  Tarzan loses his  knife in his impact with Toog and Teeka picks it up along with his pouch with the cartridges.  Before the heroes can kill their adversaries, Toog’s whole tribe arrives.
11 -  Tarzan binds Rabba Kega with the rope that held the kid, and makes him walk back down the trail.
12  - A black warrior unwittingly enters the territory of the apes.  They want to kill him, but Tarzan recognizes him as the man who faced the lion with a firebrand the previous night.  Tarzan admires courage, so he tells the apes to let him go in peace.  The apes are very angry, and want to kill both the warrior and Tarzan.  Gozan says that Tarzan is “no ape at all; but a Gomangani (a black man)  with his skin off.”  Taug joins Tarzan, and the apes circle, growling to work themselves into the proper pitch for battle.  The black man, Bulabantu, guesses that Tarzan is defending him.

 2- The cannibals prepare for their evening feast.  Tarzan works hi s bonds loose all afternoon, and when they finally tie him to the stake, he breaks loose with a single, powerful wrench.
 4 - Tarzan smells Mbonga coming, so he dodges the spear cast.  Tarzan, growling like Numa, the lion, chases a terrified Mbonga.  Just Tarzan is about to cut his throat, he has pity on the frightened, old man and lets him live.  Tarzan wonders at the strange power which had stayed his hand.
 5 - Momaya is saved by her quickness.
 6 - Tarzan does not even deign to draw his hunting knife but throws one of the hyenas across the cavern after its fellow, which is already slinking away.
 9 - Tarzan strikes at him and the apparition disappears.  He awakens, and a caterpillar is crawling on his naked thigh.
11 -  Tarzan grins.  He is a successful practical joker again.  He had lost some of his self-pride following the painful mauling he received by the apes when he was clothed in the skin of Numa.  The warriors give credit to “the white devil-god” for this strange turn of events, and no one is sorry for the death of Rabba Kega.
12 - Before night fall Taug kills Gunto, picking a quarrel with him over his attack upon Tarzan.

 2- Tarzan escapes from his bonds in the native village.
 4 - Tarzan returns home somewhat changed.  Tarzan could not understand, for he could conceive of nothing, or no one, with the authority to dictate to him what he should do, or what he should refrain from doing.
 5 - Tarzan has to hunt with his Go-bu-balu farther from the apes because they are a constant menace to his life.  The boy is growing thinner and weaker daily and he misses his mother.
 6 - Tarzan returns Tibo to Momaya while the natives are still discussing the problem with the two witch doctors.
 9 -  He has one nightmare after another and wakes in the morning very ill.  He crawls into a thicket to die alone and unseen.  He sleeps until afternoon and wakes weak but no longer sick.  Tarzan then goes to the cabin by the sea.
11 - The warriors take the caged lion back to the village while Tarzan follows.
12 - Tarzan remain in his cabin away from the apes over a month.  The only apes to miss him are Taug and Teeka.  The others never give him a thought.

 2- The natives plans for a feast are suddenly ended.
 4 - Tarzan meditates upon the causes and nature of creation.
 5 - Upon observing a Sabor, a female lion, with a dead cub, Tarzan realizes that Momaya must be suffering at the loss of her child, and he winces at the suffering he has caused.  He begins to see the true relationship between mother and child through “association of ideas” - Sabor and her cub; Momaya and Tibo; Teeka and Gazan.
 6 - Bukawai is in the process of rebutting Rabba Kega’s claim that Tibo is already dead.
 9 - While looking through the picture book in the cabin he sees a Bolgani, a gorilla.  He falls asleep and awakens to see a Bolgani standing in the doorway.
11 - The women immediately begin to torment the lion with sticks and stones.
12 - Taug sees an eclipse of the moon and thinks it is being eaten by a lion the way Tarzan suggested.

 2- Only one with the almost superhuman strength of a Tarzan could have broken the bonds.
 4 - Histah, the snake, a gigantic python, has taken Teeka’s baby, Gazan.
 5 - A terrified Momaya goes to the cave of Bukawai even after running away when she first approached the forbidden place.  Momaya bargains with Bukawai for a spell, but she must return empty-handed because the witch doctor want the price paid before he will deliver.
 6 - Both of the witch doctors are greatly embarrassed at the return of Tibo, especially by Tarzan himself.
 9 - He thinks he is dreaming again, but he is not.  The gorilla carries Tarzan away over his shoulder, and when he tries to escape to close the cabin door, which the ape has left open, the gorilla sinks his great fangs into his shoulder.
11 - Tarzan’s sympathy goes out to the lion.  The cage is dragged between two huts to save the lion from his death by torture until nightfall.  Tarzan decides to wait until dark to rescue the lion.
12 - Taug goes to Tarzan and brings him back to the tribe to save Goro, the moon.

 2- Tarzan holds them off for a half an hour when one one them finally works his way to a point where he can spear him.
 4 - After the battle the apes silently turn away to resume feeding, as does Teeka as though nothing unusual had happened.  This is very striking since some form of praise or recognition occurs at this point in tales dealing with humans.
 5 - Tarzan saves Momaya and Tibo from a lion, and thus he becomes the hero of the story again.
 6 - Tarzan vanishes, “as he had a way of doing,” before the natives can say a word to him.
 9 - He places a foot on the carcass voices the kill cry of the bull ape.
11-  Tarzan drops the lion skin and reveals himself to the natives.
12 - Tarzan returns to the tribe of Kerchak.  He has taken a long stride toward kingship, for now the apes look up to him as a superior being.

 2- Tantor bursts through the barrier as though it were built of straw.
 4 - Tarzan ponders all these events and decides that God must be the one who sent Teeka to slay the snake, and it was God who stayed his hand of death over the old man.  Tarzan’s God is the source of good and the beautiful.
 5 - Tibo  calls Tarzan the “God of the Jungle!”  and he promises him food so that he may never hunger if he will only let him return to his village with his mother.  Tarzan relents, even promising to follow them so that no harm befalls them.  Momaya feels exalted for “never before has she walked with God.”
 6 - Tarzan’s ability to vanish in the midst of the village is a true form of jungle magic.
 9 - Tarzan does not know what is real and what is not, but he knows he will never again eat the flesh of Tantor, the elephant.
11 -  Tarzan releases the real lion from the cage, but the natives think it is still Tarzan in the lion skin.

 2- Tantor hurls the warriors right and left, then removes Tarzan from the village riding on his broad head.
 4 - Tarzan has found God, yet he wonders, posing a judgmental theological question, “Who made Histah, the snake?”  [THE END]  This story does not have a final step since the theme of Tarzan’s search for God will be taken up in tale #12.  The themes in Jungle Tales  have to do with Tarzan’s search for personal identity during his youth, and a strong element in this search is his discovery of the contrasts between true and false power in the world.
 5 - Tarzan is left alone in the world . . . “for Tarzan there can be none-- neither a she nor a balu.  Tarzan of the Apes is a man, and it must be that man walks alone.”   [THE END]  The story is left open.  Bukawai has seen all that happened and he feels cheated out of his price for a spell: three fat goats, a new sleeping mat, and a bit of copper wire.
 6 - Momaya hits Rabba Kega across the head with a broken limb screaming, “magic, indeed!  Momaya will show you some magic of her own.”   She then chases him around the village still beating him across the shoulders to the amusement of everyone.
 9 - The gorilla is dead.
11 -  The lion kills and mauls dozens of the men.  They all run from the village, leaving the lion standing over his kills.  Numa takes one of the bodies and strides slowly through the open gates.  The natives shudder, and Tarzan smiles.