Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Origin of Tarzan: The Mystery of Tarzan's Creation Solved
    The Origin of Tarzan: The Mystery of Tarzan's Creation Solved
    The Origin of Tarzan: The Mystery of Tarzan's Creation Solved
    Ebook159 pages2 hours

    The Origin of Tarzan: The Mystery of Tarzan's Creation Solved

    By Sarkis Atamian

    3.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Today, Tarzan's universally popular appeal is as great as always. Scholars and fans are still intrigued with the problem of influence on ERB's imagination which created Tarzan. Research continues unabated and, in the opinion of Atamian, and with due respect, still misses the mark. The Origins of Tarzan solves the mystery of Tarzan's creation and reveals the major ideas which inspired Edgar Rice Burroughs to create one of the great hero archetypes of all times.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPublication Consultants
    Release dateOct 1, 1997
    ISBN9781594334474
    The Origin of Tarzan: The Mystery of Tarzan's Creation Solved
    Author

    Sarkis Atamian

    Sarkis Atamian, the son of immigrant parents, who miraculously escaped the genocide of the Armenians by the Turks after World War I, was born in Providence, Rhode Island. Upon graduation from high school, he served in the United States Army in four campaigns during World War II: Italy, France, Germany, and North Africa. Following the war, Sarkis received his cum laude education at the University of Rhode Island, Brown University, and the University of Utah.After a brief stint with Civil Service, he moved to Alaska and joined the faculty at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. There he served for two terms as head of the Department of Sociology and Psychology. He had membership in many professional societies, including the Egypt Exploration Society, and guided student tours to the Land of the Pharaohs. He kept active membership as a Fellow of the Explorers Club.Sarkis passed away in December 2005, after approving the manuscript for Douglas Avenue. He was happily married to Alison C. Betts, a former student, who, he says, was really an angel in mortal disguise. Alison, who was heavily involved with Sarkis in writing and developing his books, attends book signings and other promotional activities.

    Read more from Sarkis Atamian

    Related to The Origin of Tarzan

    Related ebooks

    Biography & Memoir For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      A Project of Defiance: The Millions Interviews C Pam Zhang

      Oct 1, 2020

      There are so many stories of women, people of color, indigenous people, immigrants, queer folk, the impoverished, and the dispossessed left out of written history. As a woman of color, I take it as my task to let my imagination expand into the spaces

      4 min read

    • Article

      Fiction is a Power Trip: The Millions Interviews Eleanor Henderson

      Sep 25, 2017

      "I think we have to acknowledge that fiction does have that dangerous allure. Is it presumptuous? Sure. It’s a sacred enterprise, it’s the best means of empathy and understanding we have, and it’s also presumptuous." The post Fiction is a Power Trip:

      10 min read

    • Article

      Eroded Tropes and Fears and Consequences: The Millions Interviews Alyson Hagy

      Sep 28, 2018

      It’s been 18 years since Alyson Hagy and I both won a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Nested within the list of grantees was a scattering of addresses. I wrote to Alyson. She answered. We’ve seen each other just twice in all these yea

      8 min read

    • Article

      Q&A Jo Browning Wroe

      Dec 29, 2021

      You lived at a crematorium during your childhood. How did your upbringing influence the novel? Much more than I realised at the time! I grew up with a lack of squeamishness about death. I saw on a daily basis, as hearses passed the window, that peop

      1 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Sep 19, 2022

      Books
      6 min read

    • Article

      Writing Queer

      Dec 27, 2018

      Ididn’t know it, but I was mentally ill until about age 16. Anybody queer was considered “mentally ill” until 1973, when the American Psychiatric Association removed the diagnosis of homosexuality as a disorder (though “sexual orientation disturbance

      8 min read

    • Article

      Most Anticipated: The Great 2023A Book Preview

      Jan 9, 2023

      Welcome to our biannual Great Book Preview! We’ve assembled the best books of 2023A (that is, the first half of 2023), including new work from Nicole Chung, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Claire Dederer, Brian Dillon, Samantha Irby, Heidi Julavits, Catherine La

      29 min read

    • Article

      Me for the Woods

      Jun 30, 2017

      Me for the Woods
      6 min read

    • Article

      What Was It About Animorphs?

      Jan 23, 2019

      What Was It About Animorphs?
      7 min read

    • Article

      Shelf Life

      Nov 2, 2023

      I’m not sure if I can truly pinpoint the moment my new novel Once A Monster was born – but I can trace the history of some of its most important ingredients. As a boy, looking through an old illustrated book of Greek myths, and being at once captiva

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Art of Fiction No. 243

      Dec 15, 2018

      The Art of Fiction No. 243
      24 min read

    • Article

      Books

      May 17, 2021

      by Clare Moleta Scribner/Simon & Schuster — $35 The father and his son in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Max and the Feral Kid in Mad Max 2 and now Li and her daughter, Matti — the highways of the post-apocalyptic planet appear likely to be overrun by s

      7 min read

    • Article

      Blackness in Bedlam: On Toni Morrison’s ‘The Origin of Others’

      Sep 14, 2017

      It can be incapacitating, seeing your suffering in the mirror. The post Blackness in Bedlam: On Toni Morrison’s ‘The Origin of Others’ appeared first on The Millions.

      9 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Origin of Tarzan

    3.5/5

    3 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      More than one hundred and seven years have passed since Tarzan first appeared in “All Stories” in the 1912 October Issue, but even today the literati has not come to a conclusion whether Edgar Rice Burroughs was a plagiarist who cloned Rudyard Kipling’s Mowgli from “The Jungle Book” to create Tarzan, replacing the she-wolf with a she-ape, or did he have his own sources and research to create the Ape-Man. There have also been claims that the theme and story of “Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar” has been plagiarized from H. Rider Haggard’s “She” and “King Solomon’s Mines”.

      The controversy is a continuing one and I was surprised to learn both about the controversy and the fact that there is a vast literature of research on “The Origin of Tarzan”. It was only a few weeks ago that surfing through “Goodreads”, I chanced on this title and started reading it about eight / ten days ago.

      Sarkis Aitman has done a thorough job of researching the origin and in his booklet (146 pages) has presented “The Origin of Tarzan – The Mystery of Tarzan’s Creation Solved” in a detailed manner with reference to various sources from which Edgar Rice Burroughs could have got his idea of Tarzan – and positively the sources are neither Rudyard Kipling’s “Jungle Book” nor Rider Haggard’s “She” or “King Solomon’s Mines.”

      Aitman has presented excerpts from Paul Du Chaillu’s “Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa” and J.W. Buell’s “Heroes of the Dark Continent” to settle the question of Edgar Rice Burroughs source of inspiration for Tarzan and the themes for his first six books..

      In this excerpt Aitman clearly establishes the link from a passage in Du Chaillu’s “Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa” and how Edgar Rice Burroughs got the inspiration for Tarzan:

      ‘Here we have another primate, the second new discovery for science, referred to as “the ape of all great apes,” not as large as a gorilla, but larger than the smaller monkeys and chimpanzees, with a head more nearly like a human being’s and, most importantly, speaks. It is called koola, this speaking or talking ape. Given ERB’s technique with word or koola alteration we know that kooloo, (koola), will only become something like keelee or kaalaa or kala or Kala — the-great she-ape who is Tarzan’s foster mother.

      Shortly thereafter, Du Chaillu is on the hunting trail again and this time, I believe, with a destiny for ERB and Tarzan. Du Chaillu says he:

      …heard a cry of a young animal, which we all recognized to be a nshiego mbouve…At last, coming out into the little cleared space, we saw something running along the ground towards the spot where we stood concealed. When it came nearer we saw it was a female nshiego mbouve, running on all fours, with a young one clinging to her breasts. She was eagerly eating some berries, and with one arm supported her little one.

      Querlaouen, who had the fairest chance, fired and brought her down. She dropped without a struggle. The poor little one cried, Hew! Hew! Hew! and clung to the dead body, sucking the breasts, burying its head there in its alarm at the report of the gun.

      We hurried up in great glee to secure our capture. I cannot tell my surprise when I saw the nshiego baby’s face was white — very white — pallid, but as white as a white child’s…I immediately ordered a return to camp…The little nshiego had been all this time separated from its dead mother, and now, when it was put near her body, a most touching scene ensued. The little fellow ran instantly to her, but, touching her on the face and breast, saw evidently that some great change had happened…For a few minutes he caressed her, as though trying to coax her back to life. Then he seemed to lose all hope. His little eyes became very sad, which made my heart ache for him. He looked quite forlorn, as though he really felt his forsaken lot. The whole camp was touched at his sorrows, and the women were especially moved.

      All this time I stood there wonderingly staring at the white face of the creature. It was marvellous and quite incomprehensible; and a more strange and weird looking animal I never saw.

      While I stood there, up came two of my hunters and began to laugh at me. “Look, Chelly,” say they, calling me by the name I was known among them, “look at our friend. Every time we kill a gorilla, you tell us ‘Look at your black friend! Now, you see, look at your white friend.” Then came a roar at what they thought a tremendously good joke.

      “Look! he got straight hair, all same as you. See white face of your cousin from the bush! He is nearer to you than the gorilla is to us.” And another roar.

      “Gorilla no got woolly hair, like we. This one straight hair like you.”⁸⁶

      Anyone with average imagination, let alone a creative giant like ERB, sees it immediately. He is clobbered between the eyes. In less than 40 or 50 pages, or in one comfortable sitting, the ideas, words, and images are freely associated. There is immediate and poignant identification with the white humanlike baby ape, it’s sadness for its mother, its realization that here is death which it cannot understand. Du Chaillu’s human response of empathy and the identification with the emotions in the scene are instantaneous from which the rest follows. A white baby ape whose white face looks so much like a white child’s, (from a black ape mother) whose resemblance to a white human infant is so close that the natives can chide Du Chaillu to look at his white friend, to look at its straight hair just like Du Chaillu’s own, to see the white face of his cousin from the bush, who is nearer to Du Chaillu (a white man) than a gorilla is to black men.

      The native blacks are treating the white infant ape as if it is a white human infant. A moment’s thought and the imagination (already arrested in poignancy) sees the uncanny similarity and quick leaps from as if, to it is. Given ERB’s obverse- reverse thinking mode of reversing ideas, names, concepts, etc., he must have seen that, as if to, it is just like his reversal of Kabba Rega, Kai Shang, frightful men, even Tarzan and the rest of it. Now, here is a white helpless infant, practically human, contrasted to a biologically real black ape mother — or a kooloo who eventually becomes the Kala.’

      It is obvious that it was this description that influenced Edgar Rice Burroughs to create Tarzan a white orphan baby with a black ape foster mother – does the image click – yes it does and after Aitman’s clarificatory explanation, there can be no doubt.

      The idea for the fifty frightful men also is inspired by a description from Du Chaillu – the guardians in “Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar” – and Buell’s description of Wambutti dwarfs, not Haggard’s “King Solomon’s Mines” or Kipling’s “The Jungle Book.”

      Quoting again from the author:

      ‘Du Chaillu’s “A Journey To Ashango-Land”, and from it, his “Country of Dwarfs” gives fairly detailed accounts of dwarfs and undoubtedly ERB benefited from them. Du Chaillu gives an utterly gentle and paternalistic description of these people who are, indeed, gentle and simple folk. Buell presents a description also, no matter how brief. Then he discusses the Wambutti Dwarfs. He says of them:

      But though short of stature they are uncommonly muscular…Contrary, however, to tradition, the Wambutti do not wear beards, and in all respects they have Negroid characteristics of woolly hair, black eyes…they are certainly very courageous, but not so vindictive and cruel as Kabba Riga and Tipo Tib represented; but that they are guilty of cannibalism there was not wanting the strongest evidence….

      Given ERB’s techniques of obverse-reverse perception, we know what he will do: a complete reversal. The frightful men are short, dwarfish, with gnarled limbs and enormous physical strength and muscular development. Then the reversal begins. They are white, instead of black, have long hair and beards, instead of short hair and no beards, and like the Wambutti wear anklets and bracelets — only of gold. By itself, all this may not be much, but it is the context which does it. The context has to do with one of the most controversial arguments concerning La, Opar, ancient and lost cities, fabulous treasures, and the like — and their relationship to Haggard, especially, and to Kipling, also.’

      Edgar Rice Burroughs description of the guardians of the fabulous treasures of Opar is as follows:

      “short stocky men, with great beards that covered their faces and fell upon their hairy breasts. The thick, matted hair upon their heads grew low over their receding brows, and hung about their shoulders and their backs. Their crooked legs were short and heavy, their arms long and muscular…Massive circlets of virgin gold adorned their arms and legs…But the feature of them that made the most startling impression upon their prisoner was their white skins—neither in colour nor feature was there a trace of the Negroid about them. Yet, with their receding foreheads, wicked little close-set eyes and yellow fangs, they were far from prepossessing in appearance.”

      I provided the details of Trazan’s origin and the “Fifty Frightful Men” of Opar
      to make it apparent that neither Haggard nor Kipling is the source of Tarzan, but it is Du Chaillu and J.W.Buell. Further many of the scenes, events and ideas are based on real life incidents described by Du Chaillu and Buell in their major works.

      The booklet was informative, interesting and well written. It revealed to me a new angle to the Tarzan novels, most of which I have read twenty-five to thirty years ago, Edgar Rice Burroughs being hounded by his critics – the literati – just because he had no college education. Yet Burroughs was possibly the most popular and richest of all authors of the first half of the Twentieth Century.

      Excellent and informative read.

    Book preview

    The Origin of Tarzan - Sarkis Atamian

    +2^book_preview_excerpt.html}[˲Fv WdDʒe3 b@t*fkvK })9B3" U'OūﺻӋǏ_<˜s?x{s8ؤy\ăcI|޵K_~O?Kn;9ahc:Ż7Mb}8ybw1}5}Ü9{7PN%9W0<횣a8~ ]RζqJ[Bi|nRۮ~ݖqo d'pL 64{Ɍ[|Ν;qӲkuir9 {MiK;@">}CgH:  >cs",,SN<MKGG;ث} "t,pgpYӊ]4?!ܛջӏ<3ь7XQ||!kGxq[g|p8wsȴ gA<#wśgnc*>v^\iڨv'8>? O1]9V" ij[YR;cm4)Nk|tXD+ "&F ~*Q{=>f~p ?| GG'Gƴ4>plF?ӧQN;9 i,S:)2fI ? 2N9}vFL1{4 Ҽo\vbn]KA^ Хˎ&.6(>0cPhf`lp=ԡuXkn=!Z nS][K3Nw?8Eia v^3dBV\OBx'Hxd@Ɵ,|Oq踬JQ| ]} zX/ W_ P-#SgG.ˣ ylf+p`"wߙe|(,gF#fu9+"i?_uVb%U`i:A-?\iV1MxUh.?f)^"9V]//quץ;(x{EcT*`'Z,Dv7sSo9uR7˻`:"ID[9bX78\*aƶ1  0LXaaLY&"_)j:?!E /#cM_X"`@t=Ռ-'~KT$޷k~NQ#lZX;vMfwT7XjBAw)4qâ<鐂CɣE&ӆ~.vCZ KU%Q\!NhE(S~~fx Q:8mw[ !kC. 4\JkFKJ[gV+z!&׹69!H$s1)7H+!6/oq̵ψp:F=ʝF>4RޭKi {P{}I}=ЦAnՃ]u$3nfKU@CFEFᣰ5#5Z؆D|kT~+-^MUW'\(7@.!W~]n;ᡇu`N%[ C|CՄTRVvWYٛ5ɟVj<H~G8q-(g0<ʚ3Y*8 i%B+∙ˮ|Ao/XlME56 ӥ[;쪽/O_ ows#臕 +==aʩQ$ZuOirmE%Zy >Z;&yuC>(g;C0*_4j۟{ o@ Ӡ[Cqo/oFu*+k@< $!.%.џҬ˒`Kat\dlG $w"VЛ/,2dOn b̕]3_k_v9Df,v/F㰍ouNH9" P,#8\mlu֭SA6Ee_i"aLVݔ+ fAԞN&k{ݰǥ{O?+=1ܡV2o Ҥ|5eK/'g؍rP{]#Xh?}~׼Q-^^.OpxZ~m@ynraEG ጉ =.Z *y)_W-I)Ĉ*ңTXE/Vt~P߸!4Q#n6̌ ?q$^y{H UY-Т7J5+ZlP7n9֛l%TD}aQm632Ms+:Q3ٔS6~Dz6e12g V`p c讄LR*j-:xcw! DBj[7#sə,%S\D2`'U=nXxuT?/CNQ6RDI_P/N% D0Zc(j\ ?/]VͽxF~r:6X'2vhJ;}pt<3 Y־nDA+mf%[墺\[ Z*@gluJ}/0n"a$l]"i>@8_k(\Ȧ0n X4rs!_A ׃"9v5pɕr<3 HXYR%)j/T.9YhAY (UcHHcVOGvSҥ^P ah,6%CXQE-騿n8I2?i@}oi#W|aJ * 1Hl-.o=2xbjݕAu|Y+kCRC2=ɛieQkN+ lwh{%8rw0}ѭ=OB!-fKS=#Hjofo!8KjZGi[S+"c^j,G)Ep55*YJ][e3@a5EݲRA!KdI`N~߲"iX IL=s BN\'R-p2K%ib Pճ+ v_V/$GO|GNQ6O{uxL]h] r.h5$#Wa,QerN\N,T X4a5RMJ6K^kq۫o`n=xQs"-Nsb.EG%55֠5Ntd`rcPXdXkHHꮌb^e\,<"{uֈniUWժ "^31Ø+DŽp(TՑQΆD_^zuF&@Kxhnh܌mLi7Ǩ[@lIA{KA| M38w؞/0i쁅:0.Gk>8e8 &a M64>^m&2=(tN3YD ,_(go qFŦT#6~F<|f PFu(F>f"xVЦCDao[O<[B1k1~fت-A] {4:_W`w_;G 6V9`RCaRg4͉ك}s~`mXNA qj%]wT욽F^H fUכOcƁS~j%2Mv {>k.G5އw)6bp ޞTD`= o`c*wq5u,@E:~4\4ڎ8ΧfغC밯I,\PZ$}RT EgHf9O^3+qs{\2#1 o-,1+Y~V4QQEY[ù5NuiŊR0%5( F-dwJ& :[|1ŋ8gɡhvIhH/Bgip\s|*=I]:~*w os͗3h Īf *#ή8aesE_RG\r?b ?Ps憔zz" w+[X4#nG+j_'|u9eP&a07m(|gs-'kDz/7L!kc|L4n|`0Fȝt Jӊ {sr?\h0Y Req/gSXp㼄fL)Ww.nkmn܇9I=,IeM`dlYD>Hg(6t͢sک(MĤFc\y,:cf}k5*jdS2ΖQW^E?=*bPoypB|mvT\! hv^j68F.VLUcw9ʼB'n7]Etc=xEߣtvui mNi,laT2kg .{j~$1G֜hFԎ%wFZFrثc;޶(T^ˋb Gw~u3l;6vu,Vyisej8Y؅ek\ 5Ikӄ߭݁rs#4zjDy0Y#X.OoWmb]/XK WK~,nX)f`=yra':ynlnҐ,x4n)Z]7H,sM
    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1