Character guide

Tarzan

major

Also known as Tarzan of the Apes, the Apes, Lord Greystoke, Greystoke, the Tarmangani, Tarmangani, the Great Tarmangani

Tarzan of the Apes is a jungle predator who reads scent spoor like a letter and mocks the Gomangani for sport, yet he keeps turning back for two stranded Tarmangani he swears he owes nothing. He calls himself a weak old woman for the pity he cannot kill, and that self-contempt is the crack in him the whole story widens. When he finds a plane in a meadow with an Englishman bound and a white girl aboard, his woodcraft and his divided heart collide at once.

Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick

major

Also known as Harold Percy Smith - Oldwick, Lieutenant Smith - Oldwick, Smith - Oldwick, Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith, Oldwick

Smith-Oldwick begins as a bound prisoner in a Wamabo hut awaiting a cannibal feast, then becomes the man Tarzan stations at the north opening with a pistol and orders not to waste cartridges on lions. Wounded, mauled, and finally shot through the leg, he keeps firing until he cannot, which is the whole measure of him. His helplessness forces Tarzan into the protector role he claims to despise, and his survival depends on strangers he has no power to repay.

Fräulein Bertha Kircher

major

Also known as Fräulein Kircher, Fräulein, Bertha Kircher, Bertha, Miss Kircher

Bertha Kircher is a woman with a past she does not explain, seized by lion-handling captors and hauled toward a forest that smells wrong, too dry for the jungle she knows. When Smith-Oldwick tells her to go on without him, she answers that if he dies here she dies with him, and she means it. Her endurance under nerve strain is the quiet counterweight to Tarzan's brute strength, and her stubborn loyalty repeatedly decides who lives.

Usanga

supporting

Also known as the cunning Usanga, Numabo, the brutal Usanga, the ignorant Numabo, XIII Usanga, the black Usanga

Usanga is a deserter from the German command who takes Smith-Oldwick's plane and Bertha Kircher with it, leaving the bound Englishman in the meadow. Tarzan watches him fly and cannot guess how a man he counts a savage learned the controls, which is exactly the assumption Usanga exploits. His treachery turns the rescue into a midair gamble and makes him the human threat that jungle cunning alone cannot solve.

Numa

supporting

Also known as XIV The Black Lion Numa

Numa has not eaten in two days, and hunger has stripped the roar from him, leaving only a silent, grim stalk through the game trails. Robbed of a deer by Sheeta the panther, he comes upon the scent of man and considers meat he has always disdained. His hunger drives him into the gorge where Tarzan's saber and Smith-Oldwick's pistol must answer him, making him the jungle's own verdict on the fugitives.

Zu-tag

supporting

Also known as Zu - tag, Zu - tag ( Big - neck

Zu-tag belongs to the great apes Tarzan can speak to as kin, the Mangani among whom he is still, in some measure, at home. His allegiance sits uneasily between the ape-man he respects and a tribe that has no reason to shelter two Tarmangani fugitives. That friction matters because it shows Tarzan's jungle authority is not absolute, and that even his oldest alliances must be renegotiated when he chooses the humans over the tribe.

Sheeta

minor

A leopard that is a recurring predator in Tarzan's jungle.

Hauptmann Fritz Schneider

supporting

Also known as Hauptmann Schneider, Hauptmann, the Hauptmann, Schneider, Herr Hauptmann Fritz Schneider, Hauptmann Fritz, Major Schneider, the luckless Major Schneider, Captain Fritz Schneider

Hauptmann Fritz Schneider belongs to the German colonial force that burned Tarzan's bungalow and slaughtered his Waziri tribe, and he becomes one of the officers the ape-man hunts through the war-torn jungle. His fate is bound up with Tarzan's grim accounting of the men responsible for the raid, a reckoning that drives the novel's early movement. Though he commands soldiers and prisoners, he is ultimately powerless against a foe who moves through the trees like a beast.

Otobu

minor

Also known as poor Otobu

A native warrior who serves Usanga and later helps Tarzan.

Metak

supporting

Also known as Prince Metak

Metak rules alongside Xanila over Xuja, a sealed city whose inhabitants are descended into hereditary madness, and he embodies its violent unpredictability. When Tarzan and his companions are taken inside the walls, Metak's rages and obsession with the captive girl Bertha Kircher turn the city into a death trap. His savagery forces Tarzan into one of the novel's most brutal personal combats, and his hostility shapes the entire Xuja arc.

Ska

minor

A vulture that scavenges and appears in the jungle scenes.

Colonel Capell

minor

Also known as Capell

A British colonel involved in the war effort in Africa.

Go-lat

minor

Also known as Go, Already Go - lat

A great ape who is a follower of Zu-tag and aids Tarzan.

Bara

minor

A deer-like animal in the jungle, often prey for predators.

Sabor

minor

A lioness that is a dangerous predator in Tarzan's world.

Manu

minor

Also known as Little Manu, noisy little Manu, little Manu, Manu Tarzan

A monkey that interacts with Tarzan and the apes.

Xanila

supporting

Xanila shares rule of Xuja with Prince Metak, presiding over a sealed civilization whose people are consumed by inherited insanity. Her position places her at the center of the power struggles that engulf Tarzan and the prisoners once they are brought inside the walls. As queen, she controls the fate of strangers in a city from which few ever escape, and her decisions ripple through the desperate bid for freedom that dominates the Xuja sequence.

Jane Clayton

minor

Also known as Jane, Lady Jane, Lady Jane Greystoke, Lady Greystoke

Tarzan's wife, mentioned as missing or deceased early in the story.

General Jan Smuts

minor

Also known as Smuts, General Smuts

A historical general mentioned in the war context.

Naratu

minor

A native warrior and ally of Usanga.

Dango

minor

A hyena that appears as a scavenger in the jungle.

Lieutenant Thompson

minor

Also known as Thompson

A British officer captured by the Germans.

Wasimbu

minor

A native warrior in Usanga's village.

Underlieutenant von Goss

minor

Also known as von Goss

A German officer at the fort, subordinate to Schneider.

General Kraut

minor

Also known as Kraut

A German general commanding forces in the region.

Horta

minor

A boar that appears as a jungle animal.

Pisah

minor

A great ape who is a member of the Mangani tribe.

Histah

minor

A snake that appears as a jungle threat.

Bolgani

minor

Also known as mighty Bolgani, a Bolgani

A gorilla that Tarzan encounters in the jungle.

Herog XVI

minor

Also known as XVI, Herog

A king of the walled city of Xuja.

Tantor

minor

The elephant, a jungle animal known to Tarzan.

Major Preswick

minor

Also known as Preswick

A British officer involved in the war.

Luberg

minor

A German soldier or officer at the fort.

Ago

minor

A native warrior in Usanga's village.