8092: Tarzan and Psychology of Truth

<>In Tarzan and Golden Lion, a man found Flora Hawkes alone in the jungle. At first, she thought the man was Esteban Miranda, one of her fellow accomplices in a plan to steal gold from Opar. Soon, though, Flora realized the man was really Tarzan of the Apes, whom she believed had come previously with his Waziri and taken the gold away from the conspirators. “We got the gold,” she admitted to Tarzan, “but you came with your Waziri and took it from us.” When Tarzan denied taking the gold, she “raised her eyes in surprise.” Having become familiar with Lord Greystoke while serving as Jane’s maid in London, she knew that “Tarzan of the Apes did not lie.” <>
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<>Raised as he was amidst the sanctity of nature, it would seem that Tarzan of the Apes would be incapable of telling lies. Indeed, at times he seemed to be completely pure in thought and action. Consider how he refused to lie to Queen Nemone in Tarzan and the City of Gold. <>
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<>“Nemone extended a hand and laid it on his, a soft, warm hand that trembled just a little. ‘I am going to give you your freedom,’ she said, ‘but on one condition … That you remain here, that you do not try to leave Onthar — or me.’ Her voice was eager and just a little husky, as though she spoke under suppressed emotion.

The truth, though, is that Tarzan did lie occasionally. Certainly, he did not do so as often as the average man, but he was not above employing strategic falsehoods when useful in what he considered to be noble causes. Before pointing out some examples of Tarzan’s lies, let’s set a couple of ground rules. First, let’s allow that Tarzan was incapable of lying prior to learning to speak human language. In March 1909, at the age of 20, Tarzan, who had taught himself to read, wrote a note to Paul D’Arnot, asking him to “teach me the language of men.” Tarzan quickly picked up both French and English, making him then vulnerable to the sin of telling lies.

Second, for a statement to be a lie, not only does what the speaker said must be untrue, but he must also know that it’s untrue. At times Tarzan made statements that he thought were true at the time, but later proved to be false. Being mistaken does not make one a liar.

In the closing pages of Tarzan of Apes, the ape-man, standing in a railroad waiting room, read a cablegram from his friend Paul D’Arnot in Paris. It read, “Finger prints prove you Greystoke, Congratulations.” Later, William Clayton asked Tarzan, “If it’s any of my business, how the devil did you get into that bally jungle?”

<>Having just read D’Arnot’s message, Tarzan clearly could have offered a truthful answer to Clayton’s question. And yet, he responded with what appeared to be an obvious lie. “My mother was an Ape, and of course she couldn’t tell me much about it. I never knew who my father was.”

We can excuse a lie at times if it is said to spare someone from learning a painful truth, and that could have been one of those times. However, it is possible that, despite the cablegram, Tarzan still believed at the time that his mother was an ape. He had dismissed D’Arnot’s previous assertions that the dead John and Alice Greystoke must have been his parents, and, after just a few months in civilization, Tarzan easily could have given no credence to a new forensic science like fingerprint identification. So it’s possible that he believed the statement he made at the end of Tarzan of the Apes was true.

Tarzan’s first bona fide lie occurs in The Beasts of Tarzan. While the ape-man was pursuing the villainous Nicholas Rokoff, he came upon a native village. He wanted to question its inhabitants concerning the white men he was pursuing, but he “was at a loss as to how he might enter into communication with these people without either frightening them or arousing their savage love of battle.” So, he came up with a plan. He climbed into a tree hanging above the village and made sounds like a panther. Then he descended and hustled around to the village gates. There he yelled out to the scared natives within that he would drive the panther away if they would let him in the village and answer his questions. When the natives required that he drive the menacing cat away first, Tarzan returned to the tree, and, with great commotion and screams, pretended to chase the panther away. He then returned to the village gates and voiced an obvious lie: “I have driven Sheeta away. Now come and admit me as you promised.”

No harm, no foul, one might say, but it was certainly a lie, told to deceive fearful natives whom Tarzan knew would believe it. In ERB’s Tarzan stories there are several other incidents in which the ape-man purposely took advantage of fearful natives by lying to them.

One example occurs in Tarzan and the Golden Lion. With a woman under his protection, Tarzan entered a native village in a valley behind Opar. “I am going to bring my mate into your village and you are going to hide her, and feed her, and protect her until I return,” he told the scared natives. It was a lie when he referred to the woman accompanying him as his “mate.” In fact, it was not Jane, but rather La, Queen of Opar. ERB explained why Tarzan felt the need to tell this particular fib.

“He had thought it best to describe La as his mate, since thus they might understand that she was under his protection, and if they felt either gratitude or fear toward him, La would be safer.”

Okay, it was a harmless, little lie, but nevertheless, it was a lie, again challenging the notion that Tarzan “never lied.”

Tarzan also lied to natives on other occasions. In Tarzan and the Lost Empire, the ape-man again took advantage of superstitious natives by stretching the truth. After Tarzan had been captured and left bound in a hut, Nkima dropped in for a visit. When the native sentry asked Tarzan to whom he was talking, the ape-man replied, “That was the ghost of your grandfather. He came to tell me that you and your wives and all your children would take sick and die if anything happens to me.”

In Tarzan’s Quest, the ape-man lied again to take advantage of fearful natives. Pretending to be a member of a tribe of white savages who abducted native women, Tarzan threatened a scared native, “One sound and you die; I am a Kavru.” (The Kavru were a savage white tribe whose warriors stole native girls.)

In Tarzan the Magnificent, the ape-man again lied about his identify, pretending to be an evil spirit.

“Instantly a head was thrust from an open window and a man’s voice demanded, ‘What are you doing there? Who are you?’”

“‘I am Daimon,’ replied Tarzan in a husky whisper. Instantly the head was withdrawn and the window slammed shut. Tarzan, quick witted, had profited by something that Gemnon had told him — that the Athneans believed in a bad spirit that was abroad at night seeking whom it might kill. To Daimon they attributed all unexplained deaths, especially those that occurred at night.”

In The Son of Tarzan, the ape-man lied to Meriem, his future daughter-in-law, when he found her wandering in the wild. When she insisted on searching for someone she called “Korak,” Tarzan promised to help her. “I shall not harm you,” he told her. “I only wish to discover if you have fever … If you are well we will set forth in search of Korak.” It was a lie. Tarzan never intended to search for the mysterious “Korak,” but instead wanted to lead Meriem to his African home.

“By degrees he turned the direction of their way more and more eastward, and greatly was he pleased to note that the girl failed to note any change was being made … On the fifth day they came suddenly upon a great plain and from the edge of the forest the girl saw in the distance fenced fields and many buildings. At the sight she drew back in astonishment. ‘Where are we?’ she asked, pointing. ‘We could not find Korak,’ replied the man, ‘and as our way led near my douar I have brought you here to wait and rest with my wife until my men can find your ape or he finds you.’”

All of those lies told by Tarzan were trifles compared to the colossal lie the ape-man told and perpetuated in Tarzan the Terrible. In search of his missing wife, Tarzan boldly and openly walked into the Pal-ul-don city of A-lur and announced he had just arrived from heaven. “I come neither as a slave nor an enemy; I come directly from Jad-ben-Otho.” Escorted to the king’s palace, Tarzan repeated the colossal assertion. “I have come from the country of Jad-ben-Otho … Take me to the king at once lest the wrath of Jad-ben-Otho fall upon you.”

When a guard reached out to grab an arm, Tarzan doubled-down on his big lie. “Stop!” he cried, “who would dare touch the sacred person of the messenger of Jad-ben-Otho? Only as a special mark of favor from Jad-ben-Otho may even Ko-tan himself receive this honor from me. Hasten! Already now have I waited too long! What manner of reception the Ho-don of A-lur would extend to the son of my father!”

The son of their god! As audacious was that escalation of Tarzan’s big lie, ERB explained that the ape-man had actually considered claiming he was the top deity himself. “At first Tarzan had been inclined to adopt the role of Jad-ben-Otho but it occurred to him that it might prove embarrassing … it had suddenly occurred to him that the authority of the son of Jad-ben-Otho would be far greater than that of an ordinary messenger of a god.”

“You know the power of Jad-ben-Otho; how his lightnings gleaming out of the sky carry death as he wills it; how the rains come at his biddings, and the fruits and berries and the grains, the grass, the trees, and the flowers spring to life at his direction; you have witnessed birth and death, and those who honor their god honor him because he controls these things. How would it fare then with an imposter who claimed to be the son of this all-powerful god? This then is all the proof that you require, for as he would strike you down should you deny me, so would he strike down one who wrongfully claimed kingship with him.”

Tarzan brazenly kept adding layers to his fictitious claims. He insisted that “none may sit upon a level with the gods,” (meaning him) in the temple and he informed Lu-don, the high priest, “that the blood of a false priest upon the altar of his temple is not displeasing in the eyes of Jad-ben-Otho.”

Later Tarzan tried to use his self-exalted status in A-lur to soften the strict tenants of A-lur’s long-standing religion.

“There is but one god, and he is the god of the Waz-don as well as of the Ho-don; of the birds and the beasts and the flowers and of everything that grows upon the earth or beneath the waters. If Pan-at-lee (a slave) does right she is greater in the eyes of Jad-ben-Otho than would be the daughter of Ko-tan should she do wrong.”

Even after Korak arrived to save his parents’ lives in the temple at A-lur, Tarzan continued to claim he was the son of their god. When Ja-don, A-lur’s new leader, asked Tarzan to transmit to his people the wishes of his father, Tarzan, still pretending to be the son of their god, responded.

“Your problem is a simple one if you but wish to do that which shall be pleasing in the eyes of god. Your priests, to increase their power, have taught you that Jad-ben-Otho is a cruel god; that his eyes love to dwell upon blood and upon suffering. But the falsity of their teachings has been demonstrated to you today in the utter defeat of the priesthood.

“Take then the temples from the men and give them instead to the women that they may be administered in kindness and charity and love. Wash the blood from your eastern altar and drain forever the water from the western.

“Once I gave Lu-don the opportunity to do these things but he ignored my commands, and again is the corridor of sacrifice filled with its victims. Liberate these from every temple in Pal-ul-don. Bring offerings of such gifts as your people like and place them upon the altars of your god. And there he will bless them and the priestesses of Jad-ben-Otho can distribute them among those who need them most.”

When Tarzan, Jane, and their son soon left A-lur and Pal-ul-don, they left behind a new religion based upon a framework of falsehoods Tarzan had spread among the people. The people of A-lur in Pal-ul-don would forever see the image of Tarzan of the Apes when they imagined the son of their god.

“The king and many warriors and a multitude of people accompanied them beyond the limits of A-lur and after they had bid them good-bye and Tarzan had invoked the blessings of God upon them the three Europeans saw their simple, loyal friends prostrate in the dust behind them until the cavalcade had wound out of the city and disappeared among the trees of the nearby forest.”

In Tarzan and the Castaways the ape-man one-upped his false caricature as the son of a god in Tarzan the Terrible. The ape-man told his most audacious and final lie, when he declared himself Che, Lord Forest, an actual god who came to earth in mortal form. As had the people of A-lur, the population of Chichen Itza bought into Tarzan’s false claims just because he was able to swim around in a volcano lake from dawn until noon without drowning. When Tarzan arose from the water, “the people fell to their knees before him and supplicated him for forgiveness and for favors.”

“I came to earth in the form of a mortal,” he told them, “to see how you ruled my people of Chichen Itza. I shall come again someday to see if you have improved. Now I go.” As he rode Tantor into the forest, Tarzan turned to see the people of Chichen Itza knelling with their faces pressed down. An English woman who witnessed the scene predicted, “Their great-great-grandchildren will hear of this.”

After describing how Tarzan reduced a white African guide to subservience in Tarzan and the Champion, ERB added the following observation about Tarzan.

Tarzan’s inherent “psychology of the truth” told him he could spread falsehoods if he knew the people who heard them wanted to believe they were true, and if they then led to successful action. The lies he told natives achieved both goals, as did the lie he told Meriem. Certainly, the lies he told the people of A-lur and Chichen Itza were welcomed by the population and resulted in positive changes in those societies for generations to come.

BILL HILLMAN
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