In the new film THE LEGEND OF TARZAN (which is spectacular, and if you haven’t seen it yet you need to remedy that, and if you have seen it you need to see it again to catch all the in-jokes—the crocodiles being summoned by a “mating call,” for example), the Mangani, the ape race that raised Tarzan, are depicted as gorilla-like, only considerably larger and far more vicious. In other films they have been depicted as chimpanzees. In really cheap attempts, they’ve been portrayed by guys in ratty gorilla suits. In that abominable Disney cartoon, we learned that one of them, at least, was an obnoxious loudmouth that sounded a lot like Rosie O’Donnell. (One of only many reasons I detest that travesty.)
Going back to the source material, the Mangani are a fictitious species created by author Edgar Rice Burroughs as far more human than we tend to think of “apes” being. They walked on two legs like humans, could speak, had a crude language and more crude religion, used tools. They were higher on the evolutionary scale than gorillas or chimpanzees. They would’ve had to have been, as children reared without any form of human socialization, the way we’ve seen with these documented cases of feral children, are hopelessly mentally handicapped. Also, like humans, the Mangani are carnivorous. They share the human thirst for blood.
