Tarzan the Terrible · Chapter
IV: Tarzan-jad-guru explained
After Es-sat's death, Om-at declares himself gund of Kor-ul-ja and challenges any dissenters.
What happens
After Es-sat's death, Om-at declares himself gund of Kor-ul-ja and challenges any dissenters. He defies tradition by sparing Tarzan and Ta-den, decreeing that strangers who are brave and good friends shall no longer be slain. Om-at then organizes a search for the missing Pan-at-lee. Tarzan uses his keen sense of scent to track her to the cliff above Kor-ul-lul, where signs suggest she jumped to escape a lion. The search party encounters An-un and his sons fleeing the Kor-ul-lul, and they unite to charge the pursuing tribe, sending Id-an to warn Kor-ul-ja.
Themes in this chapter
Power and Corruption
Om-at seizes power after Es-sat's death and immediately challenges corrupt traditions, asserting his authority to protect outsiders.
Survival and Adaptation
Tarzan's tracking skills and the tribe's cliff-climbing techniques highlight adaptation to a hostile environment.
Love and Loyalty
Om-at's determination to find Pan-at-lee and the loyalty of In-sad and O-dan demonstrate bonds of love and allegiance.
Characters to notice
- Tarzan
Uses his acute sense of scent to track Pan-at-lee; shows leadership and tracking skill; fights alongside Om-at.
- Om-at
Declares himself gund of Kor-ul-ja after Es-sat's death; defies tradition by sparing Tarzan and Ta-den; leads search for Pan-at-lee.
- Ta-den
Stands with Tarzan and Om-at; volunteers to join the search for Pan-at-lee.
- Pan-at-lee
Missing; tracked by Tarzan to the cliff above Kor-ul-lul, where she apparently jumped to escape a lion.
- In-sad
One of the first warriors to acknowledge Om-at's chieftainship; joins the search party.
- Es-sat
Dead; his death precipitates Om-at's rise to power.
Key passages
“Always there is change. Even the old hills of Pal-ul-don appear never twice alike—the brilliant sun, a passing cloud, the moon, a mist, the changing seasons, the sharp clearness following a storm; these things bring each a new change in our hills. From birth to death, day by day, there is constant change in each of us. Change, then, is one of Jad-ben-Otho’s laws.”
Om-at argues that change is a natural law, using the ever-changing appearance of the Pal-ul-don hills as a metaphor to justify his revolutionary decision to spare strangers.
Om-at's speech justifies breaking tribal tradition by invoking the inevitability of change.
“I am Om-at. Who will say that Om-at is not gund of Korul-ja?”
Om-at asserts his claim to leadership and challenges anyone to dispute it.
Om-at's bold declaration of chieftainship after Es-sat's death.
“You—mean—she jumped?”
Om-at asks in dismay if Pan-at-lee leaped into the gorge to escape the lion.
Om-at's reaction to Tarzan's tracking evidence at the cliff edge.