Who is Bumude-mutamuro?

"Bumude-mutamuro," is the self written name of Tarzan. I have pointed this out a couple of times when mentioning the note Tarzan pinned and put on the cabin door when the Porter party was beached.

Burne Hogarth

Remember in Tarzan Of The Apes, Burroughs says the jungle lord signs his name Tarzan of the Apes. We know that this is not the case, however, for it is plainly stated in The God Of Tarzan, a short story in Jungle Tales Of Tarzan, the ape-man does not write his name as 'White Skin' when writing in English.

 

Burne Hogarth

"Similarly he had arrived at a strange and wonderful spelling of his own name. Tarzan is derived from the two ape words tar and zan, meaning white skin. It was given to him by his foster mother, Kala, the great ape. When Tarzan first put it into the written language of his own people he had not yet chanced upon either white or skin in the dictionary; but in a primer, he had seen the picture of a little white boy so he wrote his name bumude-mutamuro, or he-boy. "ERB-Jungle Tales Of Tarzan.

Zdenek Burian

It is this passage that should make it quite clear the original note pinned to the Porter party has been signed bumude-mutamuro, and not Tarzan of the Apes.

Roy G. Krenkel

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

James Michael Moody is a lifelong fan and collector of Edger Rice Burroughs. Over the past forty-five years, Moody has contributed over two hundred articles to various ERB-related fanzines. He also manages an unauthorized Tarzan blog titled Greystoke Chronologist: James Michael Moody. There, the researcher chronologies the Tarzan books starting in May 1872 (known as the pushback theory) instead of the more accepted date, May 1888.

James Michael Moody also authorizes the action-packed Sci-Fi fantasy adventure Unium series. Pioneers On Unium, published December 31, 2019, Exiled On Unium, published August 25, 2022, and Swordsman On Unium, published on July 15, 2024.