Tarzan, one of the best-known literary characters in the world. He was only an infant, when his mother died of natural causes and his father was killed by Kerchak, leader of the ape tribe by whom Tarzan was adopted. Tarzan's tribe of apes is known as the Mangani, Great Apes of a species unknown to science. Kala is his ape mother. An archetypal feral child raised in the African jungles, he later experiences civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer.