Kerchak
| Kerchak | |
|---|---|
| First appearance | Tarzan of the Apes |
| Created by | Edgar Rice Burroughs |
| Portrayed by | Lance Henriksen (voice) |
| Information | |
| Species | Great Ape, (Gorilla) |
| Gender | Male |
| Spouse(s) | Kala |
Kerchak is a fictional ape character in Edgar Rice Burroughs's original Tarzan novel, Tarzan of the Apes, and in the Walt Disney-produced animated movie Tarzan based on it.
In the novel Tarzan of the Apes Kerchak is the "king" of a tribal band of Mangani, a fictional species of Great Ape intermediate between real life chimpanzees and gorillas. Kerchak reigns by violence and fear heightened by his unpredictable mood swings and bouts of madness. In the beginning of the original novel, Kerchak leads his band against Tarzan's marooned father and kills him; the infant Tarzan is saved by a female Mangani named Kala, who rears the baby and protects him against Kerchak. Tarzan fights and kills Kerchak after reaching adulthood, succeeding him as king of the apes.
Burroughs's later Tarzan book Jungle Tales of Tarzan, which relates additional details of Tarzan's youth among the apes, is also set during the period of Kerchak's rule of the ape band. However, while the ape band is continually referenced as "the tribe of Kerchak," Kerchak himself does not appear in the book.
Kerchak's character in the Disney adaptation (1999) was changed substantially from his original role in the series. The film made the Mangani tribe a family group of gorillas, with Kerchak a silverback (mature male), head of the family, and mate to Tarzan's adoptive mother, Kala. He is essentially a combination of two of the novel's ape characters, Kerchak and Tublat, Kala's mate in Burroughs's original story. The film's Kerchak is closer in personality to Tublat, a fairly passive figure resentful of Tarzan, than to the original Kerchak. (Tublat does however appear as a separate character in the spin-off television series The Legend of Tarzan, as a former rival to Kerchak cast out of the gorilla family many years before. He is characterized much like the novel's Kerchak, being vengeful and violent.)
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