Waziri (fictional tribe)

The Waziri are a fictional African tribe created by Edgar Rice Burroughs in his Tarzan novels. Burroughs characterizes the Waziri as the greatest warriors in Africa, though small in numbers. They are feared by Arabic ivory and slave traders as well as cannibal tribes, and known from western to eastern Africa. The Waziri also appear in other media based on the novels.

According to David Arthur Adams, Burroughs may have coined the name "Waziri" on the basis of two historical African groups: "The infamous slaver, Tippu-Tib, who accompanied Henry Morton Stanley upon part of his journey, employed the Wangwana (the name of the inhabitants of Uganda) and Wanyamwizi (from Tanzania) to help round up slaves. The name Waziri could very likely be one of ERB's name juxtapositions, and, again, the reversal of alliances would be a normal practice in his writing." Burroughs was frequently using Stanley's writings as a source for his early Tarzan novels.

In The Return of Tarzan Tarzan returns from civilization to his beloved jungle. But he has changed. Previously his relationship with natives was violent and antagonistic, colored by the death of his ape foster mother Kala at the hands of a native hunter, but he has experienced humanity in all its varieties since then. So now, when he meets a black warrior, instead of killing him he saves him from Numa, the lion. The warrior, Busuli, is a member of the Waziri tribe. Tarzan discovers they are cultured and despise cannibals like the tribe he had intermittently warred against in his youth. Tarzan is accepted as a member of the tribe after teaching them a new practical way of hunting elephants. These two hunts are the only recorded instances of his killing "Tantor", the elephant.

When Arabic ivory traders and their cannibal slaves attack the Waziri village, causing the death of the old chief (also named Waziri) and many others, Tarzan takes the lead, preventing the burning of the village and defeating the Arabs with effective guerrilla-tactics by killing them one at the time. Tarzan then becomes the new chief of the tribe and from then on these noble black warriors share his fate. The Waziri take him to their secret treasure-trove, the lost city of Opar, which they first discovered in the days of the deceased former chief Chowambi, Waziri's father.

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