Kala is a fictional ape character in Edgar Rice Burroughs's original Tarzan novel, Tarzan of the Apes, and in movies and other media based on it. She is the foster mother of Tarzan and raised him following the death of his parents.
Fictional character biography
In the novel, Kala is a female in a band of Mangani, a fictional species of great ape intermediate between gorillas and chimpanzees. The band of mangani encounter the Claytons, and while Kerchak attacks the father, Kala discovers their baby son. Grieving the death of her own baby, she takes the young Tarzan and raises him as her own.[1] After Tarzan reaches adulthood, Kala is killed by Kulonnga, an African hunter who Tarzan subsequently kills in revenge.[2][3][4]
Kala is frequently mentioned in Tarzan books set after her death.[2] She also appears in Jungle Tales of Tarzan, a collection of short stories set during Tarzan's youth.
^ abcBrode, Douglas; Brode, Shea T. (June 24, 2016). It's the Disney Version!: Popular Cinema and Literary Classics. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 214–215. ISBN9781442266070.
^ abcde"Kala Voices (Tarzan)". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved April 27, 2025. A green check mark indicates that a role has been confirmed using a screenshot (or collage of screenshots) of a title's list of voice actors and their respective characters found in its credits or other reliable sources of information.
^Davis, Amy M. (February 20, 2007). Good Girls & Wicked Witches: Women in Disney's Feature Animation. John Libbey Publishing. p. 204. ISBN9780861969012.
^Wannamaker, Annette (September 10, 2012). Boys in Children's Literature and Popular Culture: Masculinity, Abjection, and the Fictional Child. Routledge. p. 63. ISBN9780415974691.