Messua (Jungle books)

:"Messua" is also a genus of jumping spiders.

Messua is a fictional character in Rudyard Kipling's "The Jungle Book" and "The Second Jungle Book".

She is the wife of the richest man in an Indian village; her husband's name is not given. When Mowgli leaves the jungle and arrives at their village, they believe him to be their son Nathoo who was lost in the jungle some years before. The village priest, seeing the potential advantage in keeping the village's richest man happy, agrees to their adopting the strange boy. Unfortunately for the couple, Mowgli's ignorance of village laws and customs results in some embarrassing incidents which cause Messua's husband to lose his affection for the boy. Things come to a head when Mowgli kills the tiger Shere Khan and calls his wolf friend Akela to prevent the village's chief hunter Buldeo from taking the tiger's skin. Believing Mowgli to be an evil sorcerer the villagers drive him away and sentence Messua and her husband to death. With the aid of his animal friends Mowgli rescues them and sets them on the road to another village, although only Messua shows her gratitude. Her husband is resentful at being forced to leave with only a small amount of money.

When he is approximately seventeen years old Mowgli stumbles across Messua by accident, now widowed and living with her infant son in a distant village. Astonished that the boy she once knew is now a tall and beautiful young man, she half-believes him to be a jungle god and begs him to stay with her and help raise his new brother. Mowgli is torn between staying and returning to the jungle, but eventually decides to stay.

There is no mention of Messua in "In the Rukh", the final Mowgli story chronologically, although the first written. If the story is taken as canonical despite its many inconsistencies with the rest of the series, it must be assumed that Messua had either died or let Mowgli go.

The character of Messua was originally supposed to appear in the 1967 animated Disney version of The Jungle Book, but was removed when story writer Bill Peet left the studio, as explained in the 40th Anniversary Edition DVD. But she did appear in The Jungle Book 2