Sabor (Tarzan)

"Sabor" is a generic name for lionesses (originally tigers) in "Mangani", the fictional language of the great apes in the Tarzan novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs. In Burroughs' works innumerable lionesses appear under the name of "Sabor". In the Walt Disney animated movie "Tarzan", "Sabor" is a term for leopards, more specifically the leopard that kills Tarzan's parents.

Evolution of the term

In the initial magazine publication of the original Tarzan novel "Tarzan of the Apes", "Sabor" meant "tiger". Burroughs subsequently altered the meaning to "lioness" for book publication after being informed that there are no tigers in Africa. He substituted "lioness" rather than "lion" because there was an existing "Mangani" term for lions in the story, "Numa". Lions thus attained the distinction of being the only creatures with separate terms in "Mangani" for the male and female. An "ex post facto" explanation rationalizing the distinction has been found in the fact that male lions are maned and female lions are not, providing a marked visual distinction between the two.

Disney

In the Walt Disney produced animated movie "Tarzan", the meaning of the word was changed yet again, to "leopard", despite the prior existence of a different and quite serviceable "Mangani" term for leopard ("Sheeta"). The alteration appears to have been made for two reasons. The first was for factual accuracy; lions are in fact creatures of the veldt, not the jungle as portrayed in Burroughs's tales. The second was more aesthetic; "Sabor", they felt, is simply a more evocative and interesting word than "Sheeta". The specific "Sabor" appearing in the film is the leopard that kills Tarzan's parents and Kala and Kerchak's child and is later killed by him in turn. This occurs during a running fight between the two that culminates when Sabor leaps down on Tarzan, plunging them both into a pit and incidentally impaling himself on the head of Tarzan's shattered spear, which the ape man raises against him. Tarzan then calls out the famous ape man cry, as he lifts up the leopard's dead body.

"Sheeta", The discarded original Burroughs designation, was later used in "The Legend of Tarzan" show as the name for one of two black panthers that attack together (the name of the other was "Noru").

Role in Kingdom Hearts

The Sabor from the 1999 "Tarzan" film reappears in the video game "Kingdom Hearts" as a minor antagonist. After the game's protagonist Sora gets separated from his friends Donald and Goofy, he lands in the treehouse made by Tarzan's parents, where he is attacked by Sabor. Luckily Tarzan saves his life, and Sabor escapes. After Sora is reunited with his friends, Sabor continues to hunt them through the jungle and battle them until finally, near the end of the level's story, she succumbs to her wounds and dies after a particularly vicious battle with the group.