O Hairy Man! The Visual History of the Sagoth - Part 1

This post is brought to by Bearshirt #2: The Hidden World by G. W. Thomas. I will admit this Arthan novel was inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Pellucidar, in particular. Arthan the Bear-man ends up in an interior world rules by lizard-men. He travels across the land, first in Sharn where men are primitive, then to Ilsik where they are less so, and finally, to the evil empire of Dathans. There are dinosaurs and shapechangers and many other terrors to face.

This post is also the ultimate geek-ot for me since I grew up on ERB (like so many of us, he was the gateway drug to the Fantastic.) I feel like those old fanzine writers must have putting together issues of Burroughs Bulletin or ERB-Dom. (I did appear in one such publication, ERBania #80, April 1999) So I have no illusions that no one has ever covered this topic before. I am sure they have. For a great review of all the Pellucidar comics (EVER!) go here. I found it helpful along with ERBzine from which I borrowed a few images. Thanks to both!

The Sagoth is one of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ more famous creations. As the servants (not slaves) of the Mahars, they had much power in the Interior World. They also possessed access to higher technology (I assume through the Mahars, such as metallurgy.) They look like gorillas but are much more. ERB gave us the imagine of the ape corralling humans as slaves or livestock that Rod Serling and Michael Wilson would use in Planet of the Apes (1968) and sequels. These films made it difficult for an actual adaption of At the Earth’s Core (1975) to use ape-men. But more on that next time.

Let’s have a look at how Edgar Rice Burroughs introduced us to the Sagoths. In At the Earth’s Core from All-Story Weekly (April 4-25, 1914) David Innes and Abner Perry end up in Pellucidar by accident. They emerge from the iron Mole to be attacked by a giant sloth, then hyenodons and finally captured by the Money-Men. These arboral people place them in an arena to fight beasts but they are rescued by the Sagoths, who enslave them. The Sagoths look like:

…Behind them, streaming through the pass which leads into the valley, came a swarm of hairy men—gorilla-like creatures armed with spears and hatchets, and bearing long, oval shields. Like demons they set upon the ape-things, and before them the hyaenodon, which had now regained its senses and its feet, fled howling with fright. Past us swept the pursued and the pursuers, nor did the hairy ones accord us more than a passing glance until the arena had been emptied of its former occupants. Then they returned to us, and one who seemed to have authority among them directed that we be brought with them….

Our guards, whom I already have described as gorilla-like men, were rather lighter in build than a gorilla, but even so they were indeed mighty creatures. Their arms and legs were proportioned more in conformity with human standards, but their entire bodies were covered with shaggy, brown hair, and their faces were quite as brutal as those of the few stuffed specimens of the gorilla which I had seen in the museums at home.

Their only redeeming feature lay in the development of the head above and back of the ears. In this respect they were not one whit less human than we. They were clothed in a sort of tunic of light cloth which reached to the knees. Beneath this they wore only a loin cloth of the same material, while their feet were shod with thick hide of some mammoth creature of this inner world.

Their arms and necks were encircled by many ornaments of metal—silver predominating—and on their tunics were sewn the heads of tiny reptiles in odd and rather artistic designs. They talked among themselves as they marched along on either side of us, but in a language which I perceived differed from that employed by our fellow prisoners. When they addressed the latter they used what appeared to be a third language, and which I later learned is a mongrel tongue rather analogous to the Pidgin-English of the Chinese coolie.

Later in Tarzan at the Earth’s Core we learn an interesting fact about the Sagoth’s language:

This word, coming from the lips of a hairy gorilla man of the inner world, suggested possibilities of the most startling nature. For years Tarzan had considered the language of the great apes as the primitive root language of created things. The great apes, the lesser apes, the gorillas, the baboons and the monkeys utilized this with various degrees of refinement and many of its words were understood by jungle animals of other species and by many of the birds; but, perhaps, after the fashion that our domestic animals have learned many of the words in our vocabulary, with this difference that the language of the great apes has doubtless persisted unchanged for countless ages.

That these gorilla men of the inner world used even one word of this language suggested one of two possibilities—either they held an origin in common with the creatures of the outer crust, or else that the laws of evolution and progress were so constant that this was the only form of primitive language that could have been possible to any creatures emerging from the lower orders toward the estate of man. But the suggestion that impressed Tarzan most vividly was that this single word, uttered by the creature grasping him by the throat, postulated familiarity on the part of his fierce captors with the entire ape language that he had used since boyhood.

In this second appearance, Tarzan meets a group of Sagoths not under the Mahars’ control. They are less civilized than those David Innes saw earlier. The Sagoths lost much of their power when Innes and the Pellucidarians defeated the Mahar Empire in Pellucidar (All-Story Cavalier Weekly, May 1-29, 1915).

The first artist to draw a Sagoth was J. Allen St. John, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ favorite artist. St. John was hired to do the cover and illustrations for the book version of At the Earth’s Core (1922) which includes one image of David Innes shooting a Sagoth with a bow. We see the Sagoth is largely man-like, with clothing and stone age weapons.

The first magazine artist was Frank Hoban in the illustrating of Tarzan at the Earth’s Core for Blue Book, September 1929-March 1930. We see Tar-Gash the Sagoth here on the left and then the right. He looks like a gorilla. This change from clothing wearer to naked gorilla may be ERB’s fault, not Hoban’s, as the Sagoths in the thirteenth Tarzan novel are wilder than those under the Mahars.

J. Allen St. John was back with the jacket art for the novel when it was released in 1930. Strangely, in a novel with cave bears and sabertooth tigers, St. John chose the chapter with the Sagoths for the image. This is odd to me since the Sagoths could be ordinary apes with clubs.

The next artist to draw Tar-gash and his buddies was in the comic strips. Rex Maxon adapted this novel in June 1-September 19, 1931. The story was adapted by R. W. Palmer. Maxon makes his Sagoths look like gorillas too. Tarzan does teach Tar-gash to use a bow and arrow.

Just an aside here: The October, 1931 issue of Weird Tales featured the story “The Gods of Bal-Sagoth”, a Sword & Sorcery tale of Dark Turlough O’Brien and a lost city of sorts. There are no ape-men in it but the name of ‘Bal-Sagoth’ showed Robert E. Howard’s interest in Edgar Rice Burroughs. In many way, REH was ERB’s best successor even though he died before Burroughs by fourteen years.

The second comic adaptation was done by Edgar Rice Burroughs’ son, John Coleman Burroughs. It appeared as At the Earth’s Core (later reprinted as David Innes of Pellucidar) in Hi-Spot Comics #2, November 1940. Burroughs’ Sagoths look far more human. Only the head suggests a different species. JCB doesn’t make them particularly hairy or gorilla-like.

The 1940s give us one of the most famous Tarzan artists, Burne Hogarth, along with Dan Barry drawing Sagoths in comic strip form. “The Mole” appeared in September 1, 1947-January 3, 1948 with an adaptation of At the Earth’s Core followed by “Tarzan in Pellucidar”. Both feature Sagoths:

Frank Frazetta is another iconic artist associated with the stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs. In the 1960s he did a number of paperback covers but also black & white illustrations for Carnaval Press and the Science Fiction Book Club. These include three images of Sagoths. I’m not exactly sure of the dates but the earliest were probably 1962 and the latest 1968.

Less well known is Mahlon Blaine who did the Carnaval Press images in 1962. His work is quite idiosyncratic and not necessarily to the taste of more literal fans. His Sagoths wear clothes.

The 1950s left Pellucidar alone so it’s not until Gold Key’s Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan adapts Tarzan at the Earth’s Core over three issues #179-181, September-December 1968 that we get Sagoths again. This adaptation was written by Gaylord DuBois with art by Doug Wildey. (I was hoping for Russ Manning but you’ll have to wait just a little longer.) The Sagoths did not make it onto any of George Wilson’s three covers. They only appear in Issue #179. (And in a world where everybody dresses like a caveman, some are more caveman-y than others.) Wildey’s Sagoths are too human.