Shadows in Zamboula

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The cover of The Man-Eaters of Zamboula comic adaptation by Roy Thomas featuring the art of Earl Norem.

The original short story was written by Robert E. Howard and first appeared in a 1935 issue of Weird Tales magazine.

"The Man-Eaters of Zamboula" is one of the original stories by Robert E. Howard about Conan the Cimmerian, first published in Weird Tales in 1935 as "Shadows in Zamboula".

The story takes place over a night in Zamboula, with political intrigue amidst streets filled with roaming cannibals. It features the character Baal-pteor, one of the few humans in the Conan stories to be a physical challenge for the main Cimmerian character himself.

[edit] Plot summary

Despite a warning received in the Suq by an elderly desert nomad, Conan stays the night in a cheap tavern in Zamboula, run by Aram Baksh. As night falls, a black Darfarian cannibal enters to drag him away to be eaten. All of the Darfar slaves in the city are cannibals who roam the streets at night. As they only prey on travellers, the people of the city tolerate this and stay locked securely in their homes, while nomads and beggars make sure to spend the night at a comfortable distance from its walls. This night, however, Conan finds a naked woman chasing through the streets after her deranged lover; Conan rescues them from an attack by the cannibals. She tells him that she tried to secure her lover's unending affection via a love potion which instead made a raving lunatic of him. Promising Conan "a reward" in return for his assistance, they attempt to kill the high priest responsible for the man's madness.

The woman is captured in the attempt, and forced via hypnotism to dance before the High priest until she dies. Conan, defeating the strangler Baal-pteor, rescues her and kills the priest. At the point of claiming his payment, however, she reveals that she is really Nafertari, mistress to the satrap of the city, Jungir Khan (the mad man). Taking an antitode to Jungir, she promises Conan position and wealth.

Conan, however, leaves the city and reveals to the reader that he had recognised them almost immediately. He takes his revenge on the tavern owner Aram Baksh by leaving him bound for the hungry cannibals to devour and leaves the city with gold and the magic ring that started the night's intrigues (and which Conan had stolen from the mad Jungir on their first encounter), with the intent to sell it to another interested party.

[edit] Notes

The story is packed with thrills and action and works the two storylines of the cannibal slaves and the romantic/political intrigue together with flair. It's interesting to see how Howard's southern brand of 1930-vintage racism transpires from it, with the matter-of-factly statement that "all" of the Darfari slaves are anthropophagous, "Cannibalism was more than a perverted appetite with the black men of Darfar; it was an integral element of their ghastly cult", and the earlier reference to Zamboula as a city where "white and black and brown skin rub one against the other and get mixed in every accursed sort of hybrid". Readers unaccustomed to or unaware of racial sensibilities of the early 20th century may sometimes find this offensive. There is some sexism in the character of Nafertari/Zabibi. Principally, Conan's attitude towards her and the fact that she is entirely naked for a large amount of the story. Early in the story Nafertari exclaims "black men, like great, hulking apes!"

The evil high priest "sacrifices to Hanuman the accursed!" (again in the words of Nafertari). Hanuman is a deity in the real-world Hindu religion. An idol to the fictionalized version is described as: Bestial in the uncertain light, Hanuman leered with his carven mask. He sat, not as an ape would crouch, but cross-legged as a man would sit, but his aspect was no less simian for that reason. He was carved from black marble, but his eyes were rubies, which glowed red and lustful as the coals of hell's deepest pits. His great hands lay upon his lap, palms upward, taloned fingers spread and grasping. In the gross emphasis of his attributes, in the leer of his satyr-countenance, was reflected the abominable cynicism of the degenerate cult which deified him. It should be noted that in hinduism the God Hanuman is benign and in the Ramayana he and his monkey people are pivotal for Rama to reach Sri Lanka and slay Ravana, probably Howard decided to depict him as a demon after having read Rudyard Kipling's The Mark of the Beast a short story where a drunken British officer in India is struck by a curse after having defaced a Hanuman statue with his cigar.

[edit] Reprint history

The story was republished in the collections Conan the Barbarian (Gnome Press, 1954) and Conan the Wanderer (Lancer Books, 1968). It has more recently been published in the collections The Conan Chronicles Volume 1: The People of the Black Circle (Gollancz, 2000) as "Shadows in Zamboula" and in Conan of Cimmeria: Volume Three (1935-1936) (Del Rey, 2005) under its original title, "The Man-Eaters of Zamboula."

[edit] Adaptation

The story was adapted by Roy Thomas and Neal Adams in Savage Sword of Conan #14.

[edit] External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Shadows in Zamboula

• Conan wiki • The Man-Eaters of Zamboula • Synopsis, characters, locations, and publishing history
• Conan the Barbarian at AmratheLion.com
• Conan.com: The Official Website