Rikki-Tikki-Tavi is a short story in
The Jungle BookThe Jungle Book is a collection of stories by British Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling. The stories were first published in magazines in 1893–4. The original publications contain illustrations, some by Rudyard's father, John Lockwood Kipling. Kipling was born in India and spent the first six...
(1894) by
Rudyard KiplingJoseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...
about the adventures of a valiant young
mongooseMongoose are a family of 33 living species of small carnivorans from southern Eurasia and mainland Africa. Four additional species from Madagascar in the subfamily Galidiinae, which were previously classified in this family, are also referred to as "mongooses" or "mongoose-like"...
.
The story is notable for its frightening and serious tone. It has often been
anthologisedAn anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...
and has also been published more than once as a short book in its own right. The story was also adapted into an
animatedAnimation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
TV special by
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
animator
Chuck JonesCharles Martin "Chuck" Jones was an American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films, most memorably of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts for the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio...
in 1975. That same year the story was adapted as a
RussiaRussia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n animated short film.
Plot summary
A 19th-century English family — who have moved to a bungalow in the jungles of Sugauli cantonment in
BiharBihar is a state in eastern India. It is the 12th largest state in terms of geographical size at and 3rd largest by population. Almost 58% of Biharis are below the age of 25, which is the highest proportion in India....
State, India — discover a young mongoose half drowned from a flood. They revive it and decide to keep it as a pet. The young mongoose, named Rikki Tikki Tavi, finds himself confronted by two dangerous king
cobraCobra is a venomous snake belonging to the family Elapidae. However, not all snakes commonly referred to as cobras are of the same genus, or even of the same family. The name is short for cobra capo or capa Snake, which is Portuguese for "snake with hood", or "hood-snake"...
s, Nag and his even more dangerous wife Nagaina, who had the run of the garden while the house was unoccupied. After the encounter with the cobras, Rikki's first true battle is with
KaraitBungarus, commonly referred to as kraits , is a genus of venomous elapid snakes found in South and South-East Asia. There are 12 species and 5 subspecies recognized.- Distribution :...
, a dust brown snakeling who touchs the young boy Teddy. Although the snake, because of its deadly
venomVenom is the general term referring to any variety of toxins used by certain types of animals that inject it into their victims by the means of a bite or a sting...
and small size, is an even more dangerous foe than a cobra, the mongoose kills it. The grateful family pet and praise "our mongoose".
After everyone is asleep, Rikki Tikki goes out for his nightly walk around the house and runs into Chuchundra the muskrat. Chuchundra pitifully and indirectly warns Rikki Tikki that Nag and Nagaina may be planning something terrible, after being told by his cousin Chua, the rat, who lives in the garden. Rikki Tikki hears a faint scratching sound that he knows to be Nag or Nagaina lurking around the bathroom
sluiceA sluice is a water channel that is controlled at its head by a gate . For example, a millrace is a sluice that channels water toward a water mill...
. He steals off to the bathroom and hears the cobras' whispering outside. At Nagaina's urging, Nag plans to kill the human family to empty the house so the cobras can again rule the garden. She also reminds him that their eggs, laid and hidden in the garden, would hatch soon (as they might the next day) and that their brood will need room and quiet. Nag goes to the bathroom to wait and kill the "big man", but Rikki follows and bites the cobra by the head above the hood. Nag thrashes about furiously, nearly beating Rikki Tikki to death. The noise wakes the man, who fires both barrels of a
shotgunA shotgun is a firearm that is usually designed to be fired from the shoulder, which uses the energy of a fixed shell to fire a number of small spherical pellets called shot, or a solid projectile called a slug...
into Nag, blowing him in two pieces and almost hitting Rikki. Nag is then thrown on the rubbish heap, where Nagaina mourns for him and vows
vengeanceRevenge is a harmful action against a person or group in response to a grievance, be it real or perceived. It is also called payback, retribution, retaliation or vengeance; it may be characterized, justly or unjustly, as a form of justice.-Function in society:Some societies believe that the...
.
Rikki, well aware of the threat, tries to enlist the tailor bird Darzee, a "feather-brained little fellow", to distract Nagaina while he searches for her eggs, but is instead aided by Darzee's sensible wife. As Rikki finds and destroys most of the brood (biting off the tops of the eggs and crushing the young cobras), Nagaina corners the family at the breakfast table on the garden verandah ("they sat stone-still, and their faces were white") and threatens to kill Teddy with her venomous bite. Alerted by Darzee's wife, Rikki races to the veranda with the last egg in his mouth. His appearance distracts Nagaina long enough for the man to pull the boy to safety. Rikki Tikki provokes Nagaina into a final fight with neither opponent gaining the upper hand until Nagaina snatches the egg and flees to her hole, with Rikki in pursuit. The underground fight is not described, but after an agonizingly long time, Rikki comes out of the hole in triumph, having killed Nagaina. After this victory Rikki spends the rest of his days defending the family garden where no snakes dare to enter.
Books
- Paul Vaderlind, Richard K. Guy
Richard Kenneth Guy is a British mathematician, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Calgary....
, and Loren Larson wrote a mathematical book, The Inquisitive Problem Solver, that references Rikki Tikki Tavi in several problems.
- In the Robert A. Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...
novel The Door into SummerThe Door into Summer is a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein, originally serialized in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and published in hardcover in 1957. It is a fast-paced hard science fiction novel, with a key fantastic element, and romantic elements...
, the main character sometimes refers to his business partner's stepdaughter Frederica (Ricky) as Rikki-tikki-tavi. This was also a childhood nickname of Heinlein's wife VirginiaVirginia "Ginny" Heinlein , born Virginia Doris Gerstenfeld, was the third wife of Robert A. Heinlein, a prominent and successful author once known as one of the "Big Three" of science fiction .Born to George and Jeanne Gerstenfeld, Virginia was raised in Brooklyn and had one brother, Leon...
.
- In George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
's Man and SupermanMan and Superman is a four-act drama, written by George Bernard Shaw in 1903. The series was written in response to calls for Shaw to write a play based on the Don Juan theme. Man and Superman opened at The Royal Court Theatre in London on 23 May 1905, but with the omission of the 3rd Act...
the character Octavius is given the pet-name Ricki-Ticki-Tavy by Ann Whitefield.
- In Barbara Kingsolver
Barbara Kingsolver is an American novelist, essayist and poet. She was raised in rural Kentucky and lived briefly in the former Republic of Congo in her early childhood. Kingsolver earned degrees in biology at DePauw University and the University of Arizona and worked as a freelance writer before...
's novel The Poisonwood BibleThe Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver isa bestselling novel about a missionary family, the Prices, who in 1959 move from Georgia to the village of Kilanga in the Belgian Congo, close to the Kwilu River...
, a girl named Ruth May Price befriends a mongoose and her sister Leah suggests she name it "Ricky Ticky Tabby", but instead Ruth chooses to name it after a rodent from a different piece of literature, Stuart LittleStuart Little is a 1945 children's novel by E. B. White, his first book for children, and is widely recognized as a classic in children's literature. Stuart Little was illustrated by the subsequently award-winning artist Garth Williams, also his first work for children...
.
Film, television, audio and video
An animated Russian film adaptation was produced Aleksandra Snezhko-Blotskaya with a change being that Rikki's adoptive human family are native Indians as opposed to the original story's British family. Another change was that there is no Karait; there is only Nag and Nagaina. In 1975,
Chuck JonesCharles Martin "Chuck" Jones was an American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films, most memorably of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts for the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio...
produced and directed an animated adaptation of
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.
Orson WellesGeorge Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
provided the narration and some of the voices, based on a previous recording. In the
animeis the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
television series,
Jungle Book Shōnen Mowgliis an anime adaption of Rudyard Kipling's original collection of stories, The Jungle Book. It aired in 1989, and consists of a total of 52 episodes.-Music:...
, a major family of native supporting characters have a mongoose companion named Rikki who is a fearless guardian of his human family.
In an episode of British sitcom
Peep ShowPeep Show is a British sitcom starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb. The television programme is written by Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, with additional material by Mitchell and Webb themselves, amongst others. It has been broadcast on Channel 4 since 2003. The show's seventh series makes it...
, the last question on a quiz machine is '"What animal was Rikki-Tikki Tavi?"' In the martial arts parody film
Kung Pow! Enter the FistKung Pow! Enter the Fist is a 2002 American comedy film that parodies Hong Kong action cinema. Starring Steve Oedekerk, it uses and manipulates footage from the 1976 Hong Kong martial arts movie Tiger and Crane Fist Kung Pow! Enter the Fist is a 2002 American comedy film that parodies Hong Kong...
, Master Tang refers to Ling's father as Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. In the comedy series
BottomBottom was a British sitcom television series that originally aired on BBC2 between 1991 and 1995. It was written by comic duo Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson who star as Richie and Eddie, two flatmates living on the dole in Hammersmith, London...
, the character Richie (played by
Rik MayallRichard Michael "Rik" Mayall is an English comedian, writer, and actor. He is known for his comedy partnership with Ade Edmondson, his over-the-top, energetic portrayal of characters, and as a pioneer of alternative comedy in the early 1980s...
) refers to himself as Rikki Tikki Tavi when talking to his aunt.
The name of the "Rikti" Villain faction in the
Massively multiplayer online role-playing gameMassively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....
video games
City of HeroesCity of Heroes is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game based on the superhero comic book genre, developed by Cryptic Studios and published by NCsoft. The game was launched in North America on April 27, 2004 and in Europe on February 4, 2005 with English, German and French language...
and
City of VillainsCity of Villains is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game based on the superhero comic book genre, developed by Cryptic Studios and published by NCSoft. Released on October 31, 2005 , the game is integrated with their previous release, City of Heroes...
was inspired by Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. Mongoose Publishing has a license to author and publish a science-fiction role-playing game called "Traveller Core Rule Book (2008)" that players unofficially refer to as "RTT" or "Rikki Tikki Traveller".
The Donovan song "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" (1970) makes use of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi as a metaphor for several political organizations. The song makes references to the literary piece, as well as the Disney film, "The Jungle Book", even though Rikki-Tikki-Tavi is not mentioned or seen in the film. The song also makes a commentary on the environmental movement with the fact that the Mongoose were diminishing the population of the snakes, no matter how dangerous they are.
In the film
Legends Of The FallLegends of the Fall is a 1994 epic drama film based on the 1979 novella of the same title by Jim Harrison. It was directed by Edward Zwick and stars Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins and Aidan Quinn. The film was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction , and Best...
, Colonel Ludlow is shown reading the story aloud before the three boys go to war.
The third track on
Versions, an album by
metalcoreMetalcore is a subgenre of heavy metal combining various elements of extreme metal and hardcore punk. The name is a portmanteau of the names of the two genres. The term took on its current meaning in the mid-1990s, describing bands such as Earth Crisis, Deadguy and Integrity...
band
Poison the WellPoison the Well was an experimental hardcore band from Miami/Ft. Lauderdale, Florida who were last signed to Ferret Music. Guitarist Ryan Primack and drummer Chris Hornbrook were the only remaining members of the band who were involved since their inception, although vocalist Jeffrey Moreira was...
, is named "Nagaina," in reference to the snake in the story.
In 2011, progressive rockers
Fair to MidlandFair to Midland is an American progressive metal band that formed in 1998 and is based in Dallas, Texas. They are currently signed to E1 Music. According to the band's official website, their name comes from "...an old Texan play on the term 'fair to middling'." The band produced two self-released...
release a track named "Rikki Tikki Tavi", tenth track on Arrows & Anchors album.
Language
The phrase, "Ricky-Tic", is commonly used in the US Military as a slang term for "quickly". Also said as, "Most Ricky-Tic". This is likely an abbreviated form of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, referring to a mongoose's speed.
External links
- "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi"—Full text from e-books at the University of Adelaide
The University of Adelaide is a public university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third oldest university in Australia...
in AdelaideAdelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
, South AustraliaSouth Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
.