Part 23 (2/2)

. Something of Myself and Other Autobiographical Writings. Something of Myself and Other Autobiographical Writings. 1937. Edited by Thomas Pinney. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Includes ”Baa Baa, Black Sheep.” 1937. Edited by Thomas Pinney. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Includes ”Baa Baa, Black Sheep.”

Naipaul, V S. An Area of Darkness. An Area of Darkness. New York: Vintage Books, 2002. New York: Vintage Books, 2002.

Orwell, George. ”Rudyard Kipling.” In Collected Essays. Collected Essays. London: Heinemann, 1966. London: Heinemann, 1966.

Rushdie, Salman. East, West: East, West: Stories. New York: Vintage, 1995. Stories. New York: Vintage, 1995.

Trilling, Lionel. The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society. The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society. 1950. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979. 1950. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979.

Wilson, Edmund. ”The Kipling That n.o.body Read.” In The Wound and the Bow, The Wound and the Bow, 1941. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1947. 1941. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1947.

a In central India, in the Seoni district of Madhya Pradesh. Kipling never visited this region.

b Kipling gets this name from his father's 1891 work Beast and Man in India, Beast and Man in India, in which a parasite is called in which a parasite is called tabaqi kutta, tabaqi kutta, a Hindi phrase meaning ”one who sponges” (literally, ”dish dog”). a Hindi phrase meaning ”one who sponges” (literally, ”dish dog”).

c Rabies (Hindi).

d Or Wainganga; river in the Seoni district.

e Or sambar, a large Asian deer.

f Kipling invented this name. Most of the other creatures in the Mowgli stories are named with Hindi words that describe what they are.

g Alone (Hindi).

h Bear (Hindi).

i Pard, or panther (Gondi, a language spoken in south-central India).

j Kipling invented this name.

k Kipling suggests that Kaa is an Indian (rock) python.

l When shedding its skin, a snake secretes a milky lubricant that causes its eyes to cloud over and its vision to become temporarily impaired.

m Kipling had seen such ruins of ancient cities during his travels in India.

n The priest's mark has religious significance.

o Or Kanhiwara; town in the Seoni district.

p British musket made in the Tower of London a.r.s.enal during the late eighteenth century, originally for military use.

q It is a Hindu custom to give offerings of milk to cobras.

r An avatar (manifestation) of the Hindu G.o.d Vishnu, the sustainer of the world, who represents courage and chivalry.

s A ladies' chain is a movement in country dancing in which the women weave among the men.

t Equivalent of one-sixteenth of a rupee, a paltry sum.

u Basil (Hindi).

v Reference to Kipling's 1893 story ”In the Rukh,” about Mowgli's return to the world of men.

w According to H. W. Elliott (see endnote 4), this is a Russian name for an adult male seal.

x Kipling derives this description of the seals' fight for nursery s.p.a.ce from Elliott's accounts.

y According to Elliott, the Russian name for a mother seal.

z Beach on St. Paul (see endnote 5) where seals breed.

aa One of the Pribilof Islands, much smaller than St. Paul.

ab According to Elliott, the Russian name for a seal pup.

ac The Juan Fernandez Islands are a group of three islands in the South Pacific, west of Chile.

ad Reference to bioluminescent plankton, small plant and animal organisms that float or drift in the sea and emit light at night, creating what are known as ”phosph.o.r.escent seas.”

ae Kotick is speaking Russian (as do the seabirds on p. 91).

af Kipling derived this name from the Russian name for a walrus.

ag Steller's Sea Cow, a species related to manatees and dugongs, was long extinct at the time Kipling was writing.

ah In the southern Indian Ocean.

ai Mas Afuera is one of the Juan Fernandez Islands.

aj One of the Commander, or Komandorski, Islands in the southwestern Bering Sea.

ak Kipling is describing Steller's Sea Cow. The Frog-Footman, a character in chapter 6 of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), opens the door of the d.u.c.h.ess's house. (1865), opens the door of the d.u.c.h.ess's house.

al Cobra (Hindi).

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