Introducing Inga, Queen of the Jungle
by John Barker, IV


Copyright:  John Barker, IV,  2006
All Rights Reserved
 
 
The tiger is carrying off the carcass of the young zebra it has just
killed so that it can feed its cubs.  The struggle, like many in the
jungle, had been prosaic; the daily life-and-death battles to stay alive,
often utterly one-sided like this one.  She carries her burden awkwardly,
dragging it because of its size.  As she drags it through the brush, she
makes a great deal of noise, and certainly leaves a distinctive spore.
 
But the tiger does not fear, as it knows that very few in this part of
the jungle would dare to challenge one of the great cats.  If she has any
problem getting her kill home, it will be from other great cats:  other
tigers or perhaps a lion.  But she will deal with that if she has to. 
 
However, the great cat's luck is poor.  It is being stalked by a mighty
killer indeed.  As the tiger carries her burden through the brush,
suddenly something large drops out of the tree above unto its back. 
Suddenly, bulging sun-bronzed arms encircle its neck and powerful legs
are locked around its upper chest.  The tiger drops its prey, realizing,
perhaps too late, that the hunter has become the prey of the deadliest
killer of this part of the jungle.
 
An observer, if one happened to be on the scene, would be stunned and
awed at the spectacle.  One moment, the tiger is walking along dragging
the zebra.  In the next instant, a huge young woman, no older than 20, at
least 6'4" and clad in what appears to be a skimpy one-piece lion skin
outfit, her hair long and flowing, curly and yellow-blond, her skin
sun-kissed to almost golden brown, her lips naturally ruby red, her eyes
a stunning blue, her breasts nearly the size of honeydew melons, her legs
the shapeliest, has dropped unto its back and has instantly wrapped
mighty arms, crowned by 18-inch biceps in a deadly embrace around the
tiger's neck. 
 
The tiger and its attacker roll about on the jungle floor, the tiger's
roars deafening, its attacker silent, for over 3 minutes.  Yet, despite
repeated efforts, the tiger is unable to dislodge its opponent.  In fact,
the young woman's grip on the tiger's neck grows tighter and tighter. 
The immense muscles of her arms and shoulders coil and ripple, dance and
play as she battles to squeeze the tiger in her death grip.  Her golden
skin now glistens with the sweat of the struggle.
 
Gradually, the rolling of the two antagonists slows down.  Then they come
to lie on their sides.  The roars of the tiger have ceased.  But the
growls of the young jungle woman are loud as she concentrates all her
stupendous strength on the neck of the great cat.  The only sound from
the tiger now is a loud and increasingly desperate gasping for air.  The
tiger's movements and struggles are gradually slowing down and
subsiding. 
 
The young woman's gorgeous face is a mask of steely determination, and
her huge muscles swell to even greater size as she makes a sustained,
unbroken  effort.  Then the tiger's now-feeble struggles cease, and it
goes entirely limp in the arms of the young golden goddess.  She
continues to squeeze with all her might a few moments longer.
 
Then jungle girl and jungle cat rise as one, as the jungle girl stands,
her arms still locked about the tiger's neck.  She carefully positions
her legs astride of the tiger's shoulders and clamps them tight.  Then
she gives her arms a savage, vicious twist to the right.
 
"CCCCCCRRRRRRAAAAACCCCCCCKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
 
In fact, the young jungle woman has strangled the tiger to death in her
arms, and has just broken its neck to be sure of her kill.  When she has
the chance, this is how she prefers to fight even great cats (when she
has to):  with her bare hands, using only her skill and amazing brute
strength.  She finds it secretly exhilarating. 
 
She lets the corpse of the tiger slide gently to the ground.  Her face
has a look almost of pity for her victim.
 
"Sorry, mother tiger.  I know you were bringing food to your cubs.  But
my people need food even more, as their grain crop has failed, and they
have no bread.  The needs of people must outweigh the needs of animals. 
As your cubs will now die, I promise to find them today, and kill them
quickly and mercifully, and that their flesh will rejoin yours in
nourishing my people."
 
She picks up the dead zebra, shifts it onto her broad shoulders, and
deftly and swiftly climbs with this heavy burden to near the top of a
tall tree, where she carefully caches it on a sturdy branch. 
 
She climbs back down, and hefts the huge corpse of the tiger onto her
shoulders.  She then makes her way with this heavy burden seemingly light
on her shoulders through the jungle to the village of the Bwlango
people. 
 
This mighty young goddess of the jungle is Inga. 
 
How did Inga come to live thus?  She is twenty years old (her birthday is
July 2nd).  Her parents were Swedish anthropologists, Sven and Inga
Peterssen, who had settled in the African jungle 16 years before to study
the Bwlango people, who had just been discovered by civilization.  They
had planned to stay ten years, and then publish their findings, and use
the proceeds to fund young Inga's university education.  They had built a
cabin, and had brought their full library with them, both for their own
research and edification, and for young Inga's education. 
 
Inga has inherited beauty, intelligence, height, and strength from her
parents.  Her own keen intelligence has been honed by the excellent
liberal education her parents have afforded her.  She can read, write,
and speak Swedish, of course, and French, and has more than a smattering
of English and German.  Though she is only twenty and has never been
inside a school, she has the equivalent knowledge of a master of arts, as
well as a doctorate in anthropology.
 
And her mind is not the only part of her that has been trained here in
the jungle.  Daily running, swimming, climbing trees, and hunting has
perfected her body as well.  She has even read her parents' single book
on wrestling, and has profited by it.  She started with an excellent
genetic inheritance, and has worked ceaselessly in improving it, though
without the least intention of formal "training."
 
In playing in the jungle, she has learned its ways.  She has seen the
life and death struggle for survival, and has learned from it.  But the
most important source of learning for her has been the love her parents
had for each other and for her. 
 
Already, at the age of 12, nearly 5'10" and blessed with strength and
stamina that would be the envy of an Olympic triathlon Gold Medalist, she
had astonished her parents by walking up to the cabin one day with the
large body of an elk over her shoulders. 
 
Her father had become ill, and was unable to hunt.  Inga had put all that
she had learned into practice, finding and silently stalking the elk,
then springing upon its back, wrapping her powerful thighs around its
neck, and swiftly twisting her hips, so that the elk's muscled neck had
snapped in the grip of her strong legs almost instantly.  The fight had
not even lasted 10 seconds. 
 
From that day on, young Inga was the hunter of the family.
 
That same year, though, tragedy had blighted her life.  Her father became
more ill, and her mother also faded.  This was a terrible blow for the
young girl.  Not a day will go by when she does not think fondly of
them.  She had buried both of them with all the tenderness and reverence
anyone could. 
 
Plans to send Inga back to Sweden to live with her father's sister could
not be put into practice.
 
In fact, Inga did not desire to return to Sweden. The jungle was the only
home Inga had known.  Her aunt and her family would be strangers to
her.  As for her education, her parents' library was a better education
than any course of studies at university.  And she applied herself
diligently.  What need did Inga have of the fancy stores of Stockholm? 
When she needed new clothing, she went out and killed something for its
skin.  And Inga was very good at her own form of shopping.  Inga was used
to the ways of the jungle, and desired to remain there.
 
In the meantime, she would continue her parents' observations and notes
on the Bwlango.  Eventually, she would make the conclusions, and publish
the research.  Only then would she return to civilized life in Sweden. 
Through observing the Bwlango, she gathered some of how people interacted
with each other, though she understood that the ways of the Bwlango were
not the ways of her own civilized people. 
 
Inga avoided the Bwlango tribe's  efforts to adopt her.  She watched them
with scientific detachment.  She knew that there could be no genuine
equality between them and her.  She was a scientist here to observe them,
and they were subjects for study. 
 
There had been a problem within a year of her parents' deaths.  The son
of the king of the Bwlango had wished to make the 13-year-old Inga his
wife or concubine.  Inga was not certain which status the prince had in
mind for her, but neither was acceptable.  He had tried to force his
attentions on her, and she had repulsed him once without doing him
serious harm.  When he threatened her with a knife on a further occasion,
she had disarmed him.  When he continued the struggle, she had found it
necessary to break him in a full nelson. 
 
This had created some strain in her relations with the tribe.  The king
understood, but could not be expected to be happy around the young
girl who had killed his son.  Her research suffered for over three years,
though she put the time to good use, beginning to assemble her parents
scattered notes and beginning to draw preliminary conclusions.
 
Then, early in her 17th year, a party of 15 Arab raiders had descended
upon the Bwlango village with guns, and had carried off 30 tribes-people
to be sold as slaves.  Four more Bwlango had been killed, and a dozen
wounded.  Slavery was something that Inga hated as an injustice.  She
would not permit these people she had come to respect to be treated as
chattel, of no more worth than the paper of a book. 
 
She had set out and stalked the raiders on their return.  Their trip
would take them 14 days before they were in safe territory.  The entire
trip was through jungle, with no safety.
 
One-by-one, she picked off the Arabs.  Four she had shot with her
bow.  Two she had pierced with a spear .  Three more she brought down
when they least expected it with her knife.   The remaining six she had
killed with her hands or feet, in short deadly encounters.
 
The last four she had attacked as they huddled together for protection
with guns at the ready.  She had bravely defied their inaccurate gunfire,
sprung amongst them, and killed one instantly with a slash of her knife. 
Another, trying to bring his gun to bear, she had kicked in the groin
with all the might her powerful leg could muster, and he never rose
again.  As she pulled the gun out of the hands of the third Arab, he and
the last one ran away.  Being behind the man, she had caught up with him
in a few steps, and thrown the gun barrel across the front of his throat,
so that she gripped the muzzle in one hand, and the breech-end in the
other.  She had then pulled him back against her hard body, and,
relentlessly crushing with the gun barrel, strangled him with his own
weapon. 
 
The last Arab also paid the final price for the evil, wicked thing he had
tried to do.  As things worked out, it was the leader.  She was 30
minutes in pursuit.  She managed to get ahead of him unobserved by taking
to the trees.  She had swung silently and deftly from branch to branch. 
Her fugitive was continuously looking behind him.  He paused to do that
now.  When he turned back to continue his flight, there was Inga in all
her glory before him.  Before his brain could fully take it all in, her
mighty arms were about his torso, gripping him in a deadly bear-hug. 
Inga had once killed an ape in her bear-hug.  This Arab leader, this
slaver, had no chance.  Before two minutes had elapsed, two of his ribs
and his spine had been broken, and he sagged, dead, to the floor of the
jungle. 
 
Inga then returned to the Bwlango captives, and, one by one, snapped the
thin chains of the handcuffs that held them with her bare hands. 
 
From that time on, it was unavoidable that the Bwlango looked upon her as
their protector and champion.  In fact, the young blond was, at first,
worshipped as a goddess.  But she was firm in telling them that they
could not do this.  Her parents had raised Inga as a good pious Lutheran
girl. She might be the only real justice in the jungle, but she would not
allow anybody to make her the subject of idolatry.  She knew that there
was only one God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth. 
 
She had insisted that the "Inga worship" stop, and it had.  After all,
you don't want to get on the wrong side of  a young woman for whom
strangling a tiger with her bare hands is all in a day's work, do you?