Orangutans and humans

Orangutan researcher Birutė Galdikas presenting her book about the apes

Orangutans were known to the native people of Sumatra and Borneo for millennia. The apes are
known as maias in Sarawak and mawas in other parts of Borneo and in Sumatra.[10] While some
communities hunted them for food and decoration, others placed taboos on such practices. In
central Borneo, some traditional folk beliefs consider it bad luck to look in the face of an orangutan.
Some folk tales involve orangutans mating with and kidnapping humans. There are even stories of
hunters being seduced by female orangutans.[17]: 66–71 
Europeans became aware of the existence of the orangutan in the 17th century. [17]: 68  Explorers in
Borneo hunted them extensively during the 19th century. The first scientific description of
orangutans was given by Dutch anatomist Petrus Camper, who observed the animals and dissected
some specimens.[17]: 64–65  Camper mistakenly thought that flanged and unflanged male orangutans
were different species, a misconception corrected after his death. [98]
Little was known about orangutan behaviour until the field studies of Birutė Galdikas, [99] who became
a leading authority on the apes. When she arrived in Borneo in 1971, Galdikas settled into a
primitive bark-and-thatch hut at a site she dubbed Camp Leakey, in Tanjung Puting. She studied
orangutans for the next four years and developed her PhD thesis for UCLA.[100] Galdikas became an
outspoken advocate for orangutans and the preservation of their rainforest habitat, which is rapidly
being devastated by loggers, palm oil plantations, gold miners, and unnatural forest fires.[101] Along
with Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey, Galdikas is considered to be one of Leakey's Angels, named
after anthropologist Louis Leakey.[102]

In fiction
Main article: Orangutans in popular culture
1870 illustration for "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" by Daniel Vierge

Orangutans first appeared in Western fiction in the 18th century and have been used to comment on
human society. Written by the pseudonymous A. Ardra, Tintinnabulum naturae (The Bell of Nature,
1772) is told from the point of view of a human-orangutan hybrid who calls himself the
"metaphysician of the woods". Over half a century later, the anonymously written work The Orang
Outang is narrated by a pure orangutan in captivity in the US, writing to her friend in Java and
critiquing Boston society.[6]: 108–09 
Thomas Love Peacock's 1817 novel Melincourt features Sir Oran Haut Ton, an orangutan who
participates in English society and becomes a candidate for Member of Parliament. The novel
satirises the class and political system of Britain. Oran's reliability, honesty and status as a "natural
man" stand in contrast to the cowardice, greed, folly, and inequality of "civilised" human society. [6]: 110–
11 
 In Frank Challice Constable's The Curse of Intellect (1895), the protagonist Reuben Power travels
to Borneo to capture and train an orangutan "to know what a beast like that might think of us". [6]: 114–
15 
 Orangutans are featured prominently in the 1963 science fiction novel Planet of the Apes by Pierre
Boulle and the media franchise derived from it. Orangutans are typically portrayed
as bureaucrats like Dr. Zaius, the science minister.[6]: 118–19, 175–76 
Orangutans are sometimes portrayed as villains, notably in the 1832 Walter Scott novel Count
Robert of Paris and the 1841 Edgar Allan Poe short story The Murders in the Rue Morgue where the
ape was trained to murder by his human master. [6]: 145  Disney's 1967 animated musical
adaptation of The Jungle Book added an orangutan named King Louie, voiced by Louis Prima, who
tries to get Mowgli to teach him how to make fire.[6]: 266  The 1986 horror film Link features an intelligent
orangutan which serves a university professor but has sinister motives, particularly with his stalking
of a student assistant.[6]: 174–75  Some stories have portrayed orangutans as guides to humans, such
as The Librarian in Terry Pratchett's fantasy novels Discworld and in Dale Smith's 2004 novel What
the Orangutan Told Alice.[6]: 145  More comical portrayals of the orangutan include the 1996
film Dunston Checks In.[6]: 181