Akela is a fictional character in Rudyard Kipling's stories, The Jungle Book (1894) and The Second Jungle Book (1895). He is the leader of the Seeonee pack of Indian wolves and presides over the pack's council meetings. It is at such a meeting that the pack adopts the lost child Mowgli and Akela becomes one of Mowgli's mentors.
Akela as depicted on the frontispiece of The Two Jungle Books, published in 1895.
The death of Akela after his battle with the dholes, as illustrated in page 280 of the 1895 edition of The Two Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling.
The Jungle Book (1894) is a collection of stories by the English author Rudyard Kipling. Most of the characters are animals such as Shere Khan the tiger and Baloo the bear, though a principal character is the boy or "man-cub" Mowgli, who is raised in the jungle by wolves. Most stories are set in a forest in India; one place mentioned repeatedly is "Seeonee" (Seoni), in the central
state of Madhya Pradesh.
Embossed cover of first edition with artwork by John Lockwood Kipling
Mowgli made leader of the Bandar-log by John Charles Dollman, 1903
Mowgli, Bagheera, and the wolf pack with Shere Khan's skin. Illustration by W. H. Drake. First edition, 1894
Protagonists from the Soviet animated adaptation, "Маугли" (Mowgli), on a Russian postage stamp.