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Feral child

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For other uses, see Wild child.
Mowgli, the namesake of Mowgli Syndrome, was a fictional feral child in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book

A feral child (also, colloquially, wild child) is a human child who has lived isolated from human contact from a very young age, and has no (or little) experience of human care, loving or social behavior, and, crucially, of human language.[1] Some feral children have been confined by people (usually their own parents); in some cases this child abandonment was due to the parents’ rejection of a child’s severe intellectual or physical impairment. Feral children may have experienced severe child abuse or trauma before being abandoned or running away. Others are alleged to have been brought up by animals; some are said to have lived in the wild on their own.

Legends

Main article: List of fictional feral children

Myths, legends, and fictional stories have depicted feral children reared by wild animals such as wolves and bears. Famous examples include Ibn Tufail’s Hayy, Ibn al-Nafis’ Kamil, Rudyard Kipling’s Mowgli, Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan, J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, and the legends of Atalanta, Enkidu and Romulus and Remus.

Legendary and fictional feral children are often depicted as growing up with relatively normal human intelligence and skills and an innate sense of culture or civilization, coupled with a healthy dose of survival instincts; their integration into human society is made to seem relatively easy. One notable exception is Mowgli, for whom living with humans proved to be extremely difficult.

These mythical children are often depicted as having superior strength, intelligence and morals compared to “normal” humans, the implication being that because of their upbringing they represent humanity in a pure and uncorrupted state: similar to the noble savage.

The subject is treated with a certain amount of realism in François Truffaut’s 1970 film L’Enfant Sauvage (UK: The Wild Boy, US: The Wild Child), where a scientist’s efforts in trying to rehabilitate a feral boy meet with great difficulty.[2]

Reality

Feral children lack the basic social skills that are normally learned in the process of enculturation. For example, they may be unable to learn to use a toilet, have trouble learning to walk upright and display a complete lack of interest in the human activity around them. They often seem mentally impaired and have almost insurmountable trouble learning a human language. The impaired ability to learn a formal language after having been isolated for so many years is often attributed to the existence of a critical period for language learning, and taken as evidence in favor of the critical period hypothesis.[3]

There is little scientific knowledge about feral children. One of the best-known examples, the “detailed diaries” of Reverend Singh, who claimed to have discovered Amala and Kamala (two girls who had been “brought up from birth by wolves”) in a forest in India, has been proven a fraud to obtain funds for his orphanage. Bruno Bettelheim states that Amala and Kamala were born mentally and physically disabled.[4]

Ancient reports

Herodotus, the historian, wrote that Egyptian pharaoh Psammetichus I (Psamtik) sought to discover the origin of language by conducting an experiment with two children. Allegedly, he gave two newborn babies to a shepherd, with the instructions that no one should speak to them, but that the shepherd should feed and care for them while listening to determine their first words. The hypothesis was that the first word would be uttered in the root language of all people. When one of the children cried “becos” (a sound quite similar to the bleating of sheep) with outstretched arms the shepherd concluded that the word was Phrygian because that was the sound of the Phrygian word for bread. Thus, they concluded that the Phrygians were an older people than the Egyptians.[5]

The Capitoline Wolf suckling Romulus and Remus

Roman legend has it that Romulus and Remus, twin sons of Rhea Silvia and Mars, were raised by wolves. Rhea Silvia was a priestess, and when it was found that she had been pregnant and had had children, King Amulius, who had usurped her father’s throne, ordered her to be buried alive and for the children to be killed. The servant who was given the order set them in a basket on the Tiber river instead, and the children were taken by Tiberinus, the river god, to the shore where a she-wolf found them and raised them until they were discovered as toddlers by a shepherd named Faustulus. He and his wife Acca Larentia, who had always wanted a child but never had one, raised the twins, who would later feature prominently in the events leading up to the founding of Rome (named after Romulus, who eventually killed Remus in a fight over whether the city should be founded on the Palatine Hill or the Aventine Hill).[6]

Controversy and criticism

Kaspar Hauser

Following the 2008 disclosure by Belgian newspaper Le Soir[7] that the bestselling book Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years and movie Survivre avec les loups (“Surviving with Wolves”) was a media hoax, the French media debated the credulity with which numerous cases of feral children have been blindly accepted. Although there are numerous books on these children, almost none of them have been based on archives; the authors instead have used dubious second- or third-hand printed information. According to the French surgeon Serge Aroles, who wrote a general study of feral children based on archives (L’Enigme des Enfants-loups or The Enigma of Wolf-children, 2007), many cases are totally fictitious stories.

Documented/alleged cases

14th to 19th centuries

  • Hessian wolf-children[8]: 15–7 [9][10] (1304, 1341 and 1344).
  • The Bamberg boy, who grew up among cattle (late 16th century).[8]: 18–9 [9]
  • Hans of Liege.[8]: 19 [9][clarification needed (folklore?)]
  • An Irish boy brought up by sheep, reported by Nicolaes Tulp in his book Observationes Medicae (1672).[8]: 20–1 [9][11] Serge Aroles gives evidence that this boy was severely disabled and exhibited for money.[12]: 199–201 
  • The three Lithuanian bear-boys (1657, 1669, 1694).[8]: 21–28 [9] Serge Aroles shows from the archives of the Queen of Poland (1664–1688) that these are false. There was only one boy, found in the forests in spring 1663 and then brought to Poland's capital.[12]: 196 
  • The girl of Oranienburg (1717).[8]: 29–31 [9]
  • The two Pyrenean boys (1719).[8]: 32 [9]
  • Peter the Wild Boy of Hamelin (1724).[8]: 32–41 [9] Mentally handicapped boy, affected with Pitt-Hopkins Syndrome. He lived only one year in the wild.
  • Marie-Angélique Memmie Le Blanc, the Wild Girl of Songi, also known as the Wild Girl of Champagne (France, 1731).[8]: 41–48 [9] This is the only case of a child having survived 10 years in the forests (from November 1721 to September 1731),[citation needed] and the only feral child who succeeded in a complete intellectual rehabilitation,[citation needed] having learned to read and to write. According to biographer Serge Aroles, Marie-Angelique was 19 years old when she was captured, learned to read and write, and died rich on December 15, 1775 at the age of 63.[13] An Amerindian from Wisconsin (then a French colony), she was brought to France by a lady living in Canada and then escaped into the woods of Provence in 1721.[citation needed]
  • The bear-girl of Krupina, Slovakia (1767).[8]: 48–9 [9] Serge Aroles found no traces of her in the Krupina archives.
  • The teenager of Kronstadt (1781).[8]: 49–55 [9][14] According to the Magyar (Hungarian) document published by Serge Aroles, this case is a hoax : the boy, mentally handicapped, had a goitre and was exhibited for money.
Oval head and shoulders side portrait of a boy without clothes. He has a medium length hair cut long at the neck, a receding chin, and gazes calmly ahead.
Victor of Aveyron

20th century

  • The "ostrich boy". A boy named Hadara was lost by his parents in the Sahara desert at the age of two, and was apprehended by ostriches. At the age of 12, he was captured and taken back to society and his parents. He later married and had children. The story is popular in west Sahara. In 2000, Hadara's son Ahmedu told his father's story to the Swedish author Monica Zak, who compiled it to a book.[17] The book is a mixture of the stories told by Ahmedu and Zak's own fantasy.[18]
  • Amala and Kamala, claimed to have been found in 1920 by missionaries near Midnapore, Calcutta region, India, later proved to be a hoax to gain charity for Rev. Singh's orphanage[12]: 104–113 
  • Marcos Rodríguez Pantoja (ca. 1946, Sierra Morena, Spain) lived for 12 years with wolves until he was 19 in the mountains of Southern Spain.[19] Rodriguez story was depicted in the 2010 Spanish-German film Entrelobos. For his portrayal of Rodriguez, young actor Manuel Camacho received a Best New Actor nomination at the 2011 Goya Awards.
  • Syrian Gazelle Boy (1946): A boy aged around 10 was found in the midst of a herd of gazelles in the Syrian desert in the 1950s, and was only caught with the help of an Iraqi army jeep, because he could run at speeds of up to 50 km/h.[20] This is a hoax, as are all the gazelle-boys (see below).
  • Vicente Caucau (1948): Chilean boy found in a savage state at age 12, allegedly raised by pumas.[21]
  • Ramu, Lucknow, India, (1954), taken by a wolf as a baby, raised until the age of seven.[22] Aroles made inquiries on the scene and classifies this as another hoax.
  • Saharan Gazelle Boy (1960): found in Rio de Oro in the Spanish Sahara, written about by Basque traveller Jean-Claude Auger, using the pseudonym Armen in his 1971 book L'enfant sauvage du grand desert, translated as Gazelle Boy.[23] When Serge Aroles made inquiries concerning this case in 1997, gathering testimonies in Mauritania, Armen himself admitted that he had written "a book of fiction".
  • Genie, Los Angeles, California, discovered 1970.[24] Confined to one room by her father for 12 years.
  • Robert (1982). He lost his parents in the Ugandan Civil War at the age of three, when Milton Obote's looting and murdering soldiers raided their village, around 50 miles (80 km) from Kampala. Robert then lived in the wild, presumably with vervet monkeys, for three years until he was found by soldiers.[25]
  • Ramachandra (1970s and 1980s). First reported in 1973 in the Uttar Pradesh region of India, at roughly 12 years old, and as living an amphibian lifestyle in the Kuano river. He was captured in 1979 and taken to a nearby village. He only partly adapted to a conventional lifestyle, still preferring raw food, walking with an awkward gait, and spending most of his time alone in nearby rivers and streams. He died in 1982 after approaching a woman who was frightened by him, and who badly scalded Ramachandra with boiling water. Historian Mike Dash[26] speculates that Ramachandra's uncharacteristically bold approach to the woman was sparked by a burgeoning sexual attraction coupled with his ignorance of cultural mores and taboos.
  • Baby Hospital (1984). This seven-year-old girl was found by an Italian missionary in Sierra Leone. She had apparently been brought up by apes or monkeys. Baby Hospital was unable to stand upright and crawled instead of walking, and ate directly from her bowl without using her hands. She made the chattering noises of apes or monkeys. Baby Hospital's arms and hands were reported to be well developed, but not her leg muscles. She resisted attempts to civilise her, instead spending much of her time in an activity that is very unusual for feral children: crying.[27]
  • Saturday Mthiyane (or Mifune) (1987). A boy of around five who spent a year in the company of monkeys in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa.[28]
  • Oxana Malaya, Ukraine, (1990s). Raised with dogs until the age of eight.[29]
  • Daniel, Andes Goat Boy (1990). Found in Peru, and was said to have been raised by goats for eight years.[30]
  • John Ssebunya, Uganda, (1991) raised by monkeys for several years in the jungle.[31][32]
  • Belo, the Nigerian Chimp Boy (1996) about two years of age, raised by chimpanzees for a year and a half.[33]
  • Ivan Mishukov (1998). Found near Moscow, raised by dogs for two years, and had risen to being "alpha male" of the pack.[34]
  • Edik, Ukraine (1999). Edik was found by social workers apparently living with stray dogs in an apartment.[35]

21st century

  • Alex the Dog Boy (2001). Found in Talcahuano, Chile.[36]
  • Traian Căldărar, Romania (2002). Gypsy child born in Poland; he lived for three years with wild dogs in the wilderness. Now he is a "normal" child who likes football and mathematics.[37]
  • Andrei Tolstyk (2004) of Bespalovskoya, near Lake Baikal, Russia. Was abandoned by parents, to be raised by a guard dog.[38]
  • Cambodian jungle girl (2007). Alleged to be Rochom P'ngieng, who lived 19 years in the Cambodian jungle.[39] Other sources questioned these claims.[40]
  • Name Unknown, Uzbekistan, (2007). Found after eight years.[41]
  • Lyokha, Kaluga, Central Russia (December 2007). He had been living with a pack of wolves, and had typical wolflike behavior and reactions. He was unable to speak any human language. Taken to a Moscow hospital, he received some medical treatment, a shower and manicure, and several meals before escaping from the building. He is believed to still be in the wild.[42]
  • Danielle Crockett, Plant City, Florida, United States (2007–2008). Dani had been locked in her room and deprived of human interaction for the first 7 years of her life. She was found and adopted and is currently undergoing efforts to acclimate her to human conditioning including learning English and effective communication.[43][44][45]
  • Natasha, Chita, Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia (2009), a five-year-old girl who spent her entire life locked in a room with cats and dogs, and no heat, water, or sewage system.[46][47] When she was found, she could not speak Russian, would jump at the door and bark as caretakers left, and had "clear attributes of an animal".[47]
  • Chhaidy, Theiva near Saiha, Mizoram (2012), a four-year-old girl who returned from the jungle after 38 years.[48]

See also

References and notes

  1. ^ Isolated, confined, wolf and wild children, FeralChildren.com
  2. ^ "The Wild Child (1970)". Imdb.com. Retrieved 2011-03-01.
  3. ^ David Birdsong, "Introduction: Whys and why nots of the critical period hypothesis for second language acquisition". In D. Birdsong (Ed.), Second language acquisition and the critical period hypothesis, Routledge 1999, 3.
  4. ^ Bruno Bettelheim, "Feral Children and Autistic Children", The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 64, No. 5. (Mar., 1959), pp. 455-467.
  5. ^ Herodotus. "The History of Herodotus". Retrieved November 29, 2009. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  6. ^ Plutarch. "Romulus". Retrieved November 29, 2009. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  7. ^ "Les aveux de Misha Defonseca".
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Rauber, August Antinous (1888). Homo sapiens ferus: oder, die Bustände der verwilderten und ihre bedeutung für wissenschaft, politik und schule. Leipzig: Julius Bregse.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Chamber, Alexander F. The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought. BiblioBazaar, LLC, 2007. Retrieved 2009-04-19.
  10. ^ Fantini, Alvino. Language Acquisition of a Bilingual Child: A Sociolinguistic Perspective (To Age Ten). United Kingdom: Multilingual Matters, 1985.
  11. ^ Tulp, Nicolaas (1652). "IX. Iuvenis Balans.". Observationes medicae. Vol. IV. Ghent: Apud Ludovicum Elzevirium. pp. 311–313.
  12. ^ a b c Aroles, Serge (2007). L'énigme des enfants-loups : une certitude biologique mais un déni des archives, 1304-1954. Paris: Publibook. ISBN 2-7483-3909-6.
  13. ^ Aroles, Serge (2004). Marie-Angélique : Haut Mississippi, 1712-Paris, 1775 : survie et résurection d'une enfant perdue dix années en forêt. Les enfants-loups, 1344-1954. Vol. 2. Charenton-le-Pont. ISBN 2-915587-01-9.
  14. ^ Deal, Bama Lutes (2005-04-01). "Chapter 2: Feral Children and Wranitzky's Pantomime-Ballet Das Waldmädchen (1796)" (PDF). The Origin and Performance History of Carl Maria von Weber's Das Waldmädchen (1800). Florida State University. p. 16. Retrieved 2007-06-18.
  15. ^ Brian Haughton. "The Unsolved Mystery of Kaspar Hauser - Wild Child of Europe". Mysterious People. Retrieved 2007-07-14.
  16. ^ "The Lobo Wolf Girl of Devil's River". feralchildren.com. 2009-12-21.
  17. ^ Zak M, Pojken som levde med strutsar, Opal Förlag, 2003.
  18. ^ Zak M, "Möte med Hadaras son", Västsahara, nr. 3-4/2001 (in swedish).
  19. ^ Andrew Ward. "Marcos Pantoja, Wild Child of the Sierra Morena". feralchildren.com. Retrieved 2010-08-29.
  20. ^ Andrew Ward. "The Syrian Gazelle Boy". feralchildren.com. Retrieved 2007-07-14.
  21. ^ Vicente Pizarro, Los ultimos dias de Vicente Cau Cau, el nino lobo chileno, The Clinic, 2 de enero de 2010 (in spanish).
  22. ^ "Naked man deepens mystery of jungle girl". The Sydney Morning Herald. 2007-01-22. Retrieved 2007-07-14.
  23. ^ Andrew Ward. "The Saharan Gazelle Boy". feralchildren.com. Retrieved 2007-07-14.
  24. ^ Andrew Ward. "Genie, a modern-day Wild Child". feralchildren.com. Retrieved 2007-07-14.
  25. ^ Andrew Ward. "Robert, a monkey boy from Uganda". feralchildren.com. Retrieved 2007-07-14.
  26. ^ Dash, Mike Borderlands: The Ultimate Exploration of the Unknown; Overlook Press, 2000, ISBN 0-87951-724-7.
  27. ^ Andrew Ward. "Baby Hospital, the Monkey Girl from Sierra Leone". feralchildren.com. Retrieved 2007-07-14.
  28. ^ Andrew Ward. "Saturday Mthiyane (Saturday Mifune)". feralchildren.com. Retrieved 2007-07-14.
  29. ^ Grice, Elizabeth (2006-07-17). "Cry of an infant savage". London: Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2007-07-14. [dead link]
  30. ^ Andrew Ward. "Daniel, Andes Goat Boy". feralchildren.com. Retrieved 2007-07-14.
  31. ^ Andrew Ward. "John Ssebunya, the Ugandan Monkey Boy". feralchildren.com. Retrieved 2007-07-14.
  32. ^ "From monkey boy to choir boy". BBC News. 1999-10-06. Retrieved 2007-07-14.
  33. ^ Andrew Ward. "Bello, the Nigerian Chimp Boy". feralchildren.com. Retrieved 2007-07-14.
  34. ^ Andrew Ward. "Ivan Mishukov, the Russian Dog Boy". feralchildren.com. Retrieved 2007-07-14.
  35. ^ "Edik, the Ukrainian Dog Boy". feralchildren.com. Retrieved 2007-07-31.
  36. ^ Jan McGirk (2001-06-20). "Modern-day Mowgli found scavenging with pack of wild dogs". The Independent. Retrieved 2007-07-14.
  37. ^ "Wolf boy is welcomed home by mother after years in the wild". Daily Telegraph. London. 2002-04-14. Retrieved 2007-07-14.
  38. ^ Andrew Osborn (2004-08-04). "Abandoned boy said to have been raised by a dog". New Zealand Herald. Retrieved 2007-07-14.
  39. ^ "'Wild Cambodia jungle-girl' found". BBC News. 2007-01-19. Retrieved 2007-07-14.
  40. ^ Watts, Jonathan (2007-01-23). "Wild child?". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2010-05-02.
  41. ^ "Boy found in Uzbekistan after eight years of animal existence". Russian News & Information Agency. 2007-03-01. Retrieved 2007-07-14.
  42. ^ "'Werewolf boy' - who snarls and bites - on the run from police after escaping Moscow clinic". Daily Mail. 2007-12-22. Retrieved 2007-12-22.
  43. ^ DeGregory, Lane (2008-08-04). "The Girl in the Window". St. Petersburg Times. Retrieved 2008-08-04. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  44. ^ DeGregory, Lane. "The Girl in the Window". Retrieved 2008-08-05. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  45. ^ DeGregory, Lane (2008-08-10). "The Girl in the Window: Authorities Had Discovered the Rarest and Most Pitiable of Creatures: A Feral Child". The Columbus Dispatch. Retrieved 2008-08-17.
  46. ^ Tony Halpin (May 27, 2009). "Feral girl in Siberian city of Chita was brought up by cats and dogs". Times. London. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  47. ^ a b "Russian Police Find Feral Girl In Siberia". Planet Ark. 2009-05-28.
  48. ^ Ruhani Kaur,, Lhendup G Bhutia. "Mizoram's Wild Flower". Open Magazine. Retrieved 20 August 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)

Bibliography

  • For the first opportune critical approach based on archives : Serge Aroles (2007). L'Enigme des enfants-loups (The Enigma of wolf-children). ISBN 2-7483-3909-6.
  • Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology (2nd ed.). Gale Group. 2001.
  • Kenneth B. Kidd and Elijah Worrell (2004). Making American Boys: Boyology and the Feral Tale. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-4295-8.
  • John McCrone (1994). The Myth of Irrationality - The Science of the Mind from Plato to Star Trek. New York: Carroll & Graf. ISBN 0-333-57284-X. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |iSBN= ignored (|isbn= suggested) (help)
  • Michael Newton (2002). Savage Boys and Wild Girls: A History of Feral Children. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-21460-6.
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