Mowgli is Rudyard Kipling's hero who was raised by wolves. There are real cases in the history of mankind when children were raised by animals, and their lives, unlike the books, do not end with a happy ending. After all, for such children, socialization is practically impossible, and they live forever with the fears and habits that their “adoptive parents” passed on to them. Children who spend their first 3-6 years of life with animals are unlikely to ever learn human language, even though they will be cared for and loved later in life.
The very first known case of a child being raised by wolves was recorded in the 14th century. Not far from Hesse (Germany), an 8-year-old boy was found living with a pack of wolves. He jumped far, bit, growled and moved on all fours. He ate only raw food and could not speak. After the boy was returned to the people, he died very quickly.
Averones savage
Savage from Aveyron in life and in the film “Wild Child” (1970)
In 1797, hunters in the south of France found a wild boy who was believed to be 12 years old. He behaved like an animal: he could not speak, instead of words he only growled. For several years they tried to return him to society, but everything was unsuccessful. He constantly ran away from people into the mountains, but never learned to talk, although he lived surrounded by people for thirty years. The boy was named Victor, and his behavior was actively studied by scientists. They found out that the savage from Aveyron had a special sense of hearing and smell, his body was insensitive to low temperatures, and he refused to wear clothes. His habits were studied by Dr. Jean-Marc Itard, thanks to Victor he reached a new level in research in the field of education of children who are developmentally delayed.
Peter from Hannover
In 1725, another feral boy was found in the forests of northern Germany. He looked to be about ten years old, and he led a completely wild lifestyle: he ate forest plants, walked on all fours. Almost immediately the boy was transported to the UK. King George I took pity on the boy and placed him under observation. For a long time, Peter lived on a farm under the supervision of one of the queen's ladies-in-waiting, and then her relatives. The savage died at the age of seventy, and during these years he was able to learn only a few words. True, modern researchers believe that Peter had a rare genetic disease and was not completely feral.
Dean Sanichar
The largest number of Mowgli children were found in India: between 1843 and 1933 alone, 15 feral children were discovered here. And one of the cases was recorded quite recently: last year, an eight-year-old girl was found in the forests of the Katarniaghat Nature Reserve, who had been raised by monkeys since birth.
Another feral child, Dean Sanichar, was raised by a pack of wolves. Hunters saw him several times, but could not catch him, and finally, in 1867, they managed to lure him out of his lair. The boy was believed to be six years old. He was taken into care, but he learned very few human skills: he learned to walk on two legs, use utensils, and even wear clothes. But he never learned to speak. He lived with people for more than twenty years. It is Dean Sanichar who is considered the prototype of the hero of The Jungle Book.
Amala and Kamala
In 1920, the residents of an Indian village began to be plagued by ghosts from the jungle. They turned to missionaries for help to get rid of evil spirits. But the ghosts turned out to be two girls, one was about two years old, the other about eight. They were named Amala and Kamala. The girls saw perfectly in the dark, walked on all fours, howled and ate raw meat. Amala died a year later, and Kamala lived with people for 9 years, and at the age of 17 her development was comparable to a four-year-old child.
Over 150 years ago, Sir Francis Galton coined the phrase “nature versus nurture.” At that time, the scientist researched what influences a person’s psychological development more - his heredity or the environment in which he is located. It was about behavior, habits, intelligence, personality, sexuality, aggression and so on.
Those who believe in education believe that people become such precisely because of everything that happens directly around them, the way they are taught. Opponents argue that we are all children of nature and act according to our inherent genetic predisposition and animal instinct (according to Freud).
What do you think about this? Are we a product of our environment, our genes, or both? In this complex debate, feral children are an important aspect. The term "feral children" refers to a young person who has been abandoned or found himself in a situation where he finds himself deprived of any kind of interaction with civilization.
As a result, such children usually end up among animals. They often lack social skills; they do not always acquire even such a simple skill as talking. Wild children learn based on what they see around them, but the conditions, as well as the ways of learning, differ markedly from normal conditions.
History knows several rather revealing stories of “wild children”. And these cases are much more complex and interesting than the classic story of Mowgli. These are very real people who can already be called by their names, and not by nicknames given by the sensation-hungry media.
Bello from Nigeria. This boy was nicknamed the Nigerian chimpanzee boy in the press. He was found in 1996 in the jungle of this country. No one can say with certainty exactly Bello's age; it is assumed that he was about 2 years old at the time of the discovery. The boy found in the forest turned out to be physically and mentally disabled. This is explained by his parents abandoning him at the age of six months. This practice is very common among the Fulani tribe. At such a young age, the boy, of course, could not stand up for himself. But some chimpanzees living in the forest accepted him into their tribe. As a result, the boy adopted many of the behavior traits of monkeys, in particular their walking. When Bello was found in the Falgore Forest, the discovery was not widely reported. But in 2002, a popular newspaper discovered a boy in a boarding school for abandoned children in Kano, South Africa. The news about Bello quickly became sensational. He himself often fought with other children, threw objects, and at night he jumped and ran. Six years later, the boy had become much calmer, although he still retained many of the chimpanzee’s behavior patterns. As a result, Bello was never able to learn to speak, despite constant interaction with other children and people in his home. In 2005, the boy died for unknown reasons.
Vanya Yudin. One of the recent cases of a wild child was Vanya Yudin. News agencies nicknamed him "Russian Bird Boy." When Volgograd social workers found him in 2008, he was 6 years old and unable to speak. The child's mother abandoned him. The boy could practically do nothing, he just chirped and folded his arms like wings. He learned this from his parrot friends. Although Vanya was not physically harmed in any way, he was incapable of human contact. His behavior became similar to that of a bird, and he expressed emotions by waving his arms. Vanya spent a long time in a two-room apartment in which dozens of his mother’s birds were kept in cages. One of the social workers who discovered Vanya, Galina Volskaya, said that the boy lived with his mother, but she never spoke to him, treating him like just another feathered pet. When people tried to talk to Vanya, he only chirped in response. Now the boy has been transferred to a psychological assistance center, where, with the help of specialists, they are trying to return him to normal life. The lack of human relationships led the child to another world.
Dean Sanichar. One of the most famous oldest cases of a wild child is Dinah, nicknamed "Indian Wolf Boy". When hunters found him in 1867, the boy was supposedly 6 years old. People noticed a pack of wolves entering the cave, and with it a man running on four legs. The men smoked the wolves out of the shelter, entering there they found Dean. The boy was found in the jungles of Bulandshahr, and an attempt was made to treat him. True, at that time there were simply no effective means and techniques. However, people tried to communicate with him in order to rid Dean of his animalistic behavior. After all, he ate raw meat, tore off his clothes and ate from the ground. And not from dishes. After some time, Dean was taught to eat cooked meat, but he never learned to speak.
Rochom Piengeng. When this girl was 8 years old, she and her sister were herding buffalo in the Cambodian jungle and got lost. The parents had completely given up hope of seeing their daughters. 18 years have passed, on January 23, 2007, a naked girl emerged from the jungle in the province of Ratanakiri. She secretly stole food from one of the peasants. Having discovered the loss, he went hunting for the thief and found a wild man in the forest. The police were immediately called. One of the families in the village recognized the girl as their missing daughter Rochom Pyengeng. After all, there was a distinctive scar on her back. But the girl’s sister was never found. She herself miraculously managed to survive in the dense jungle. After reaching people, Roch worked hard to try to return him to normal living conditions. Soon she was able to pronounce some words: “mother”, “father”, “stomach pain”. The psychologist said that the girl tried to speak other words, however, it was impossible to understand them. When Rochom wanted to eat, she simply pointed to her mouth. The girl crawled on the ground more often, refusing to wear clothes. As a result, she was never able to adapt to human culture, running away back into the forest in May 2010. Since then, nothing has been known about the whereabouts of the wild girl. Sometimes conflicting rumors appear. They say, for example, that she was seen in the cesspool of one of the village toilets.
Trajan Kaldarar. This famous wild child case also happened recently. Trajan, found in 2002, is more often called the Romanian dog boy or “Mowgli” after the literary character. He lived separately from his family for 3 years, starting at the age of 4. When Trajan was found at age 7, he looked 3 years old. The reason for this is extremely poor nutrition. Trajan's mother was the victim of a series of violence at the hands of her husband. It is believed that the child could not stand such an atmosphere and ran away from home. Trajan lived in the wild until he was found near Brasov, Romania. The boy found his shelter in a large cardboard box covered with leaves on top. When doctors examined Trajan, he was diagnosed with a severe case of rickets, infected wounds and poor circulation. Those who found the boy believe that stray dogs helped him survive. We found it by accident. Shepherd Ioan Manolescu's car broke down and he was forced to walk through the pastures. It was there that the man found the boy. The remains of a dog were found nearby. It is assumed that Trajan ate it in order to stay alive. When the wild boy was taken into custody, he refused to sleep on the bed, climbing under it. Trajan was also constantly hungry. When he was hungry, he became extremely irritable. After eating, the boy almost immediately went to bed. In 2007, it was reported that Troyan adapted well under the supervision of his grandfather and even studied in the 3rd grade of school. When the boy was asked about his educational institution, he said: “I like it here - there are coloring books, games, you can learn to read and write. The school has toys, cars, teddy bears and the food is very good.”
John Ssebunya. This man was nicknamed "Uganda Monkey Boy." He ran away from home at the age of three after witnessing the murder of his mother by his own father. Impressed by what he saw, John fled to the Ugandan jungle, where he is believed to have come under the care of green African monkeys. At that time the boy was only 3 years old. In 1991, John was seen hiding in a tree by a woman named Millie, his fellow tribesman. After that, she called other villagers for help. As in other similar cases, John resisted his capture in every possible way. The monkeys also helped him in this, they began to throw sticks at people, protecting their “compatriot.” However, John was caught and taken to the village. They washed him there, but his whole body was covered with hair. This disease is called hypertrichosis. It manifests itself in the presence of excessive hair in those parts of the body where there is no such usual cover. Living in the wild, John also became infected with intestinal worms. It is stated that some of them were almost half a meter in length when they were removed from his body. The foundling was full of injuries, mainly from trying to walk like a monkey. John was given to Molly and Paul Waswa in their children's home. The couple even taught the boy to speak, although many argue that he already knew how to do this before he ran away from home. John was also taught to sing. Today he tours with the children's choir "Pearls of Africa" and has practically gotten rid of his animal behavior.
Kamala and Amala. The story of these two Indian young girls is one of the most famous cases of feral children. When they were found in a wolf den in Midnapore, India, in 1920, Kamala was 8 years old and Amala was 1.5 years old. The girls spent most of their lives away from people. Even though they were found together, researchers have questioned whether they were sisters. After all, they had quite a big age difference. They were just left in approximately the same place at different times. The girls were discovered after mystical stories spread throughout the village about the figures of two ghostly spirits who were taken along with wolves from the jungles of Bengal. Local residents were so afraid of the spirits that they called a priest to find out the whole truth. Reverend Joseph hid in a tree above the cave and began to wait for the wolves. When they left, he looked into their lair and saw two hunched over people. He wrote down everything he saw. The priest described the children as “disgusting creatures from head to toe.” The girls ran on all fours and had no signs of human existence. As a result, Joseph took the wild children with him, although he had no experience in adapting them. The girls slept together, curled up, tore off their clothes, ate nothing but raw meat, and howled. Their habits were reminiscent of animals. They opened their mouths, sticking out their tongues like wolves. Physically, the children were deformed - the tendons and joints in their arms became shorter, making it impossible to walk upright. Kamala and Amala had no interest in interacting with people. It is said that some of their senses worked flawlessly. This applies not only to hearing and vision, but also to a keen sense of smell. Like most Mowgli children, this couple tried in every possible way to return to their old life, feeling unhappy surrounded by people. Soon Amala died, this event caused deep mourning in her friend, Kamala even cried for the first time. Reverend Joseph thought that she too would die and began to work hard on her. As a result, Kamala barely learned to walk upright and even learned a few words. In 1929, this girl also died, this time due to kidney failure.
Victor from Aveyron. The name of this Mowgli boy will seem familiar to many. The fact is that his story formed the basis of the film "Wild Child". Some say that it was Victor who became the first documented case of autism, in any case, this is the well-known story of a child left alone with nature. In 1797, several people saw Victor wandering in the forests of Saint Sernin sur Rance, in the south of France. The wild boy was caught, but he soon ran away. He was seen again in 1798 and 1799, but was finally captured on January 8, 1800. At that time, Victor was about 12 years old, his whole body was covered with scars. The boy could not utter a word, even his origin remained a mystery. Victor ended up in a city where philosophers and scientists showed great interest in him. The news about the found wild man quickly spread throughout the country, many wanted to study him, looking for answers to questions about the origin of language and human behavior. Biology professor, Pierre Joseph Bonnaterre, decided to observe Victor's reaction by taking off his clothes and putting him right outside in the snow. The boy began to run in the snow without showing any negative effects of low temperatures on his bare skin. They say that they lived naked in the wild for 7 years. It's no wonder his body was able to withstand such extreme weather conditions. The famous teacher Roche-Ambroise Auguste Bebian, who worked with the deaf and sign language, decided to try to teach the boy to communicate. But the teacher soon became disillusioned with his student due to the lack of any signs of progress. After all, Victor, being born with the ability to speak and hear, never did it correctly after he was left to live in the wild. Delayed mental development did not allow Victor to begin to lead a full life. The wild boy was subsequently taken to the National Institute for the Deaf and Dumb, where he died at the age of 40.
Oksana Malaya. This story happened in 1991 in Ukraine. Oksana Malaya was left by her bad parents in a kennel, where she grew up from 3 to 8 years old, surrounded by other dogs. The girl became wild; she was kept in the backyard of the house all this time. She adopted the general behavior of dogs - barking, growling, moving on all fours. Oksana smelled her food before eating it. When the authorities came to her aid, the other dogs barked and growled at the people, trying to protect their fellow dog. The girl behaved similarly. Due to the fact that she was deprived of communication with people, Oksana’s vocabulary contained only two words “yes” and “no”. The feral child received intensive therapy to help him acquire essential social and verbal skills. Oksana was able to learn to speak, although psychologists say she has big problems trying to express herself and communicate emotionally rather than verbally. Today the girl is already twenty years old, she lives in one of the clinics in Odessa. Oksana spends most of her time with cows on the farm of her boarding school. But in her own words, she feels best when she is around dogs.
Gin. If you professionally engage in psychology or study the issue of feral children, then the name Jean will certainly come up. At the age of 13, she was locked in a room with a potty tied to a chair. Another time, her father tied her up in a sleeping bag and put her like that in her crib. Her father extremely abused his power - if the girl tried to speak, he would beat her with a stick to keep her quiet, he would bark and growl at her. The man also forbade his wife and children to talk to her. Because of this, Jean had a very small vocabulary, which was only about 20 words. So, she knew the phrases “Stop”, “No more.” Jean was discovered in 1970, making it one of the worst cases of social isolation known to date. At first they thought she had autism, until doctors discovered that the 13-year-old girl was a victim of violence. Jean ended up at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, where she was treated for many years. After several courses, she was already able to answer questions in monosyllables and learned to dress independently. However, she still adhered to the behavior she had learned, including the "walking bunny" mannerism. The girl constantly held her hands in front of her, as if they were her paws. Jean continued to scratch, leaving deep marks on things. Jean was eventually taken in by her therapist, David Rigler. He worked with her every day for 4 years. As a result, the doctor and his family were able to teach the girl sign language, the ability to express herself not only with words, but also with drawings. When Jean left her therapist, she went to live with her mother. Soon the girl found herself with a new foster parent. And she was unlucky with them, they again made Jean become mute, she became afraid to speak. Now the girl lives somewhere in Southern California.
Madina. The tragic story of this girl is in many ways similar to the story of Oksana Malaya. Madina grew up with dogs without any communication with people. It was in this condition that specialists found her. At that time, the girl was only 3 years old. When found, she preferred to bark like a dog, although she could say the words “yes” and “no.” Fortunately, the doctors who examined the girl declared her physically and mentally healthy. As a result, despite some delay in development, there is hope for a return to a normal lifestyle. After all, Madina is at an age when it is still possible, with the help of doctors and psychologists, to return to the normal path of development.
Lobo. This child was also nicknamed "the wolf girl from the Devil's River." The mysterious creature was first discovered in 1845. A girl ran among the wolves on all fours, attacking a herd of goats near San Felipe, Mexico, along with the predators. A year later, the information about the wild child was confirmed - the girl was seen greedily eating a raw killed goat. The villagers were alarmed by this proximity to an unusual person. They began searching for the girl, soon catching her. The wild child was named Lobo. She constantly howled like a wolf at night, as if calling on packs of gray predators to save herself. As a result, the girl escaped captivity and ran away. The next time a wild child was seen was 8 years later. She was by the river with two wolf cubs. Frightened by the people, Lobo grabbed the puppies and ran away. Since then, no one has met her.
Wild Peter. Not far from Hamelin, Germany, in 1724, people discovered a hairy boy. He moved exclusively on all fours. They were able to catch the wild man only through deception. He could not speak, and ate exclusively raw food - poultry and vegetables. After being transported to England, the boy was nicknamed Wild Peter. He never learned to speak, but he became capable of doing the simplest work. They say that Peter was able to live to an old age.
The question: is a small child able to survive and become a full-fledged individual in conditions of complete isolation from society, worries writers and psychologists. The former paint rosy pictures of reunification with society, the latter shake their heads sadly, talking about the missed sensitive period of development. Why are characters like Mowgli, Tarzan or Bingo Bongo impossible in real life?
Feral children: difficulties of rehabilitation
There are several reasons why, as soon as an individual is born, he may find himself far away not only from his parents, but also from human civilization as a whole.
- In families where the father or mother has mental problems (often due to drug addiction and alcoholism), children are not given due attention, or, on the contrary, aggressive parenting methods are used. Little victims become disillusioned with people and begin to seek protection from domestic or street animals.
- Adults completely isolate children with certain developmental disabilities, such as autism, and do not communicate with them. In some underdeveloped countries, such babies are abandoned in the forest to get rid of the “extra mouth.”
- In rural areas of subtropical and tropical zones, cases of infant abduction by wild animals are common. Or small children go into the forest on their own and cannot find their way back.
Social isolation at an early age leads to mental degradation, which is called “Mowgli syndrome” in scientific circles.
Clinical picture of the disease
Wild Mowgli children (ferals from the Latin feralis - buried) copy the habits of their “foster parents”, which are most often wolves, dogs and monkeys. When trying to establish contact, they show panic and aggression: they try to bite, scratch, or cause injury.
Having been separated from their own kind at an early age, “human cubs” move mainly on all fours and eat only raw food. They express their emotions not by crying, but by sounds: barking, roaring, squealing, hissing, howling. They don’t know how to laugh and are afraid of open fire.
A long stay side by side with wild animals is reflected in the appearance of “Mowgli”. Their skeleton, especially their limbs, are deformed: their hands resemble twisted bird legs, their legs do not fully straighten. From running on all fours, massive calluses form on the knees, the jaws develop disproportionately, and the teeth become sharp, like those of predators. Such children move with enormous speed by human standards, have great dexterity and developed senses of touch: hearing, vision, and smell.
Important: after being captured and trying to socially adapt, people raised by animals rarely come to terms with new conditions of existence and quickly die. The fate of the survivors is no less sad - they will vegetate in homes for the mentally retarded until the end of their days.
Scientific explanation of the phenomenon of “feral children”
There is a scientific explanation for the fact that “Mowgli” in real life, like Kipling’s hero, cannot become people in the full sense of the word. They were in the company of animals at the moment when the most important skills were formed:
- speech;
- behavioral stereotypes;
- eating habits;
- personal self-identification.
That is, in the period between 1.5 and 6 years, which is also called sensitive. As a result, their intellect, instead of actively developing, degraded, giving way to primitive instincts of survival. The musculoskeletal system has also undergone irreversible changes, making walking on two legs without additional support almost impossible.
Important: after the onset of puberty, from about 12 to 14 years old, people with Mowgli syndrome can only be trained by forcing them to memorize words or movements. But they will no longer become an independent, conscious person.
The chances of rehabilitation increase significantly if you end up in social isolation after 3, or even better, 5 years. And real stories of people brought up in exceptional conditions prove the correctness of this hypothesis.
The most famous "human babies"
The twins Romulus and Remus can be considered the first Mowgli children in world history. According to legend, they were born by the royal vestal Rhea Silvia from the god of war Mars. The brothers were taken away from their mother and thrown into the Tiber, but they managed to survive, and the she-wolf fed the babies with her milk.
The twins remained absolute people, and Romulus even founded Rome. It is believed that he did a lot for the formation and prosperity of the “Eternal City”. Over the years, it is difficult to separate truth from fiction, but the outcome of the infant wanderings of Romulus and Remus can be called prosperous. Their brothers in misfortune, whose names also remained in history, were much less fortunate.
An unknown boy, resembling a wild animal in appearance and behavior, was captured by residents of the Aveyron department, in the south of France in 1800. According to descriptions of contemporaries, he ate roots and vegetables stolen from the gardens of local residents, moved on all fours and did not wear clothes. The foundling, about 12 years old, did not speak and did not respond to questions addressed to him.
The boy ran away from people trying to give him shelter 8 times, but they caught him again and tried to “tame” him. Finally, the little savage was handed over to medical student Jean Itard, who set out to return his ward to normal life. The methods used by the young doctor when training Victor—that’s the name of the foundling from Aveyron—are still used by psychologists when working with mentally retarded children.
The boy began to react adequately to the behavior of those around him and even uttered two words, but otherwise communicated with gestures. After devoting 5 years to trying to socialize the teenager, Itard handed him over to the care of his housekeeper. Victor died as a 40-year-old man, having failed to adapt to human society.
After the fact, a version was put forward that the boy initially suffered from autism, for which his relatives abandoned him at the age of 2.
The film “Wild Child” was based on this story.
There are suggestions that Kipling wrote the story about Mowgli based on real events from the life of an Indian wolf boy discovered by hunters in Uttar Pradesh in 1872. In those days, ferals were not uncommon in a country where jungle and savannah occupy large areas, coming very close to human habitation.
Seeing a 6-year-old kid frolicking near the animal’s den in the company of wolf cubs, the hunters were not surprised. Having driven out the predators with smoke and killed them, they took the “find” with them and handed it over to the local priest, Father Erhardt. The missionary named the boy Dina Sanichar (this surname means "Saturday" in Urdu) and tried to civilize him. The baby moved only on all fours, howled like a wolf and rejected any cooked food, preferring raw meat with bones.
Subsequently, Sanichar was able to wear clothes, although he did it extremely casually and even moved in an upright position, but his gait remained uncertain. The boy-wolf did not learn to say. The only thing he adopted from people was the habit of smoking, which is why he died, contracting tuberculosis at the age of 34. All this time he lived alone in a missionary shelter.
Another story of Mowgli children raised by wolves. Girls from India were found near the city of Pashimbang in 1920. The peasants were frightened by two ghosts that appeared at night along with a pack of wolves and reported this to the missionaries.
The manager of the local orphanage, Joseph Lal Singh, went into the forest to find out the cause of the strange phenomenon. Having tracked down the wolf's lair, he looked in and saw girls curled up in a ball, little reminiscent of human beings. The forest children were named Amala and Kamala. The first was 18 months old at the time of discovery, the second was about 8 years old. Both savages exhibited behavior typical of ferals.
Singh, who took “patronage” over them, kept a diary where he described the lives of his charges. Amala died a year later from a kidney infection. Her sister, or rather “comrade in misfortune,” grieved for a long time, expressing her emotions not only with wolf howls, but also with tears. However, after the death of the younger girl, the eldest became more attached to people, learned to walk upright and a few words. In 1929, Kamala died of kidney failure.
There is a version that the story of the wolf girls is just a falsification, since no one except Singh mentions them anywhere.
When this native of Uganda was 3 years old, his father brutally dealt with his mother before his eyes. The frightened boy disappeared into the jungle, where he came under the protection of a flock of dwarf green monkeys - vervet monkeys. In 1991, when John was 6 years old, he was noticed on a tree branch by a certain Millie, a resident of a nearby village, who was collecting firewood in the forest.
The kind-hearted woman took the foundling to her home, where, despite desperate resistance, she washed it and put it in order. It turned out that John developed hypertrichosis, either from a long stay in the wild, or due to nervousness. When the boy was fed hot food, he almost died, because his body, accustomed to raw food, refused to accept boiled foods. In addition, the baby was found to have giant tapeworms up to 1.5 m in length.
John was later transferred for rehabilitation to the family of the founders of the children's human rights association, Paul and Molly Wasswa. Since the monkey boy spent the first years of his life among people, he was able to partially socialize. After 10 years, John not only fit into public life, but also became a soloist of the “Pearls of Africa” choir, with which he tours throughout Western countries.
The heroine of the following story was kidnapped from her home village in 1954 by a gang of Colombian slave traders and, for unknown reasons, abandoned in the jungle. It would have been difficult for a 4-year-old girl if she had not been accepted into a troop of capuchin monkeys. Over the course of several years, the victim forgot human language and adopted many of the habits of her rescuers.
She was then caught by local poachers and sold to a brothel in the city of Cucuta in northeastern Colombia. Too young to serve clients, Marina performed the duties of a servant until one day she ran away and began to lead a street life.
Having gathered her own gang of young beggars, the girl traded in theft and fraud, and after a while she ended up in a mafia family, where she turned into a sex slave. Fortunately, 14-year-old Marina was rescued by her neighbor Marugia and sent to live with her daughter in Bogota. Later, the girl and her patrons left the country, settling in the English city of Bradford.
Marina doesn't know her real name. She got married, gave birth to two children and wrote an autobiographical book, “The Girl with No Name,” where she told about her adventures.
One of the most famous Mowgli children of our time. A resident of a Ukrainian village near Kherson, born in 1983, found herself in the world media because of her strange “dog-like” behavior. When a girl at the age of 8 was discovered by journalists, she rushed at them barking, and then ran on all fours, lapped water from a bowl and performed other similar acts.
It turned out that Oksana’s parents were alcoholics and did not care about their daughter at all. In early childhood, the girl often spent the night in the yard, hiding from the cold in a dog kennel. The dogs treated the helpless little girl with care, and she behaved with them as if she were one of her own.
1 vote)Since ancient times, in the legends and tales of different peoples, there have been stories about how animals raised human children. For a long time this was considered a fiction, until such poor fellows began to be found in the forests. “Mowgli’s children,” raised by animals, were studied back in the Middle Ages, but only psychiatrists of the 20th century were able to truly explain their behavior and justify the impossibility of returning to the human environment.
The concept of “feral man”
If we consider the concept of “feral people” from the position of psychologists and sociologists, then we can find out that these are individuals who were raised outside of human society. Translated from Latin, feralis means “dead, buried.” People deprived of the opportunity to communicate with others like themselves were considered lost to society.
In the English version, the word feral means “forest”, “wild”, “uncivilized”. This term was first used by Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish scientist of the 18th century. He identified for people who grew up among animals their step in the evolutionary ladder and gave them the scientific definition of Homo ferns.
In modern sociology they are given the name “feral people,” and the first representative of this science to study their phenomenon was the American scientist Davis Kingsley. He began working on this issue in 1940.
Children of different ages became animal fosterlings. There are known cases when a wolf pack, dogs or birds became “parents” for babies, and there are examples that they accepted, nursed and fed children 3-6 years old.
Feral animals
At all times and among different peoples of the world, there have been myths about children raised by animals. As scientists explain this phenomenon, animals are excellent “educators” of human children, and not only in their natural environment.
Today you can often observe how pets take part in the lives of children: they lull them to sleep, guard them, protect them, and prevent them from falling or harming themselves in some way. The same instincts are characteristic of wild animals, especially those living in a pack. This is due to the fact that the animal community has its own hierarchy, ways of communication between its members and raising young animals.
Ancient stories about feral children
The most famous feral children of antiquity are Remus and Romulus, suckled by a she-wolf. As you know, many legends are based on historical facts, so the story of two brothers who lost their mother may also be true.
The boys were lucky that a shepherd found them, and they did not have time to run wild. In memory of their “foster mother,” Romulus and Remus founded Rome on the very hill where they spent their first years with the wolf pack.
Unfortunately, such stories rarely end so romantically, since feral people - children raised by animals - have serious mental disorders and are not capable of becoming full-fledged members of human society.
Wild “foundlings” of past centuries
Most often, wolves became the adoptive “parents” of children. This is due to the natural high level of parental instinct for these animals and the fact that they unite in packs in which there are long-term relationships between its members.
The first documented evidence that a wolf pack raised children was the Chronicle of the English city of Suffolk for 1173. Failed attempts to return a wild child to human life were recorded in 1341 in Hesse. The hunters found the boy in the wolf's den. When he was removed from the hole, he behaved like an animal: he bit, scratched, squealed and growled. Thanks to the surviving records, it became known that he died, unable to withstand captivity and feeding with human food.
No one at that time studied such phenomena; experts simply tried to return the captured children to a human form, which most often ended in failure.
Children-“bears”
There are often cases when feral people (examples from history are direct proof of this) were raised by bears. So, in 1767 in Hungary, hunters discovered a girl with blond hair about eighteen years old. She was in excellent health, had a strong tanned body and behaved very aggressively. Even after she was placed in a shelter, she refused to eat anything other than plant roots, berries and raw meat.
It is difficult to say how such children survive. Bears do not gather in packs, although they have strong long-term alliances between males and females. In the same way, it is unknown what the babies ate in the winter, when the animals hibernated. There are only a few recorded cases of bears raising children, one of them is a boy found in the 18th century in Denmark, the second is an Indian girl discovered in 1897.
All the documents of those years indicated that the children found had the habits of animals, had sharp eyesight, an excellent sense of smell, and could “talk” only with sounds that were usually made by the animals that raised them.
Feral people of the 20th and 21st centuries
Most often in the last century, children of the jungle were found in India. Among them were wolf children, panthers and leopards. For example, the world learned about two girls - Kamala and Amala, who were captured in 1920. One of them was one and a half years old, the other was 8 years old, but both had already developed wolf instincts. So, they did not tolerate daylight well, but at night they saw perfectly well, if only raw meat, lapped up water, moved on bent arms and legs quite quickly, and hunted chickens and small rodents.
The youngest girl could not stand the captivity and died a year later from nephritis. Kamala lived for another 9 years and during this period she was able to master primitive human skills: walking straight, washing with water, eating from plates and even saying a few words. But until her death she ate raw meat and offal.
As scientists note, feral people who have lived among animals for a long time completely adopt the habits of their “adoptive parents,” which do not disappear even after a long stay in human society.
Cases of detection of feral people are especially frequent in the period from 1990 to the present day. Whether this is due to the fact that the kids got negligent parents, or they themselves got lost in the forest as children, or maybe their habitat was simply disturbed, and therefore they were able to be caught, is unknown.
The importance of a child's social development
Scientists love to conduct experiments to prove their scientific theories. This method of learning the truth was not ignored by psychologists who wanted to prove that a child is already born with the need for socialization.
During the experiment, newborns were divided into 2 groups. In one they nursed the children, talked to them when feeding or changing diapers, and kissed them. In the other group, they did not communicate with the children, but did everything necessary to ensure that they were fed and looked after.
After a while, scientists noticed weight loss and other abnormalities in children who were deprived of affection, so the experiment was interrupted. Thus, scientists have proven that a person initially has a need for love and communication with his own kind.
Thus, it becomes clear why feral people are deprived of human feelings and rely purely on the animal instincts they have acquired.
The nature of feral people
All cases of discovering individuals raised by animals indicate that in the wild they were characterized by a strong desire to survive. It’s just that feral people could not stay alive, even with the best care from their animal “parents”.
Animals always act in accordance with what their instincts tell them, although there are cases when they experienced sadness when losing their offspring. This doesn't last long, and their short-term memory allows them to forget about the loss, which is not at all like human behavior. A person may experience suffering from the death of a child throughout his life.
All Mowgli children acted as their instincts told them: they sniffed food and water before eating, defecated, hunted, ran away from danger and defended themselves just like their wild “parents.” This animal nature cannot be eradicated if the child has spent a long time among animals.
Humanizing the Aveyron Savage
Attempts to humanize feral children have always been made. One of the successful examples is the story of the Aveyron boy. It was discovered in the south of France in 1800. And although this teenager walked on straight legs, all other habits revealed an animal in him.
It took a lot of time and patience to teach him to go to the toilet where he was supposed to, not tear off his clothes and eat from dishes. At the same time, the boy never learned to play or communicate with peers, although no abnormalities were found in his psyche. This “savage” lived to be 40 years old, but never became a member of society.
Based on this, we can conclude that children deprived of human love lose the socialization abilities inherent in them at birth. They are replaced by instincts, which are less developed in ordinary people than in animals.
If a child is lucky and is found at an early age, then he can be restored to his human essence and instilled in the proper manners of behavior. This was the case, for example, with five-year-old Natasha from Chita. She was raised by dogs who turned out to be better parents than her dad and mom. The girl barked, walked like dogs, and ate the same things they ate. The fact that she was found at such an early age gives hope that she will be able to “become human” again.
A boy from Uganda who was raised by green monkeys was able to fully recover. He came to them at the age of four, and when he was discovered 3 years later, he lived and acted like his “adoptive parents.” Since too little time had passed, the child was able to be returned to society.
The reason for the appearance of feral children
Too often these days, references are made to children raised by animals. In most cases, this is due to the indifference, carelessness or cruelty of their parents. There are plenty of examples of this:
- A girl from Ukraine who grew up in a dog house. From 3 to 8 years old, she lived with a dog, where her parents left her. In such a short period, the baby began to walk like a dog, bark and behave like her dog.
- A 6-year-old boy from Volgograd, raised by birds, could only chirp and flap his hands like wings when he showed emotions. He ate birdseed while locked in a room with parrots by his own mother. The child is now undergoing rehabilitation with psychologists.
Similar cases occur nowadays in large cities and small towns around the world: in Africa, India, Cambodia, Russia, Argentina and other places. And the worst thing is that today the unfortunate people are found not in the forests, but in houses, animal shelters and garbage dumps - scouring for food.
Everyone knows stories about children raised by animals. I bring to your attention several such stories.
1. Wild boy Peter
In 1724, a naked, hairy boy walking on all fours was discovered in a forest near Hamelin, Germany. When he was tricked, he behaved like a wild animal, preferring to eat birds and vegetables raw, and unable to speak. After he was transported to England, he was given the name Wild Boy Peter. And although he never learned to speak, he supposedly loved music, was taught how to do simple work, and lived to a ripe old age.
2. Victor from Aveyron
He was perhaps one of the most famous Mowgli children. The story of Victor of Aveyron became widely known thanks to the film "Wild Child". Although his origins are a mystery, it is believed that Victor lived his entire childhood alone in the forest before he was discovered in 1797. After several more disappearances, he appeared in the vicinity of France in 1800. Victor became the subject of study by many philosophers and scientists who thought about the origins of language and human behavior, although little was achieved in its development due to mental retardation.
3. Lobo, the wolf girl from Devil's River
In 1845, a mysterious girl was seen running on all fours among wolves while attacking a herd of goats near San Felipe, Mexico. The story was confirmed a year later when the girl was seen again, this time greedily eating a dead goat. Alarmed villagers began searching for the girl, and soon the wild girl was caught. It is believed that she constantly howled like a wolf at night, attracting packs of wolves that rushed into the village to save her. Eventually, she broke free and escaped from her captivity.
The girl was not seen until 1854, when she was accidentally spotted with two wolf cubs near the river. She grabbed the cubs and ran into the forest and since then no one has seen her again.
4. Amala and Kamala
These two girls, aged 8 years (Kamala) and 18 months (Amala), were found in a wolf den in 1920 in Midnapore, India. Their story is controversial. Since the girls had a large age difference, experts believe that they were not sisters. It is possible that they came to the wolves at different times. Both girls had all the habits of animals: they walked on all fours, howled at night, opened their mouths and stuck out their tongues like wolves. Like other Mowgli children, they wanted to return to their old life and felt unhappy, trying to get comfortable in the civilized world. After the youngest girl died, Kamala cried for the first time. The older girl managed to partially socialize.
5. Baby Monkey from Uganda
In 1988, 4-year-old John Ssebunya ran away into the jungle after his father killed his mother in front of him, 4-year-old John Ssebunya ran away into the jungle, where he was allegedly raised by vervet monkeys. Time passed, but John never came out of the forest and the villagers began to believe that the boy was dead.
In 1991, one of the local peasant women, having gone into the jungle for firewood, suddenly saw in a flock of vervet monkeys, dwarf green monkeys, a strange creature, in which she recognized, not without difficulty, a little boy. According to her, the boy’s behavior was not much different from monkeys - he moved deftly on all fours and easily communicated with his “company.”
As in other cases with the Mowgli children, he resisted the villagers who tried to capture him, and received help from his fellow monkeys, who threw sticks at the people. Later, having learned to speak, John said that the monkeys taught him everything necessary for life in the jungle - climbing trees, searching for food, in addition, he mastered their “language”. The last thing that became known about him was that he was touring with the Pearl of Africa children's choir.
6. Chita girl who grew up among dogs
Several years ago, this story appeared on the front pages of Russian and foreign newspapers - in Chita they discovered a 5-year-old girl, Natasha, who moved like a dog, lapped water from a bowl and, instead of articulate speech, only barked, which is not surprising, because, as it turned out later, the girl spent almost her entire life in a locked room, in the company of cats and dogs.
The child’s parents did not live together and presented different versions of what happened - the mother (I just want to put this word in quotes), 25-year-old Yana Mikhailova claimed that her father had stolen the girl from her long ago, after which she did not raise her. The father, 27-year-old Viktor Lozhkin, in turn, stated that the mother did not pay due attention to Natasha even before he took the baby to him at the request of his mother-in-law.
Later it was established that the family could not be called prosperous; in the apartment where, in addition to the girl, her father and grandparents lived, there was appalling unsanitary conditions, there was no water, heat or gas.
When they found her, the girl behaved like a real dog - she rushed at people and barked. Having taken Natasha from her parents, guardianship and trusteeship officials placed her in a rehabilitation center so that the girl could adapt to life in human society; her “loving” father and mother were arrested.
7. Volgograd birdcage prisoner
The story of a Volgograd boy in 2008 shocked the entire Russian public. His own mother kept him locked up in a 2-room apartment inhabited by many birds.
For unknown reasons, the mother did not raise the child, giving him food, but not communicating with him at all. As a result, the boy, until he was seven years old, spent all his time with the birds, when law enforcement officers found him, in response to their questions he only “chirped” and flapped his “wings.”
The room where he lived was filled with bird cages and simply overflowing with droppings. As eyewitnesses reported, the boy's mother clearly suffered from a mental disorder - she fed street birds, took the birds home and lay on the bed all day long, listening to their chirping. She didn’t pay any attention to her son, apparently considering him one of her pets.
When the relevant authorities became aware of the “bird boy,” he was sent to a psychological rehabilitation center, and his 31-year-old mother was deprived of parental rights.
8. Little Argentine rescued by stray cats
In 2008, police in the Argentine province of Misiones discovered a homeless one-year-old baby who was in the company of wild cats. Apparently, the boy was in the company of cats for at least several days - the animals took care of him as best they could: they licked dried dirt from his skin, brought him food and warmed him on frosty winter nights.
A little later, we managed to find the boy’s father, who led a vagabond lifestyle - he told the police that a few days ago he lost his son while he was collecting waste paper. The dad told officers that the wild cats always protected his son.
9. Kaluga Mowgli
2007, Kaluga region, Russia. Residents of one of the villages noticed a boy in the nearby forest who looked to be about 10 years old. The child was in a pack of wolves, who apparently considered him “one of their own” - together with them he obtained food, running on bent legs.
Later, law enforcement officers raided the “Kaluga Mowgli” and found him in a wolf’s den, after which he was sent to one of the Moscow clinics.
The surprise of the doctors knew no bounds - after examining the boy, they concluded that although he looked like a 10-year-old, in fact he should have been about 20 years old. From living in a wolf pack, the guy’s toenails turned almost into claws, his teeth resembled fangs, his behavior copied the habits of wolves in everything.
The young man could not speak, did not understand Russian, and did not respond to the name Lyosha given to him during his capture, reacting only when he was called “kiss-kiss-kiss.”
Unfortunately, the specialists were unable to return the boy to normal life - just a day after he was admitted to the clinic, “Lyosha” ran away. His further fate is unknown.
10. Pupil of Rostov goats
In 2012, employees of the guardianship authorities of the Rostov region, having come to check one of the families, saw a terrible picture - 40-year-old Marina T. kept her 2-year-old son Sasha in a goat pen, practically not caring about him, while When the child was found, the mother was not at home.
The boy spent all his time with animals, played and slept with them, as a result, by the age of two he could not learn to speak or eat normally. Is it worth mentioning that the sanitary conditions in the two-by-three-meter room he shared with his horned “friends” not only left much to be desired - they were appalling. Sasha was emaciated from malnutrition; when doctors examined him, it turned out that he weighed about a third less than healthy children his age.
The boy was sent to rehabilitation and then to an orphanage. At first, when they tried to return him to human society, Sasha was very afraid of adults and refused to sleep in the bed, trying to crawl under it. A criminal case was opened against Marina T. under the article “Improper performance of parental responsibilities”; a lawsuit was filed in court to deprive her of parental rights.
11. Adopted son of a Siberian dog
In one of the provincial regions of the Altai Territory in 2004, a 7-year-old boy was discovered who was raised by a dog. His own mother abandoned little Andrei three months after his birth, entrusting the care of her son to his alcoholic father. Shortly after this, the parent also left the house where they lived, apparently without even remembering the child.
The guard dog became the boy’s father and mother, who fed Andrei and raised him in his own way. When social workers found him, the boy could not speak, moved only like a dog and was wary of people. He bit and carefully sniffed the food that was offered to him.
For a long time, the child could not be weaned from dog habits - in the orphanage he continued to behave aggressively, rushing at his peers. However, gradually the specialists managed to instill in him the skills of communicating with gestures, Andrei learned to walk like a human and use cutlery while eating.
The guard dog's pupil also got used to sleeping in bed and playing with a ball; his attacks of aggression occurred less and less often and gradually disappeared.
12. Ukrainian girl-dog
Left in a kennel by her negligent parents between the ages of 3 and 8, Oksana Malaya grew up surrounded by other dogs. When she was found in 1991, she could not speak, choosing to bark as a dog instead of speaking and running on all fours. Now in her twenties, Oksana was taught to speak, but she was left with mental retardation. Now she takes care of the cows that are on the farm near the boarding school where she lives.
13. Cambodian Jungle Girl
Rochom P'ngieng got lost and mysteriously disappeared at the age of 8 while herding buffalo in the Cambodian jungle. 18 years later, in 2007, a villager saw a naked woman sneaking towards his house in an attempt to steal rice. After After the woman was identified as the lost Rochom Pyengeng girl by a distinctive scar on her back, it turned out that the girl had somehow miraculously survived the dense jungle.
The girl was unable to learn the language and adapt to the local culture and disappeared again in May 2010. Since then, much conflicting information has emerged about her whereabouts, including a report that in June 2010 she was seen in a hole in a dug toilet near her home.
14. Madina
The tragic story of Madina is similar to the story of Oksana Malaya. Madina lived with dogs, left to her own devices, until she was discovered at the age of 3. When they found her, she knew only two words - yes and no, although she preferred to bark like a dog. Fortunately, Madina was declared mentally and physically healthy immediately after her discovery. Although her development has been delayed, she is at an age where hope is not completely lost and her carers believe she will be able to lead a normal life when she grows up.
