Wild Children

There are some who are very sceptical about wild children, while others, such as Carl Linnaeous who classed them as a new species of human - 'Homo Ferens' , regarded them as very real indeed.

Fiction Classics

Wild children have featured in fiction, legend and mythology since classical times. Of course, the most famous wild children from the world of fiction are Tarzan, raised by apes; and Mowgli, the wild child, from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, who was raised by wolves.

Books about wild children that never achieved quite the fame of Tarzan and Mowgli include Jungle-Born by John Eyton, featuring wild children like the boy raised by apes in India, Shasta of the Wolves by Olaf Baker, about a native American boy, and Primordial, by Morgan Robertson.

But still fondly remembered by many is the hero of a series of books from the 1920s and 1930s, Bomba the Jungle Boy.

Wild Children of Myth and Legend

Classical myth and legend abound with stories of infants — who usually later become kings (and/or founders of cities) — being abandoned and suckled by animals. Romulus and Remus are the best-known example of a long tradition of wild children.

There are many more thought history, and who is to say that all these stories did not come from history for a reason. There has to be an idea from somewhere, taken from the stories of wild children themselves.

There are documented evidence of wild children coming out of the undergrowth with their animal family.

We have animals live with us, they become used to our ways and they are often said to be almost human in some of their own ways. So why can't this be reversed to the human child being taught the ways of a certain animal, to become the wild child.

It is said that there is a window of learning for a child as they grow up, they soak up all the behaviours that will prepare then for their survival for their future.

It is documented that some of these wild children; when rehabilitated, can hardly learn how to speak the human language. They have in fact learnt the language, not of ours, but of the wild animals that have brought then up.

Yes, they may have a hard time of learning another language when the window of extreme learning has been closed and to accumulate another language is not an easy thing if their vocal cords have not been exercised in the manner that a normal child has when brought up in society.

For an example... you learn to speak a language that requires you to roll your rrrrrsss.... though in another language where you are not require to do this, the act of rolling your rrrsss when saying a word in another language is not easy.

You can learn, though never roll then as easily, say in the Spanish language, as the natural born speakers do.

Wild Wolf Children

There are a large number of wild wolf children in the list, in particular from India.

One explanation is that women with young children or babies would leave their infants at the edge of a field while working, and wolves would emerge from the forest and steal them.

In subsequent centuries, attempts to distinguish humans from animals have generally cantered around characteristics or abilities that wild children also do not possess, such as the ability to walk, talk and use tools.

Homo Floresiensis

Homo Floresiensis is a tiny, hairy species of humans that existed on the island of Flores, probably as recently as 12,000 years ago or less. Could other similar species remain to be found, isolated on islands or in rainforests?

Would we consider members of the species Homo Floresiensis to be human, if they were found today?

The Saharan Gazelle Boy

Jean-Claude Armen and the Saharan Gazelle Boy Armen writes extensively about the gazelle boy of Rio de Oro (the Spanish Sahara), the boy who he tracked and observed for a considerable period in 1960-1.

Eventually the boy became accustomed to Armen, and was no longer afraid — the two met many times, and Armen was able to keep him and his gazelle companions under close observation for an extended period of time.

Army Captain attempts a capture

Armen returned to the area in 1963 in the company of a captain of the Cercle Militaire Française d'El Aioudj-Idjil and succeeded in finding him again.

However, the captain wasn't content with watching, and wanted to catch the boy — they followed him in a jeep, at speeds of up to 52-54 kph — and Armen was forced to physically wrestle the controls from him to prevent the capture.

Two more capture attempts

Two more attempts were made to capture the Saharan Gazelle Boy, by American officers from the NATO base of Villa Cisneros. In the first, in 1966, a net was dragged from a helicopter. The second unsuccessful attempt was made in June and July of 1970.

Axel Rivas, the Chilean Dog Boy

The Chilean Dog-Boy

Axel Rivas had been thrown out of his home by abusive parents when he was five years old, and was then placed in a children's home. He didn't like it, and escaped in 1998, at the age of eight.

After that Axel lived with a pack of around 15 strays in the Chilean port of Talcahuano, sleeping with them in a cave on the outskirts of the town, thus becoming a wild boy.

When he was first sighted by police on 16 June 2001, Axel Rivas made an escape attempt by jumping into the Pacific Ocean.

He was eventually caught and take to a children's unit in Conceptión.

"The dogs are my family," he told police. "Please let me go back to them."
 

Feral Children Characteristics

"He's showing signs of depression, is aggressive and is not speaking much although he does know how to speak," Delia Delgatto, head of Chile's National Child-care Service said of Axel Rivas.

"He was dressed almost in rags, was dirty and had filthy hair." His case caused a nationwide scandal in Chile. Axel told police that he had sucked the milk of a pregnant dog for sustenance. "Yes, because I was hungry. It was my breakfast," he said.

"He lived in a cave with dogs and roamed the streets for food with them. He would eat out of garbage cans and find leftovers," said Delgatto. "He wasn't reared by the dogs as such, he lived with them in a cave," she said.

Axel Rivas escapes again.

At the beginning of November he ran away again from the children's home where he was being looked after.

"He was responding well to psychiatric treatment and his relations with other people were improving but last week he got up and left," spokeswoman Miriam Olate said. Axel is believed to climbed over a wall to freedom.

Childcare workers said they had been talking to potential foster families before Axel escaped. "We were preparing him for a family atmosphere. His self control and attention were improving." Olate said.

Daniel, Andes Goat Boy

The Andes Goat-Boy was found in the Andes, Peru, in 1990, and was said to have been raised by goats for eight years. He is supposed to have survived by drinking their milk, and eating roots and berries.

 After being found, the Andes wild Goat-Boy was investigated by a team from Kansas University and named Daniel.

 

Baby Hospital, the Monkey Girl from Sierra Leone

This 7-year-old girl found by an Italian missionary in Sierra Leone, and given the unlikely name of Baby Hospital. She was seemingly brought up by apes or monkeys, thus another of the wild children.

 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 civilize her, staying wild, instead spending much of her time in an activity that is very unusual for feral children: crying.

 

Kunu Masela

Kunu Masela is one of those street children who hung around with dogs, this time in the Kenyan town of Machakos. Once his story received publicity in the local papers, his mother revealed herself, and admitted that poverty had caused her to abandon Kunu at the age of about three.

Mrs Rukia Ali Murefu, age 29, was a coffee plantation worker who had moved to Nairobi.

Breast fed by Dogs

Kunu Masela claims to have been breast-fed by the dog he lived with,which he called Poppy.

 

Tissa, the Monkey Boy of Sri Lanka

Found with monkeys

Tissa was found in Sri Lanka in 1973, when seen walking on all fours with a group of monkeys near the village of Tissamaharama. Tissa the wild child was discovered by a woman wood-cutter called Pemawathie who captured him and named him Tissa, but handed him to the police because of his wild ways.

Tissa's feral credentials

As well as walking on all fours, Tissa exhibited other animal characteristics such as yelping and snarling at humans and eating his food off the ground, and in common with most wild feral children did not smile.

Tissa makes progress

However, after three months in a welfare home near the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, Tissa could smile and take food to his mouth with his hand, but couldn't talk and was still learning to stand and walk without assistance. The home, run by a Miss L P Morawake, had apparently cared for two other animal boys in the past.


 

Djuma, the Wild Wolf Boy from Turkmenistan

Djuma was one of the iwld children found in 1962 in southern Russia by oil explorers, and exhibited the usual characteristics of feral children: he howled like a wolf and savagely bit one of the oilmen.

Djuma ate raw meat

The name Djuma means the Wolf Boy. Still alive in 1991 (when he would have been about 37) Djuma was unable to walk; he ate raw meat, and would bite people when frightened, although he could brush his teeth and hair and use the lavatory.

Djuma had learnt a very limited amount of language, amounting to only a few ungrammatical phrases.

A victim of civil unrest

Djuma has apparently communicated to his careers using sign language that his family were killed in a political purge, his mother throwing herself over his body to save him.

If alive today, he is presumably still in the clinic where he was expected to live out his days, spending much of his time in a world of his own, oblivious to his surroundings.
 

The Syrian Gazelle Boy

50 kph sprinter wild boy

This is how the story runs. A boy aged around 10 was found in the midst of a herd of gazelles in the Syrian desert, and was only caught with the help of an Iraqi army jeep, because he could run at speeds of up to 50 kph.

Although terribly thin, he was said to have been extremely fit and strong, with muscles of steel. He was one of the true wild children captured and bound hand and foot.

Photographs of the Syrian Gazelle-boy

One correspondent remembers a front-page picture (UK newspapers) of the the Syrian Gazelle-Boy, bound and scowling — and both he and Armen agree that is not the same photo (or even the same boy) as the one that was reproduced in Life and in the Sunday Express, see right.

Indeed, another correspondent points out that the boy in this picture has a blatantly obvious "farmers' tan": that is, the tan you acquire while wearing shorts and a short-sleeved shirt outside. Furthermore, the hair is obviously cropped over the eyes.

A third correspondent, J Rocca, writes in with these memories of the Syrian Gazelle-boy:

Lived in Damascus in the early 50's. At that time I was teaching at Damascus College and the USIS.

 In the main Market, there was an extremely thin, wiry, tall boy who was called the "gazelle boy".

I was told that he was found in the desert running with the gazelles and had been captured by hunters in a jeep… at first the Syrian Authorities wanted to study him and refused to let American doctors or French doctors take him for study.

When the funds weren't forthcoming, the wild young man was left to live in the streets.

He supported himself living in the "Souk" near Hamidiyee taking handouts.. and people would give him about 25 cents (equivalent) to run alongside a taxi. I saw this several times… about l952- 54.

I remember the Gazelle Boy had long stringy dirty hair and clothes that were blacken with age and grime… he had a pointed face… really animal like… but one did not feel threatened by this boy.

I used to take him food when I went to the Souk (Hamadieyah Market) a very long straight street ending in a Mosque (now) but had been a church in the second and third century.

Institutionalised

Armen says the Syrian Gazelle-Boy was still alive in 1955, when he (the boy) made an attempt to escape from whichever unpleasant state institution he was incarcerated in. I won't offend your sensibilities by telling you what they did to him to stop him escaping again.

Hoax by bored reporters?

Possibly because of the false photograph, there is a rumour that the Syrian Gazelle-boy story was a hoax perpetrated by bored news reporters stuck in the middle of a desert.

However, Jean-Claude Armen (author of Gazelle Boy, the book about the Saharan gazelle-boy who Armen found in 1960) believed the story.

Different versions of the story

The Life Magazine story of 9 September 1946 agrees pretty much with the other reports. It states that the previous month, a group of hunters found a boy running wild with a herd of gazelles in the Syrian steppes.

About 14 years old at the time of discovery, he was believed to have been abandoned as a baby. He was taken to an asylum for the insane.

Another version of the story of the Syrian Gazelle-Boy is told by Amir Lawrence al Sha'alan, chief of the Ruweili tribe, who says he found the boy while out hunting in the desert straddling Transjordan, Syria and Iraq. His story, reported in the Sunday Express, puts the boy's speed at 50 mph, not 50 kph.

Sidi Mohamed, the Ostrich Boy

Lived with ostriches

Sidi Mohamed is another child who never lost his name. He was playing outside at the age of 5 or 6, and wandered off into the bush where he met ostriches who became his foster family.

Caught by hunters

Some 10 years later Sidi Mohamed was finally caught by men out hunting. During his decade-long ostrich vacation he is said to have lived on grass.
 

The Turkish Bear Girl

Captured by hunters

One Ali Osman, hunting on Mt Olympus with his companion Bahri, killed an enormous she-bear and was then attacked by what he described as a howling wood-spirit that made his hair stand on end.

 Eventually he succeeded in overpowering the creature and realized she was just a little girl. They tied her up with their belts, and found, he said, conclusive proof in the bear's lair that a human being had lived there.

Where did the Turkish Bear Girl come from?

Enquiries by Maranz at the village of Mussalilar revealed that 8 years previously, a woman (Fatma) with a three-month-old child who had arrived at the village looking for work left her daughter on the ground while gathering brushwood in the forest. A she-bear carried off the daughter, and Fatma left the village soon after, unable to bear the sight of Mt Olympus.

 

The Indian Panther Boy

Another child who's hardly worth a mention, but you'll see him in other lists, so why not here. In 1920 it is said that a Hindu boy, one of the wild children, was returned to human society after having been nurtured by a panther.

 

The Leopard Boy of Dihungi

Stolen from the fields

Like so many feral children, the wild leopard boy of Dihungi was stolen while his mother worked in the fields — in this case, she was cutting rice near her village of Dihungi.

The villagers had found and killed two leopard cubs two days previously, and the mother had been haunting the outskirts of the village.

Found three years later

Three years later, a sportsman killed a leopardess close to the village, and reported that there were still cubs alive. The villagers eventually captured two cubs and the boy, who was identified by and returned to his parents.

Leopard-like speed

When found, that wild children like the Leopard boy of Dihungi was able to run at speed on all fours, but when Stuart Baker saw him some five years later he was managing to walk.

He had an acute sense of smell, and when first returned to the village would seize any fowl within his reach, tear it to pieces, and eat it.

 Read more about the Leopard Boy of Dihungi

Stuart Baker writing in The Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, vol 27, July 1920, pp 117-118 visited the Leopard boy of Dihungi, and his report is reproduced in Wolf-Children and Feral Man by Singh and Zingg.

 

Goongi

Caught aged 14

Goongi was caught in July of 1914 when she was about 14 years old. She was given the name Goongi, and because that means dumb we can infer that she wasn't able to speak.

Goongi was found in the jungle near Naini Lal, in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. She exhibited characteristics common to feral children: she was supposedly covered with hair, and ran on all fours.

Brought up by bears?

Our information comes from Jim Corbett (Jim Corbett's India) and he suggests that she had been brought up by bears, owing to the similarity of her dietary habits to that of bears — she wouldn't eat cooked food — and her climbing agility. She also had deep scratches that could have been caused by bears.
 

Why is it that we feel the urge to capture these wild children who suffer miserably in captivity or worse, often trying to get back to the world they know in the wild with the family they regard as their own, and in a way they are... whether four footed or two.

Is it that people feel they are saving these wild children form something, do we have the right to intervene at a stage where these children know nothing else, and that they will be better off in human society?

I think that is a question that should be debated, I am sure. I remain sceptical if they should be taken away from the wild state that they have known.

These wild children, I don't know about you... though when I read these stories of different wild children, I wonder. The excitement whelms up in me.

Though a hard life they must have, in one way. Is it so different that a child would become wild out living beside other wild animals in all different countries, that it is wrong.

When I think of our life, as people bringing in animals that once were wild to become part of our house hold thought the centuries.

Is it so bad? I think we would all stop to think of this in a conscious way...

I myself feel that when a child grown up in an environment such as these wild children.

Do not know anything else, because they have been conditioned to their life as a wild child, it is to them, the same as we, as people are brought up in the society that we were raised in.

For the wild children of the world, they as any baby born, are ready to be moulded to survive and live in the surroundings that they are brought up with.

Is it even bordering on the realms of fantasy, "The Wild Children" that we all wondered of when we were children, and still have to in adult life to some extent.

After all look how popular movies are like "Lord of the Rings" "A Never Ending Story" to name a few.

Is the possibility of such events as discovering a such wild children all inspiring in many ways.

To find out their strengths in their own wild societies of the different species of animals they are brought up with.

The ability of speed, strength etc... compared to the average ability of ourselves, being brought up in our own society of humans.

Wild children such as these are not give these boundaries, told that they are human, so given such limits of their abilities.

They are brought up believing that they are part of the animals species they live with, and in this case they need to developed the same strengths to their particular species they live with. Look at the story of the Gazelle Boy, if he did not developed his speed, how could he keep up his his adopted family of gazelles.

He was lean, this is not a minus for him, he was well muscled and adapted for speed as the gazelles were, they being lean and animals of flight themselves. He was probably fitter and healthier than most of us.

These stories are inspiring, and should we, as people who see a wild child, let it be the first through to capture them and bring them into society...

I would not, they are happy where they are and have been brought up with, as they pine in captivity, which has been documented so many times in these stories.

I feel it right to keep observations on them, yet who are we to decide that they should be brought into our society when they obviously are happy as they are.

I am sure there will continue to be wild children out there in the future, though have we learnt from the past, to be more understanding of them and to leave them as they are, or try to manipulate them as we have in the past just because they are one of our own species.

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