Feral child

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A feral child (feral, i.e., "wild" or undomesticated) is a human child who, from a very young age, has lived in isolation from human contact and has no (or little) experience of human care, loving or social behavior, and, crucially, of human language. Feral children are extremely rare and can be brought up by animals, confined by humans (often parents) or live in the wild in isolation. Throughout the world, just over a hundred incidences of the phenomenon have been reported.^[1] They are thus considered very interesting case studies from a sociological perspective. When completely brought up by animals the feral child copies and behaves (within physical limits) almost 100% like that particular animal-carer, including its variety of instincts, fear or indifference to humans, etc. Children with some human experience before isolation from humans are easier to rehabilitate after "discovery".

Contents 1 Origins and effects 2 Ancient reports 3 Real-life cases 4 In fiction 5 See also 6 Notes and references 7 External links 8 Bibliography

[edit] Origins and effects

Feral children may be separated from society by being lost or abandoned in the wild. The category also includes children who have been purposely kept apart from human society, e.g. kept in a room in solitary confinement. Sometimes abandonment is because of parents rejecting a child's severe intellectual impairment or physical disability, and some feral children experience severe child abuse or trauma before being abandoned or they run away.

Some myths and legends, and later many fictional stories depict feral children as having been reared by wild animals such as wolves or bears. Famous examples include Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan and Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli, as well as the legend of 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. In reality, feral children lack the basic social skills which 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 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.

It is essentially impossible to convert a child who became isolated at a very young age into a relatively normal member of society. Such individuals need close care throughout their lives, if they are to live in human society. As they are "discovered", feral children also tend to become the subject of lively scientific and media interest. Once the excitement dies down and their limitations in terms of learning culture and social behaviour become obvious, frustration can set in and they often spend the rest of their lives being passed from one caregiver to another. It is common for them to die young, though obviously, their potential lifespan if they had been left in the wild is difficult to know.

Scientific knowledge of feral children is rare for various reasons. One very useful source are the detailed diaries of Reverand Singh, who in 1920 in a forest in India, discovered two girls, 18 month Amala and 8 year old Kamala, brought up by wolves from birth it seemed. They were taken to an orphanage and the struggle to 'humanise the animals' began. The younger wolf-girl, Amala, died a year later, and the older Kamala survived until 1929 - only in her latter years beginning to speak a few words, stand up, and relate to other humans.

Other sources [citation needed] confirm that with the case of Reverand Singh, the two sisters were in fact originally born mentally and physically disabled children. The parents who wished to not care for them because of their lack of resources to do so, put the two sisters in the forest for Reverand Singh to find while he was hunting. He of course eventually did so, but after claiming them as his own, he still sent them to the orphanage to act as wolves for locals. This was done in order ro raise money for the orphanage in financial need.

[edit] 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 Phrygian word for “bread.” Thus, they concluded that the Phrygians were an older people than the Egyptians. The veracity of this story is, of course, impossible to determine.

Legend has it that Romulus and Remus, twin sons of Rhea Silvia and Mars, were raised by wolves. Rhea Silvia was a Vestal Virgin, and when it was found that she had been pregnant and had had children, the local King Amulius ordered Rhea Silvia to be buried alive and for the children to be killed. However, the servant who had been given the order instead set them in a basket on the Tiber river. The children were taken by the river god Tiberinus to the shore where a she-wolf found them and raised them until a shepherd named Faustulus found them, while they were still toddlers. He and his wife Acca Larentia, who had always wanted a child but had never been blessed with one, raised the twins, who would later figure prominently in the events leading up to the founding of Rome (named after Romulus, who eventually kills Remus to have the city founded on the Palatine Hill rather than the Aventine Hill).

[edit] Real-life cases

Of the approximately 100 cases often cited, few have been confirmed or well studied, many lack detail, and many may have been exaggerated and embellished. Here is a limited list:

• Hessian wolf-children (1341-1344).^{[citation needed]}
• The Bamberg boy, who grew up among cattle (late 1500s).
• Hans of Liege^{[citation needed]}; the Irish boy brought up by sheep, reported by Nicolaes Tulp in his book Observationes Medicae (1672).^[2]
• The three Lithuanian bear-boys (1657, 1669, 1694).^{[citation needed]}
• The girl of Oranienburg (1717).^{[citation needed]}
• The two Pyrenean boys (1719).^{[citation needed]}
• Peter the Wild Boy of Hamelin (1724).
• The Wild Girl of Champagne (1731).
• The Hungarian bear-girl (1767).^{[citation needed]}
• The wild man of Kronstadt (end of eighteenth century).^{[citation needed]}
• Victor of Aveyron (1797), portrayed in the 1969 movie by François Truffaut The Wild Child (L'Enfant sauvage).
• Kaspar Hauser (early 1800s), portrayed in the 1974 film by Werner Herzog The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle).^[3]
• Amala and Kamala, females aged 1 and 8 raised by wolves, found in 1920 near Midnapore, Calcutta region, India.^[4]
• Ramu, Lucknow, India, (1954), snatched by a wolf as a baby, raised until the age of 7.[2]
• Genie, Los Angeles, California, discovered 1970.^[5]
• Oxana Malaya, Ukraine, (1990s) raised with dogs until the age of 9. ^[6]
• John Ssebunya, Uganda, (1991) raised by monkeys for several years in the Ugandan jungle.^[7][8]
• Belo, the Nigerian Chimp Boy (1996) about 2 years of age, raised by chimpanzees for 1 1/2 years.^[9]
• Ivan Mishukov (1998) found near Moscow, raised by dogs for six years, and had risen to being "alpha male" of the pack.^[10]
• Alex the Dog Boy found in Talcahuano, Chile, 2001.^[11]
• Traian Căldărar, Romania, (2002) lived 3 years of his childhood with wild dogs in the Romanian wilderness. ^[12]
• Andrei Tolstyk (2004) of Bespalovskoya, near Lake Baikal, Russia, abandoned by parents, to be raised by a guard dog. ^[13]
• Sujit Kumar, Fiji, (2005) raised in a chicken coop.^[14]
• Viktoria, Katharina and Elisabeth in Linz, Austria (discovered October 2006). Aged 14, 18 and 21. Mother kept them in a dark cellar for 7 years. The girls played with mice and developed their own language.^[15]
• Rochom P'ngieng, Cambodia, (2007) lived 19 years in the Cambodian jungle.^[16]
• Name Unknown, Uzbekistan, (2007) found after eight years.^[17]

[edit] In fiction

Main article: Feral children in mythology and fiction

Feral children in mythology and fiction are often depicted as having superior strength, intelligence and morals to "normal" humans, the implication being that because of their upbringing they represent humanity in a pure and uncorrupted state.

[edit] See also

• Language deprivation experiments
• Psychogenic dwarfism
• Street child

[edit] Notes and references

[edit] External links

• Lost girl recognised by father after 19 years living wild in the jungle
• Children rescued & raised by dogs
• "NOVA Online Transcripts 'Secret of the Wild Child'"
• FeralChildren.com, a comprehensive feral children website
• Feral Children at the Open Directory Project (suggest site)
• Chilean boy found raised by dogs, 2001
• Collection of articles on feral children
• Cry of an enfant sauvage article about Oxana Malaya
• FeralChildren.com, a comprehensive feral children website.

[edit] Bibliography

• Kenneth B. Kidd (2004).Elijah Worrell Making American Boys: Boyology and the Feral Tale. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-4295-8.
• Michael Newton (2002). Savage Boys and Wild Girls: A History of Feral Children. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-21460-6.