A feral child is a human child who has lived away from human contact from a very young age, and has little or no experience of human care, loving or social behavior, and, crucially, of human language. Feral children are confined by humans (often parents), brought up by animals, or live in the wild in isolation. There have been over one hundred reported cases of feral children, and this is a selection of ten of them.
In May 1972, a boy aged about four was discovered in the forest of Musafirkhana, about 20 miles from Sultanpur. The boy was playing with wolf cubs. He had very dark skin, long hooked fingernails, matted hair and calluses on his palms, elbows and knees. He shared several characteristics with Kamala and Amala: sharpened teeth, craving for blood, earth-eating, chicken-hunting, love of darkness and friendship with dogs and jackals. He was named Shamdeo and taken to the village of Narayanpur. Although weaned off raw meat, he never talked, but learnt some sign language. In 1978 he was admitted to Mother Theresa’s Home for the Destitute and Dying in Lucknow, where he was re-named Pascal and was visited by Bruce Chatwin in 1978. He died in February 1985.
The wild girl of Champagne had probably learned to speak before her abandonment, for she is a rare example of a wild child learning to talk coherently. Her diet consisted of birds, frogs and fish, leaves, branches and roots. Given a rabbit, she immediately skinned and devoured it. “Her fingers and in particular her thumbs, were extraordinarily large,” according to a contemporary witness, the famous scientist Charles Marie de la Condamine. She is said to have used her thumbs to dig out roots and swing from tree to tree like a monkey. She was a very fast runner and had phenomenally sharp eyesight. When the Queen of Poland, the mother of the French queen, passed through Champagne in 1737 to take possession of the Duchy of Lorraine, she heard about the girl and took her hunting, where she outran and killed rabbits.
One day in 1991, a Ugandan villager called Milly Sebba went further than usual in search of firewood and came upon a little boy with a pack of monkeys. She summoned help and the boy was cornered up a tree. He was brought back to Milly’s village. His knees were almost white from walking on them. His nails were very long and curled round and he wasn’t house-trained. A villager identified the boy as John Sesebunya, last seen in 1988 at the age of two or three when his father murdered his mother and disappeared. For the next three years or so, he lived wild. He vaguely remembers monkeys coming up to him, after a few days, and offering him roots and nuts, sweet potatoes and kasava. The five monkeys, two of them young, were wary at first, but befriended him within about two weeks and taught him, he says, to travel with them, to search for food and to climb trees. He is now about 21 years old, and in October 1999 went to Britain as part of the 20-strong Pearl of Africa Children’s Choir.
Jean-Claude Auger, an anthropologist from the Basque country, was traveling alone across the Spanish Sahara (Rio de Oro) in 1960 when he met some Nemadi nomads, who told him about a wild child a day’s journey away. The next day, he followed the nomads’ directions. On the horizon he saw a naked child “galloping in gigantic bounds among a long cavalcade of white gazelles”. The boy walked on all fours, but occasionally assumed an upright gait, suggesting to Auger that he was abandoned or lost at about seven or eight months, having already learnt to stand. He habitually twitched his muscles, scalp, nose and ears, much like the rest of the herd, in response to the slightest noise. He would eat desert roots with his teeth, pucking his nostrils like the gazelles. He appeared to be herbivorous apart from the occasional agama lizard or worm when plant life was lacking. His teeth edges were level like those of a herbivorous animal. In 1966 an unsuccessful attempt was made to catch the boy in a net suspended from a helicopter; unlike most of the feral children of whom we have records, the gazelle boy was never removed from his wild companions.
Oxana Malaya (Оксана Малая) (born November 1983) was found as an 8-year-old feral child in Ukraine in 1991, having lived most of her life in the company of dogs. She picked up a number of dog-like habits and found it difficult to master language. Oxana’s alcoholic parents were unable to care for her. They lived in an impoverished area where there were wild dogs roaming the streets. She lived in a dog kennel behind her house where she was cared for by dogs and learned their behaviours and mannerisms. She growled, barked and crouched like a wild dog, sniffed at her food before she ate it, and was found to have acquired extremely acute senses of hearing, smell, and sight.
The most recent case of Mowgli Syndrome was that of a seven-year-old boy who was rescued by Russian healthcare workers after being discovered living in a two-bedroom apartment with his mother and an abundance of feathered friends. It would appear the small apartment doubled as an aviary with cages filled with dozens of birds. In an interview, one of his rescuers, Social Worker Galina Volskaya, said that his mother treated him like another pet. While he was never physically harmed by his mother, she simply never spoke to him. It was the birds who communicated with the boy
“He just chirps and when realising that he is not understood, starts to wave hands in the way birds winnow wings.” Quote from Social Worker, Galina Volskaya.
A leopard-child was reported by EC Stuart Baker in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society (July 1920). The boy was stolen from his parents by a leopardess in the North Cachar Hills near Assam in about 1912, and three years later recovered and identified. “At the time the child ran on all fours almost as fast as an adult man could run, whilst in dodging in and out of bushes and other obstacles he was much cleverer and quicker. His knees had hard callosities on them and his toes were retained upright almost at right angles to his instep. The palms of his hands and pads of his toes and thumbs were also covered with very tough horny skin. When first caught, he bit and fought with everyone and any wretched village fowl which came within his reach was seized, torn to pieces and eaten with extraordinary rapidity.”
The most famous wolf-children are the two girls captured in October 1920 from a huge abandoned ant-hill squatted by wolves near Godamuri in the vicinity of Midnapore, west of Calcutta, by villagers under the direction of the Rev JAL Singh, an Anglican missionary. The mother wolf was shot. The girls were named Kamala and Amala, and were thought to be aged about eight and two. According to Singh, the girls had misshapen jaws, elongated canines, and eyes that shone in the dark with the peculiar blue glare of cats and dogs. Amala died the following year, but Kamala survived until 1929, by which time she had given up eating carrion, had learned to walk upright and spoke about 50 words.
In 1937 George Maranz described a visit to a Turkish lunatic asylum in Bursa, Turkey, where he met a girl who had allegedly lived with bears for many years. Hunters in a mountainous forest near Adana had shot a she-bear and then been attacked by a powerful little “wood spirit”. Finally overcome, this turned out to be a human child, though utterly bear-like in her voice, habits and physique. She refused all cooked food and slept on a mattress in a dark corner of her room. Investigations showed that a two-year-old child had disappeared from a nearby village 14 years earlier, and it was presumed that a bear had adopted her.
The first really famous feral child was Wild Peter, “a naked, brownish, black-haired creature” captured near Helpensen in Hanover in 1724, when he was about 12. He climbed trees with ease, lived off plants and seemed incapable of speech. He refused bread, preferring to strip the bark from green twigs and suck on the sap; but he eventually learnt to eat fruit and vegetables. He was presented at court in Hanover to George I, and taken to England, where he was studied by leading men of letters. He spent 68 years in society, but never learnt to say anything except “Peter” and “King George”, although his hearing and sense of smell were said to be “particularly acute”.
You can read more about feral children here.
This article is licensed under the GFDL because it contains quotations from the Wikipedia article: Oxana Malaya.
otay: The olsen twins are a bit old, no?
Randall #56;
and I quote – “while it’s true there’s the occasional bizarre example of a predator “adopting” a prey infant, thus proving the power of the maternal instinct—this is by no means a common occurrence.”
No, it is not a common occurrence, that is why there are so few cases. By saying it isn’t a common occurrence, aren’t you saying that it still in fact occurs?
You say that alot of the children in these cases were autistic and/or severly emotionally/physically abused, right? If thats the case,then how “socialized” or “humanized” can these children be? When children are physically and/or emotionally abused, they aren’t treated like a child should be. They aren’t raised like a child should be, in fact most of the time they are treated like animals. They are starved, beaten, isolated. In fact, they are treated so poorly that they are eventually abandoned! How much socialization are these children engaged in?
We are not talking about a child that has been raised in a normal human environment. In most feral child cases, we are talking about children who are abused, neglected and abandoned.
Here is another great site for information on feral children
http://www.feralchildren.com/en/index.php
“By saying it isn’t a common occurrence, aren’t you saying that it still in fact occurs?”
Uh, no. I am simply saying it is not a common occurrence. Nothing more is implied by that. In fact, logically it would still be possible to say such a thing and go on to say that it NEVER happens. (But I didn’t).
About the rest–that’s exactly my point. The BELIEF is that these “feral” children MUST have been raised by or adopted by animals–but it’s more LIKELY that they suffer from some affliction and/or were abused/neglected, and LEFT in the wild (or were allowed to wander off) and survived for a time ON THEIR OWN—only to be found later.
I’m disputing the animal part, not the idea that some children could survive in the wild. *For a limited time.*
Randall;
A child can begin walking usually between 12 and 24 months old. So a child that is that age or older and is abused and abandoned, why would some not have the instinct to survive? Why can’t an infant this age have that instinct?
Randall #64:
When something is not a common occurrence, it is implied that it does eventually or rarely occur. The opposite of common is rare, isn’t it? And something that occurs rarely still occurs, does it not? or is it just me?
anyway….I’m pretty sure I’m getting way off topic
sorry
zeppelingod:
First of all, an “infant” is a child from birth to roughly “walking age”–actually 9 months to 13, maybe 14 months. Most children are walking by that time. After that we consider the child to be a “toddler,” though I think this is more child-psych/parental speak than science-speak. I am a parent, so that’s my definition of an infant vs. a toddler.
I think it is HUGELY unlikely that an infant could survive in the wild. MAYBE if suckled by a mammalian mother–but that in itself is VERY unlikely and such a thing has NEVER been proven or observed. And again—a human infant, no matter what, is HELPLESS from birth to roughly a year. Totally helpless. No other mammals are helpless for that length of time. What mammalian mother (other than a human) could cope with that long period of helplessness? (If the child was abandoned at birth or shortly after, I mean).
An OLDER child, yes—MAYBE they could survive in the wild for a time. Maybe. Certainly instincts would kick in to some extent—but let’s also remember that if WE have to survive on almost instinct alone—we aren’t very well-equipped for it. We do have our big brains, but to properly function they require socialization.
Any way you look at it, Z, it ain’t real likely. It’s very implausible. Not impossible, but very, very implausible.
Why are the comments so light? It hurts my eyes.
Randall: I’m just glad that you said that a child surviving in the wild is not impossible
#66 zeppelingod:
Don’t play semantics with me, puny human. AT BEST the phrase “uncommon occurrence” implies it COULD occur, NOT that it WILL OCCUR–no matter how rarely.
@Randall:
having fun picking your nose in your mom’s basement while the rest of the high school’s class of ’74 is out raking in tens of thousands a year from their JOBS?
StormyGirl: I wasn’t inferring that the Olsen twins be used in such an experiment, i was merely agreeing to the point that it would be interesting to see the results of one twin raised with no human contact, and the other raised with normal social family structure.
But ultimately, this would be a horribly immoral experiment to try and conduct.
Randall: I personally do not believe that wild animals could or would attempt to raise a human “infant”, but would actually see it as food. Maybe my point of interspecies “adoption” was a little off subject.
otay:
That’s okay, you have been corrected. That’s all that matters.
There are experiments I can conceive of, involving the Olsen twins. They would not involve leaving one of them in the wild though.
I wrote a research paper on this topic in sociology. It’s a shame that they remove the poor children from the only families they’ve known, deem them “crazy,” and send them to mental institutions. I believe that, like the gazelle boy, feral children should be left to their “natural” habitats.
Randall: i agree, it isn’t very likely….but still possible on extremely rare occasions.
Every parent knows that as soon as a child becomes “self-mobile” (walking/crawling) they get into everything, and everything goes into thier mouths. In every ecosystem there are things you CAN eat, and things you CAN’T eat (many of which are deadly). The chances of a 1-2 year old child surviving more than a couple days are slim to none. It is extremely difficult for an adult to survive without prior knowledge of the particlar flora and fauna they will be encountering in any given environment. I know this from experience from attending US ARMY “Jungle Expert” survival course in Panama.
otay:
Thank you saying something that I had forgotten to mention. More support for the implausibility of this kind of thing.
Are we sure that the Olsen twins are not feral children? Think about it. Ratted hair, covered in fur, avoiding most eye contact. Maybe a study should be done on the effects of exposing children to Bob Saget.
amanda: All those symptoms also could be attributed to drugs. Oops! Did I say that???
Holly:
Sorry, but… it’s no shame at all. The only shame is that innocent children are abandoned like this in the first place.
See my many posts on this topic here and those supporting what I’ve said. These children aren’t in their “natural” habitats, and they know no “families” amongst wild animals. This entire thing is almost certainly a myth, and these children are doomed unless they ARE saved and brought into human society–even if it means institutionalization.
The natural habitat for human children, Holly, is amongst other humans. There is no other.
Remember, Holly, it may not be a *hard* science, but Sociology IS still a science. Let’s be scientific about these things, not go around filling the room with cant and illogic.
Otay- That could still be attributed to Bobsagetitus.
Randall- I have yet to see a comment of yours that I disagree with, and I am close to getting my MA in Sociology. Also, if we really want to get down to it, the only ‘hard’ sciences would be Biology and Chemistry. Everything else changes theory and practice as often as Sociology.
amanda: I guess you are right, Bob would surely drive me to smokin crack!
amanda:
Well thank you.
And really, I agree about sociology—but I was trying to be kind.
Not sure that changes in theory and practice demarcates the difference between “hard” and “soft” science, though… I’d still say Physics and Astronomy are also hard sciences for instance. But I have my biases, I admit.
I vaguely recall a study done by a doctor where he attempted to raise a baby monkey along side his own infant child. It was an experiment to see how the baby monkey would develope along side a human child. The monkey and his infant son were together 24-7. The doctor stopped the experiment however, due to the fact that his infant son began mimicing/imitating the monkey and picking up some of its habits. The doctor became concerned with the developement of his son, something he didn’t consider when he started the experiment.
Is anyone else familiar with this?
Not that this is an example of a feral child or anything, I just remember learning about this case and I thought it was pretty interesting. I guess the statements about how feral children acted as if they were dogs, wolves, monkeys, etc reminded me of the side effects of this experiment.
zeppelingod: I remember hearing about that as well. Makes me wonder about the saying “Monkey see, monkey do!”
I think I can’t follow those comments now. My eyes hurts due to sizes of letters. This a very interesting list and I learned so much from the comments. Just if we can afford to maintain the previous size. Maybe it would help if we can shorten a bit our comments.
human infant see, human infant do
This is one crazy list! It’s amazing that these children survived as they did. How is it that they weren’t killed and devoured by their “adoptive” parents?
Randall-
I’ll give you Astronomy, but I personally hate Physics. Actually, I hate Quantum Mechanics. I do think it all comes down to personal bias!
How can Geology not be considered a hard science? Rocks!
A “rare occurrence” does in fact occasionally happen, to say that it is rare means that it has at least been observed once. If it has never been observed, it is considered “theoretically possible, but not yet observed”. Predators adopting prey infants falls into the “rare” category; human beings being raised by wild animals is theoretically possible, but has never been observed. A kitten giving birth to baby puppies is impossible—not even theoretically possible.
I agree with previous posts, most of these are folk lore and old wives tales, but still interesting.
Why is this site the only one where I have to adjust my text size every time I log on? It is exaggeratedly big, and the comments are a light gray and very difficult to read.
On the topic of “rare occurence” please see Maxwell’s Demon and the second law of thermodynamics for an extreme version of ‘possible but not yet observed’.
The biggest problem that I have with these stories is the genetic attributes that somehow change with (a) proximity to the animals or (b) isolation from humans: Better eyesight, or smell, longer fingers or thumbs, elongated canines, different reflections from the pupil or cornea, etc.
Nonetheless, an interesting list and very informative discussion
what do you think the rest of the dogs pontificate (“dogmatic”- heh heh) when they happen apon a weakling runaway who led a life tugged by leash, fed mushed up food in a bowl and wearing a little sweater with doggles, ect?
ah..Man’s best friend.
Feral Children. I didnt even know thats what they were/are called until now.
My ears prick up when I hear(or read stories/reports) of such things.
Satori: I, too, expected to see Genie and Victor, especially as they featured in several of my college classes in a variety of disciplines.
But I saw jfrater’s comment about a “10,” not a “top 10,” and I’m glad that there were many examples on this list that were new to me.
Excellent list with some really interesting discussion! Thanks!
Wow! This list is so interesting! Great job!
The Syrian Gazelle Boy is an obvious hoax, or at least the photograph certainly is – his bangs are trimmed and he has a farmer tan. I think the other cases are true however.
Science is interested in these children because they are the closest we can come to “The Forbidden Experiment” – raising a child to adulthood without any human contact. Such an experiment would never be allowed for obvious ethical reasons, so we are left with cases such as these, which are interesting and disturbing but of little use scientifically. Maybe the children are autistic or otherwise behaviourally impaired to begin with. Maybe they’re all hoaxes. I don’t know. This is certainly a subject of interest to me.
islanderbst – “doesnt your comment text box underline your misspelled words? mine does”
Yeah it’s a Firefox feature. I do agree that for those using Internet Explorer a spell checker would be good.
That aside, I really liked this list, good work Jamie
Plus the comments are really interesting, I love a list that sparks a debate…
I’m sorry Randall, but your blunt depreciation of feral children is misinformed and wrong. There have been documented cases of human children living with other animals. I’m also sure you’ve not missed the *countless* news stories of dogs adopting rabbits, dogs adopting goats, cats adopting chicks. It happens, and it’s completely a real phenomenon. Humans are not as different from wolves, as a chicken is from a cat.
These children may not live full lives, as once an injury comes along, the rest of the pack may abandon the injured member.
“I do think it all comes down to personal bias!”
Science ?
I don’t think so. Physics is indeed a science…by any definition. As is geology, as somebody else mentioned.
Sociology ? Well, it fits the general description (systematic method, generally accepted tenets etc), but it reminds me of a tv commentator I heard once describing a team of darts players as “athletes”. Again, you can argue that it meets the requirements…but c’mon..
I think if you informed somebody (who didn’t already know) that Sociology was a science, this would likely elevate Sociology in their minds, as opposed to them questioning the “looseness” with which the term “science” may be applied.
And I’m not trying to denigrate Sociology here; I took Sociology credits in my undergrad degree and, while I was generally underwhelmed, some of it was relatively interesting. I have no particular axe to grind
I think the nomenclature “soft science” is apt when describing Sociology, though “social acience” is, understandably, a Sociologist’s definition of choice.
Jono:
Sorry, pal, but you’re the one who’s “misinformed and wrong.” There is not one—REPEAT–NOT ONE—documented and verified case of a human child living with other animals. No solid evidence for such an occurrence has EVER been found.
Furthermore, you’re clueless if you’re going to maintain that a dog adopting a rabbit is in any way similar to a wolf OR ANY OTHER mammal (let alone any other creature) adopting a HUMAN child–especially an infant.
I have already spoken at length on this matter–go back and re-read my posts. There is a HUGE difference.
kiwiboi:
Geology is most definitely a hard science. There are many examples of “hard science.”
Sociology is a “soft science.” Like Economics–if we can even call that a science–as is Anthropology and a lot of other sciences related to the study of Man.
possible the most interesting list i have read on this site to date. the heightened sense of eyesight and hearing in some of these children really makes you think about ‘nature vs nurture’.
Economics ? I’ve worked with economists for most of my working life. And I can affirm that the old adage is true : If you lay all of the world’s economists end to end…they would never reach a conclusion.
To me, Economics is certainly not a science.
i study medicine and have a particular interest in early child development. there was a very interesting experiment performed by w.n. kellogg in the 1960′s. it deviates slightly from the subject of this list as the child was a control and the main focus was of the development of the chimp.
http://www.psy.fsu.edu/history/wnk/ape.html#emotion
It’s all too real… Wild animals have a lot of compassion to those of us they feel good in us…
Years ago, I was on a solo, car camping trip vacation, in Canada’s deep pristine forests… I followed old roads to older roads, and to older roads, till I came to an ancient horse-cart path well hidden by a pile of cut and piled brush, probably hidden a hundred years ago… I cut down a few small trees beside the blockage, and managed to drive along the path for a couple thousand meters, till I came to a spot in the road where a shallow icy cold creek had cut through the road, making it impassable by vehicle…
While I was lingering there beside the car and creek, sipping the sweetest ice-water on the planet, trying to determine the best spot to set up the tent, a large blue kingfisher bird flies-up from the valley, screaming excitedly… It flew around my head quite close to me, then hovered over me a minute, screaming pleasing sounds.. then flew away, back down the valley, following the little road… About a hundred meters from me it made a sound that truly sounded like perfect English, “Follow I”… I had to sit, and ponder what I had just heard…
I collected all my gear, and made it across the frigid spring-fed creek, down the valley, to an ancient beaver lake, which seemed like it was at least 20-thousand years old… Prehistoric beavers probably lived there long ago, and their ancestors are here now…
It was a beautiful camp spot where the bird led me to.. the best I ever experienced in my whole life… The next morning, I’m doing little things in my camp, when that same bird is over my head again, screaming and screaming… I stops what I’m doing, and looks up at it, and says, “OK! I’m Watching!”… The bird flies into the forest.. and comes out with a large bug in its beak, and drops the bug in the middle of the little lake, then flies straight up, to a hundred feet, and hovers there in a tight circle.. I see a fish break the water, and take the bug, and the bird dives, with its wings tight to its body, only opened enough at the elbows to act as fins… It slams into the water like a spear, without any splash, and comes-up with a small trout speared on its beak, and flies off into the forest with its meal, while I applauds and cheers, and says, “I thank you for the lesson your majesty”…
Seems the bird felt a need to teach me how to collect food…
I can see animals wanting to teach humans.. After-all we do have samples of all the critter’s DNA’s in us… We are part of them, as they are part of us… If you have love for all life, Life will show you it has love for you, like nature shows me, every time I enter the forests… Critters will approach me, and touch me, and sometimes they’ll sing to me, their hypnotic pleasing music… Frogs will rest in my hand, and sing me their happy tunes… Little critters don’t fear me.. and I don’t fear the big meat eaters…
Be nice to the little life, and the big life will be nice right back…
Venomous critters permit me to pick them up, and touch them… black widows, snakes, scorpions, bees, wasps, hornets, tarantulas… I see them as equals in Life…
I walked up to an adult she grizzly, bowed, and said “Greetings Your Majesty!”, and sat eight feet from her.. talking to her for over half an hour… The next morning she approached my tent, where I slept half out of the tent, and with her from paw four inches from my face, she sniffed me head to toe twice, pressing her nose to my arse hard twice, then I made a little whine sound, and rolled over, to try to escape her horrid stench, and she exited quietly and politely… I can confidently claim that an adult she-griz kissed my ass with respect, Twice!..
Those kids who were taken in by critters are the lucky ones… They don’t fear life like we do… Most of us fear the sound of a bee’s wings fluttering, and some of us even freak and panic at the sound of a mosquito’ wings close by…
I took a hunter out into the forest, only once… We were walking on a path, when we hears a robin rifling through the fall leaves in search of bugs, when the guy freaks, and turns deathly pale, quickly fires his 12-gage shotgun at where the rustling noises originated from… “Yikes” thinks I…
We have so messed up Life on this planet, that now days Life doesn’t even recognize itself as Life anymore… We are living a “synthetic reality”… We fear Life, we hate ourselves, and we have nearly lost all respect for Life and Humanity…
Cosmicbrat:
Breaking the prozacs in half again?
Of course I kid… a bit. But please. While I agree with many of your statements, some I find absurd. If you’re telling me life other than we poor humans exists without fear, then there’s terrific bridge I’d like you to look at, very cheap…
And I’d like to see you try that trick with the grizzly again, when she’s hungry or agitated. Come down from the clouds, Cosmo.
Your worst statement is this thing about the kids who were “taken in by critters” being the lucky ones. A) I’ve already said there is NO evidence that such a thing has actually ever happened… but B) even if it had, your statement is cruel and injust in the extreme. We are what we are, Cosmicbrat. We’re humans. We HAVE evolved to live in the complex societies we’ve built for ourselves. You’re living in a pastoral dreamland if you think it can or should be otherwise. I guarantee you that life in the wild still knows fear, Cosmicbrat–I mean, for god’s sake, you’re like the old romantics from 200 years ago who used to think that Nature was more noble and godly and peaceful than humanity. Rubbish (and we learned it was rubbish in time)–nature, in fact, revels in killing and fear and bloodlust–while at the same time, yes, retaining beauty and elegance. We are part of nature, Cosmicbrat, but we’re not beneath it. Nature isn’t more noble than us, or without fear. Nature is beautiful and tremendously dangerous all at once. And so are we.
As I said, I agree with some of your sentiments. But saying children would be better off living with animals is not only ridiculous, it’s criminally irresponsible and sickeningly extreme.
Why do these kids seem to die at such a young age? Maybe someone more medically-knowledgeable than me has a theory…?
I found the list interesting, but all of the facts were lifted nearly word for word from the Gnokr atricle!
G – erm…look up near the top of this page
“For more information on Feral Children, read this article on Gnokr.”
Same author, dude
kiwiBALLS:
That’s why I referred to the article by name…out of the children mentioned here the descriptions are identical to the Gnokr article.
By the way it’s not at the top of the page, it’s actually after the list.
G – you still don’t get it, do you ? You said that the facts were “lifted nearly word for word from the Gnokr article”
I pointed out to you that the same guy wrote them both – which explains why the facts are the same.
“it’s not at the top of the page” – read what I wrote, dumass; I said “near the top of the page”.
As for the kiwiBALLS thing…very mature. Retard.
Randall; I agree with you on the implausibility of being raised by animals. I do believe however that it is less implausible in the case of primates. Remember Flo (older female chimp) from the Jane Goodall research? Held on to that kid of hers (Flint?)for years and then died shortly after he did? Kind of pined away?
On a personal note, I took my newborn to the Metro Zoo years ago. The female gorilla followed me and my kid all the way around the enclosure. I don’t really want to attribute human characteristics with animals but she really didn’t seem hungry.
Should have reminded that flower child Cosmic brat about the grizzly guy. He attributed peace and love to wildlife and he and his girlfriend ended up dinner.
Show me where it says who wrote the list!
Yeah, and as far as my maturity level re-read you’re first response to me “G – erm”…
g- lists with no name were written by me – jfrater. Gnokr is my other website, thus I am not stealing from it
I posted the link because it has more information on feral children overall.
Randall, I don’t know if someone else has already made the point or not, but just because a feral child appears to have autism does not mean they do. While it is true that many {as compared to the general population} autistic people have a tendency to wander off, it does not mean every feral child is autistic. Lack of social interaction and proper cognitive stimulation would have the same result on a child as them being autistic. I believe a well-developed 3-5 year old human in a tropical, or warmer-temperate environment could potentially survive on their own. They are physically able enough to help themselves, but young enough where years in isolation would erase most human behavior. Lack of evidence cannot be used to deny or to support an argument, as it could be used to support opposing viewpoints. “There is no evidence that feral children have been raised by animals.” “There is no evidence that feral children have not been raised by animals.” Logical paradox.
Nice list! We did a huge section on this in my developmental psych class a couple years ago.
To the people who think that Genie should have been on this list – I don’t think she would have fit in as well because she was severely neglected, not ‘raised’ by animals.
Question about #4. If he was raised around fast leopards, and could run almost as fast as a human, does that mean that if a child was raised around cheetahs, would that child be able to run as fast, if not faster than a human? Interesting list!
Feral kids is all about the wild kingdom sharing its love with humans…
Lets talk a little bit about sharing love, with some simple basicish examples of what love feels like inside of you when it’s happnin’… Lets call this “the first step” in learning how to love… (cuz if you don’t catch on to love, in its entirety, you forfeits the afterlife, cuz when you die you gotta be the afterlife to be in it)…
…I’ve been out all-day in the cold and snow, drivin’ around the town, delivering leaflets to prospective clients.. picking only the good-feel houses that I’d like to work on and in… I avoid the ones surrounded in critter dung and yellow snow… They hurt my nose…
At the next place I sets a flier in the mailbox, and the guy opens his front-door before I can turn around, and I am Slammed by a blast of hot moist air carrying the almighty powerful stench of raw moist dog dung, which knocks my head back a little in defense.. I quick-steps back, turns, and am gone in a flash, without a word to the zoo keeper… I’m pacing fast, still holding my breath, and blasting air out of my nostrils to get any remnants of that vile attack-odor out of my nose…
I was lucky.. none of it stuck to my clothing…
I walks up to the next driveway.. and hears a large dog barking, sees the minefield and all that yellow snow, and turns around in-stride…
…I gets home this evening to find the answering machine is Off, and it’s been Off All day.. which means that my lassy listened to our messages yesterday, and somehow clicked it Off… which means I probably lost a couple hundred bucks in calls…
I could mention it to her… I could even freak-out bigtime, and come down on her like she’s a chunk’o shidt.. like about 500-million males treat their women, today…
I could just keep quiet about it… It’s done… I don’t need to punish my beloved.. for messing-up my business for today… I don’t need to punish my princess in anyway, ever… That’s not how a relationship works…
I am bound by the reality of “mating”, to maintain my lady’s spirit happy at all times.. as I am here for her, as I am there for her, to make her happy when someone has made her sad…
I try to be there, just before some goof is destined to try to make her sad, so I can be there to stop-it, fast as lightnin’, and turn it right around back upon her attacker, times two, before her attacker can even begin its vile brew, swing, or run, against my Lady’s happiness… thereby arming me, and enabling me, to maintain my Lady’s life as as much of heaven as I can effect, with all my Being, is what it’s all about; any less, is essentially only varying degrees of hell, the real deal too; what the proverbial “hell” is all about… It ain’t a place to go.. It’s a place to be… This hell we’ve got now, is what we did to heaven right here on earth, right now…
We messed it up Big-time…
You can’t just leap into heaven, from hell, when you suddenly figure it’s time to make a change, just because you’ve got to other option…
You need heaven to recognize you as what it is, for it to accept you as what you are in its likeness.. It will maybe even guide you in if you’re worth it…
If you step-on bugs, you ain’t worth it baby, cuz you would step on heaven’s little critters too… You hurt Life, means you don’t do the ride baby… You can dream and wish and pray and scream and dance, all you want, but heaven don’t want *****s…
That should be the last page in your precious “bible”…
maybe it even sums-up your whole “bible”, in just one statement…
me thinks it probably does… me thinks Iza gonna be sick…
So Learn the lesson, and move-on, into more of Life…
That’s the meaning of Life… To be Life… or not to be… that is the answer…
I opened a new door, and found a new “highway”… Does anybody real want to go for a Real Big Ride..? Ten times the rush of having farted then noticing you just birthed a planet earth…
There are some rushes, so-big, they could burn your whole skin off in just a few seconds… It silly to go there when you still got skin…
There’s Rushes that can make you fly…
There’s rushes that can make you cum thrice connected… where you need to hold your hand on your head to hold it all in, should it explode in the next few seconds.. when all you’ve got is to hold onto something solid, hoping you make it through this alive, and in one piece… And you just hold on tight to whatever’s there to hold on tight to… And that’s all you know…
Same Rush as the young cowboy’s first ride at breaking a virgin stallion, that seems to have reddish glowing eyes whenever it glares at him, from its coral prison.. eying him like it wants to eat him in one bite… And he’s thinkin’, “I gotta ride that beast in an hour”…
And his nuts feel like they’re in his throat… And half of him seems it is running across the field, far far away from here……
…You know? the dirdiest trick on the whole planet, would be to give a young virgin young cowboy a warm pepsi just a few minutes before his first bronc-ride…
…me thinks that’s Not love… but it’s how we share pain and embarrassment (emotional pain for some)…
makes me wonder, if pranks and doodies are actually our race’s anchor and tether to hell..?
me thinks, probably… makes me need to heave…
there’s a rush, from meeting a grizzly bear up close and personal, that’ll make your skin shake for 15 minutes straight.. after you’ve walked away from the griz, and sat at the tent, and then it hits you, of what you just did… you walked right up to a hungry one ton rodent, and sat a few feet from it, like a meal set out for the taking… and managed to talk your way out of it… and parted friends… is when the rush hits hard… and just about knocks yer head clean off… then buzzes through your timbers like an angry hornet’s nest what just got kicked.. for a solid fifteen minutes…
I doubt there is anyone on the planet who could walk immediately after that rush or during… It’s a “sit or fall” thing…
And that’s just one of the little rushes… “meeting face to face, a huge hungry rat on its own turf, “in its dinner bowl sort of squeak”…
..But the bear possessed seven personalty flows of the Female, whilst our females possess only four personality flows… She became uneasy and fidgety when I was attempting to determine the female facets she has that our females don’t.. so I backed off, and focused deeper into her mind.. to find myself being pulled into a round space.. like she was pulling me into her head… I figured I had about 30-60 seconds before I was dinner…
I reached my mind hand down through the clouds to her neck, and squeezed, and ***** her neck and shoulders in a hard rough brisk *****.. She leaned into my touch.. I retracted my stare… When she realized I just did that, her eyes bulged Big… She looked at me like to be thinking, “maybe she’s a little too close to me for safety?”… Then her eyes said, “WoW!.. Did You do that! pipsqueak?..” I looked right into the bear’s eyes, politely spoke, “Yep!”, grinned I, proud and respectful…
In the pause, I made one big serious fatal mistake in confronting a large wild hungry meat eater, with daggers for fingernails and teeth… “I summed up my now situation”.. It was freakin’ me bigtime!…
I had to force all my fears back-down as I sensed them bubbling up.. I had to eat my fears before they surfaced, cuz if the bear smelled fear, its favorite spice for food, I’m thht history…
…I says to her.. “Your majesty, I’ve become scared, after comparing your size, and potential for violence, to my size, and inability to defend myself.. I don’t like scared! Would you do something to fix it?”…
…She did a retake, blinked big, then lowered herself out of attack posture in a few seconds… and a ton! of tension fell away.. for both of us…
I played with the bear for half an hour more… There ain’t any rush in it.. You don’t dare rush then, and there.. That would be like *****in’ on a 240 volt wall socket…
…I said all that, so I could say this:
Does anyone, on earth, know what those female bear personality traits are, that our human females don’t have..? I would like to work them out, and add them to my woman.. and then try to ride her.. and take it.. to the limit.. one more time….
Wow, it’s amazing that humans can adapt so quickly to the lifestyle of an animal. 0_o
Simply astounding.
I think this is a SUPER list! After reading all these comments, that seems a little stupid to say.. but that was my first thought!
Someone already mentioned it, but the “person raised by the person raised by wolves” joke was from Demetri Martin. You can see it on his Comedy Central Presents appearance.