Feral Children - Reality or Myth?
Hoaxes about Wild Children Exist as Scientific Research Confirms
Feral or wild children are those who have grown up with little or no human contact, therefore unaware of human social behavior or language.
According to documents, some, allegedly, were raised by animals; others fended for themselves.
Feral Children Fiction
Six famous examples are the Lord of the Apes Tarzan, and his son Korak, created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Cornelius and Zira of The Planet of the Apes fame and legendary founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, raised by a wolf.
These mythical children are often depicted as having superior strength, an inborn sense of cultural intelligence, superior survival instincts and outstanding skills and morals when compared to humans, the implication being that they represent humanity in a pure and unspoiled state as the noble savage.
Feral Children - Two Notorious Hoaxes
In 2008, the bestselling French book and movie Survivre avec les Loups, Survival with Wolves, was a declared a hoax.
The French media debated its credibility because the authors used unreliable second or third-hand information.
According to French surgeon Serge Aroles, who wrote a study of feral children L'Enigme des Enfants-loups, The Enigma of Wolf-Children, in 2007, this and nearly all cases of feral children are totally fictitious.
The Reverend Joseph Amrito Lal Singhclaimed to have discovered two girls who had been reared by wolves in an Indian forest in India. This was proved to be a fraud to obtain money for his orphanage.
Singh wrote that the girls exhibited lupine behavior. They scratched and bit people who tried to feed them, rejected cooked food, liked raw meat and walked on all fours. They had a loathing for sunshine and possessed excellent night vision.
The girls had acute senses of smell and appeared to be insensitive to cold and heat. The only human emotion they showed was fear. Except for nocturnal wolf-like howling, calling out to fellow wolves, Amala and Kamala didn’t use language.
Feral Children and the Mowgli Syndrome
These "wild" children lack basic human social skills. They may be unable to learn to use toilets, have trouble learning to walk erect and display no interest in human activity. They often appear to be mentally impaired, have problems learning human spoken language and are limited in learning culture and social behavior. These individuals need special caretakers. Unfortunately, they often die at an early age.
They have been abandoned and isolated from human contact when very young and had little or no experience with human care, loving or social behavior. Some had been confined and/or rejected by people, usually their own parents, because they exhibited severe intellectual or physical impairment.
Other feral children may have experienced child abuse or trauma before being abandoned or running away. There are over one hundred accounts, written in English, about children who were alleged to have been reared by animals or lived on their own.
The term, Mowgli Syndrome is what some mental health professionals use for children who have severe cognitive and/or physical deficiencies have no biologically causation and exhibit animal behavior. These children originally had two categories. The first was psychogenic dwarfism caused by severe emotional deprivation or abuse, stress and/or neglect. The second were those who, allegedly, were reared by wild animals.
This disorder, like the pathological liar, isn’t found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Fourth Edition, Text Revised, (DSM-IV TR) published by the American Psychiatric Association which is the reference mental health professionals use as a guide for diagnosing mental illness and disorders.
The term is based on Mowgli, the fictional feral child Rudyard Kipling created in The Jungle Book.
Related Reading
Readers may also enjoy reading Wolf - Influential Pagan Symbol
Source:
- The World Almanac Book of the Strange, The World Almanac Editors, (A Signet Book, 1977).
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