Stories about Mowgli children amaze the imagination of any person. It is difficult to imagine how a child who was adopted and raised by animals can, in principle, return to normal life. Some succeed, and some stories have a tragic ending.

Perhaps one of the most impressive cases of Mowgli children is Ng Chaidi. She disappeared into the jungle at the age of 4 and was only discovered 38 years later, in 2012. Locals have heard about the lost girl for years, but they thought it was just gossip. She went missing in India and was later found in Myanmar, where she lived in a cemetery.

Most notably, as someone who has lived most of her adult life in the jungle, Chaidi doesn't seem all that wild. She speaks elementary phrases, learns and perceives new words, is not afraid to contact people. Since the woman's family did not allow her to receive medical or psychological assistance, there is no information about her exact condition.

Ivan Mishukov, born in 1992, at the age of 4, by the will of fate, ended up on the street. According to one version, his parents abandoned him, according to another, he himself ran away from his alcoholic mother and her aggressive roommate. On the street, he made friends with a pack of dogs and even became a leader. The boy brought food to the animals, and they saved him from the cold, warming him with their warmth and scaring away strangers from him. Three times Ivan was caught by the police, and three times he escaped with the help of a flock. So the boy lived for 2 years, until he was finally detained by law enforcement agencies. He quickly learned the human language and became a full-fledged member of society.

Marcos at the age of 7, his father sold to a local shepherd, who took him to live in the mountains. After 4 years, the shepherd died, and the boy was left alone with his evil stepmother. Tired of enduring constant humiliation and beatings, the child went to the mountains and settled in the forest. Marcos' story is very special, not only because he lived 12 years in the wild with wolves and other animals, but also because he spent a lot of time trying to integrate back into society (today he is 68 years old), but only partially succeeded. .

“Animals told me what to eat. I ate everything they ate,” the man recalls. “For example, wild boars ate tubers buried underground. They smelled food and began to dig the ground. Then I threw a stone at them, and when the animals ran away, I took their prey.”

Marcos has a particularly warm relationship with wolves. “One day I went into a cave and started playing with the cubs that lived there, and accidentally fell asleep,” Marcos says. Later, my mother brought them food, I woke up. She saw me, gave me a glare, and then began to tear the meat into pieces. I tried to steal food from a wolf cub that was next to me, because I was very hungry. Then the mother wolf laid her paw on me, and I was forced to retreat. When she fed the babies, she threw me a piece of meat. I did not want to touch it, because I thought that the predator would attack me, but she pushed the meat with her nose in my direction. I took it, ate it and thought that she would bite me, but the she-wolf stuck out her tongue and began to lick me. After that, I became one of the members of the pack.”

Marcos had many animals as friends: a snake, a deer, a fox. The man still knows how to perfectly reproduce the sounds of animals. He also gives lectures to children in schools, where he talks about the habits of forest animals and birds.

In 1987, a 5-year-old boy was discovered in South America, who lived for a year surrounded by monkeys. Surprisingly, at the age of 17, he still behaved like a primate: he did not talk at all, walked like a monkey, refused to eat cooked food, never played with other children, stole raw meat and went outside through the window. The fate of the feral young man was tragic: in 2005 he died in a fire.

The story of Marina Chapman is so amazing that at first, well-known publishers refused to publish her autobiographical book, because they thought it was just fiction. If you do not know the nightmarish past of a woman, we can assume that until now she lived the life of an ordinary person. In fact, Marina went through real circles of hell.

At the age of 4, the girl was kidnapped by unknown persons for the purpose of further ransom, but subsequently abandoned in the jungles of South America. For the next 5 long years, the baby lived in a society of primates. Capuchin monkeys taught her how to catch birds and rabbits with her bare hands, skillfully climb trees, move on all fours. Soon the girl was accidentally discovered by hunters. Since Marina could not speak, the "saviors" took advantage of her helplessness and sold her to one of the Colombian brothels. After some time, she escaped from there and lived on the street for some time, until she fell into slavery in a family of famous mafiosi.

The girl managed to enlist the help and support of one of the neighbors, who secretly took her to England. There she got a job as a nanny, successfully married and had children.

Chapman's story is so amazing that scientists have long doubted its veracity. Colombian professor Carlos Conde fully confirmed the woman's story based on the results of the tests. X-rays clearly show the presence of Harris lines, which indicate that Marina suffered from severe malnutrition in childhood. Most likely, this was during the period when she lived with capuchins and the diet was very poor and limited. However, it is to the monkeys that the woman owes her miraculous salvation.

Mowgli is the hero of Rudyard Kipling, who was raised by wolves. In the history of mankind there real cases when children were brought up by animals, and their life, unlike the book, ends far from a happy ending. After all, socialization is practically impossible for such children, and they live forever with those fears and habits that their “foster parents” passed on to them. Children who have tested 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 in later 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 who lived in 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.

Aveyron Savage

Savage of Aveyron in life and in The Wild Child (1970)

In 1797 hunters in the south of France found wild boy who was believed to be 12 years old. He behaved like a beast: he could not speak, instead of words - only a growl. For several years, they tried to return him to society, but everything was unsuccessful. He constantly ran away from people to the mountains, but he never learned to talk, although he lived surrounded by people for thirty years. The boy was named Victor, and scientists actively studied his behavior. They found out that the savage from Aveyron had a special hearing and sense of 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 lagging behind in development.

Peter from Hannover

In 1725, another feral boy was found in the forests of northern Germany. He looked 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 care of one of the queen's ladies-in-waiting, and then her relatives. The savage died at the age of seventy, and over the years he was only able to learn a few words. True, modern researchers believe that Peter had a rare genetic disease and he was not completely feral.

Dean Sanichar

Most Mowgli children were found in India: only from 1843 to 1933, 15 feral children were found 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 reserve, who was raised by monkeys from birth.

Another feral child, Dean Sanichar, was raised by a pack of wolves. He was seen several times by hunters, but they could not catch him, and, finally, in 1867 they managed to lure him out of the den. The boy was believed to be six years old. He was taken under guardianship, but he learned very little human skills: he learned to walk on two legs, use dishes and even wear clothes. But he never learned to speak. He lived with people for more than twenty years. It is Dean Sanichara who is considered the prototype of the hero of The Jungle Book.

Amala and Kamala

In 1920, the inhabitants of an Indian village began to be pestered 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 17 her development was comparable to a four-year-old child.

Question: is it capable of surviving and becoming a full-fledged person? Small child in conditions of complete isolation from society, worries writers and psychologists. The former draw rosy pictures of reunion with society, the latter shake their heads in dismay, speaking of the missed sensitive period of development. Why characters like Mowgli, Tarzan or Bingo-Bongo are not possible in real life?

Feral children: the difficulties of rehabilitation

There are several reasons why, having barely been born, an individual may find himself far away not only from his parents, but also from human civilization as a whole.

1. In families where the father or mother has mental problems (often due to drug addiction and alcoholism), children are not given due attention, or vice versa, aggressive methods of education are used. Small victims are disappointed in people, starting to seek protection from pets or street animals.

1. Adults completely isolate children with some developmental disabilities, such as autism, and do not communicate with them. In some underdeveloped countries, such babies are thrown into the forest to get rid of the "extra mouth".

1. In rural areas of the subtropical and tropical zones, cases of abduction of babies by wild animals are not uncommon. Or small children themselves go into the forest and cannot find their way back.

Social isolation in early age leads to mental degradation, which has received the name "Mowgli's syndrome" in scientific circles.

Clinical picture of the disease

Wild Mowgli children (ferals from the Latin feralis - buried), copy the habits of "adoptive parents", which are most often played by wolves, dogs and monkeys. When trying to establish contact, they show panic and aggression: they try to bite, scratch, injure.

Breaking away 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, screeching, hissing, howling. They do not 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 the limbs, are deformed: the hands resemble twisted bird paws, the legs do not fully straighten. Massive calluses form on the knees from running on all fours, the jaws develop disproportionately, the teeth become sharp, like those of predators. Such children move at a tremendous speed by human standards, have great dexterity and developed organs of touch: hearing, sight, smell.

Important: after capture and attempts at social adaptation, people raised by animals rarely come to terms with the new conditions of existence and die quickly. The fate of the survivors is no less sad - they will live in homes for the mentally retarded until the end of their days.

Scientific explanation of the phenomenon of "wild children"

There is a scientific explanation for the fact that "Mowglis" in real life cannot, like Kipling's hero, become people in the full sense of the word. They were in animal society at the moment when the most important skills are formed:

• speech;
• behavioral stereotypes;
• food habits;
• self-identification of a person.

That is, in the period between 1.5 and 6 years, which is also called sensitive. As a result, instead of active development, their intellect degraded, giving way to primitive survival instincts. The musculoskeletal system has also undergone irreversible changes, which makes 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, forcing them to memorize words or movements. But they will no longer become an independent, conscious person.

The chances of rehabilitation increase significantly when you get into social isolation after 3, and even better 5 years. And real stories people brought up in exceptional conditions, prove the correctness of this hypothesis.

The most famous "human cubs"

The first Mowgli children in world history can be considered the twins Romulus and Remus. According to legend, they were born by the royal vestal Rhea Sylvia from the god of war Mars. The brothers were taken from their mother and thrown into the Tiber, but they managed to survive, and the she-wolf nursed 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 caught by residents of the Aveyron department, in southern France, in 1800. According to the 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, at the age of about 12 years, did not speak and did not perceive the questions addressed to him.

The boy ran away 8 times from people who tried to give him shelter, but he was again caught and tried to "tame". Finally, the little savage was handed over to medical student Jean Itard, who set out to bring his ward back to normal life. The methods used by the young doctor when teaching Victor - that's what the foundling from Averon was called, are still used by psychologists when working with mentally retarded children.

The boy began to adequately respond to the behavior of those around him and even said two words, otherwise he spoke with gestures. Having devoted 5 years to trying to socialize the teenager, Itard handed him over to the care of his housekeeper. Victor died a 40-year-old man, unable 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.

Based on this story, the film "Wild Child" was filmed.

There are suggestions that the story of Mowgli Kipling wrote 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 the jungle and savanna occupy large areas, coming close to human habitation.

Seeing how a 6-year-old kid frolics near the animal lair in the company of wolf cubs, the hunters were not surprised. Having driven out with the help of smoke and killed the predators, they took the “find” with them and handed it over to the local priest, Father Erhardt. The missionary named the boy Dina Sanichar (the name means "Saturday" in Urdu) and tried to civilize him. The kid 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 unsteady. He did not learn to say "wolf boy". The only thing he adopted from people was the habit of smoking, which is why he died, having contracted 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 the wolf pack and informed the missionaries about this.

The manager of the local orphanage, Joseph Lal Singh, went to the forest to find out the cause of the strange phenomenon. Having tracked down the wolf's lair, he looked into it and saw girls curled up in a ball, little resembling 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 showed behavior typical of ferals.

Singh, who took "patronage" over them, kept a diary where he described the life of his wards. Amala died a year later from a kidney infection. Her sister, or rather “comrade in misfortune,” grieved for a long time, expressing emotions not only with wolf howls, but also with tears. However, after the death of the younger girl, the older one 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 wolf girls is just a falsification, since no one except Singh mentions them anywhere.

When this native of Uganda was 3 years old, in front of his eyes, his father brutally dealt with his mother. The frightened boy hid in the jungle, where he came under the protection of a flock of pygmy green monkeys - vervets. 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 house, where, despite desperate resistance, she washed and put it in order. It turned out that John developed hypertrichosis, either from a long stay in the wild, or because of nerves. When the boy was fed hot food, he almost died, because the body, accustomed to a raw food diet, refused to accept boiled foods. In addition, giant tapeworms up to 1.5 m in length were found in the baby.

Later, John was transferred for rehabilitation to the family of the founders of the children's human rights association - Paul and Molly Vasswa. Since the monkey boy spent the first years of his life among people, he managed to partially socialize. After 10 years, John not only fit into public life, but also became a soloist of the "Pearl of Africa" ​​choir, with which he tours Western countries.

The heroine of the following story was kidnapped from her native village in 1954 by a gang of Colombian slave traders and, for unknown reasons, abandoned in the jungle. It would be difficult for a 4-year-old girl if she had not been accepted into a flock of capuchin monkeys. For several years, the victim forgot the human language and adopted many of the habits of her saviors.

Then she was caught by local poachers and sold to a brothel in the city of Cucuta in northeastern Colombia. Too young to serve customers, Marina worked as a servant until one day she ran away and began to lead a street life.

Having gathered her own gang of juvenile beggars, the girl traded in theft and fraud, and after a while she got into a mafia family, where she turned into a sex slave. Fortunately, 14-year-old Marina was saved by her neighbor Marudja and sent to live with her daughter in Bogotá. Later, the girl, along with her patrons, left the country, settling in the English city of Bradford.

Marina does not know her real name. She got married, had two children and wrote an autobiographical book, The Girl with No Name, where she recounted her adventures.

One of the most famous Mowgli children of our time. A resident of a Ukrainian village near Kherson, born in 1983, got into the world media because of her strange "dog" 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 did other similar things.

Mowgli kids: real life examples

Long since in legends and tales different peoples there were 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. “Children of Mowgli”, raised by animals, were studied back in the Middle Ages, but only psychiatrists of the 20th century could really 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 brought up 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". The term was first used by Carl Linnaeus, an 18th-century Swedish scientist. He singled out for people who grew up among animals their step in the evolutionary ladder and gave them a 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 became pupils of animals different ages. There are cases when a pack of wolves, 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 were myths about children raised by animals. As scientists explain this phenomenon, animals are excellent "educators" of human cubs, and not only in their natural environment.

Today, one can often observe how pets take part in the lives of babies: they lull them, protect them, protect them, do not let them fall or harm 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.

Stories of antiquity about feral children

The most famous feral children of antiquity are Remus and Romulus, fed by a she-wolf. As you know, many legends are based on historical facts, so the story of two brothers who lost their mother can also be true.

The boys were lucky that the shepherd found them, and they did not have time to run wild. In memory of their “adoptive mother,” Romulus and Remus founded Rome on the very hill where they had spent their early years with a pack of wolves.

Unfortunately, such stories rarely end so romantically, because feral people - children raised by animals - have serious mental disorders and are not able to become 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 high level of parental instinct natural 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 pack of wolves nursed children was the Chronicle of the English city of Suffolk for 1173. Unsuccessful attempts to return a wild child to human life were recorded in 1341 in Hesse. The hunters found the boy in the wolf's lair. When he was taken out of 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 on human food.

No one at that time studied such phenomena, experts simply tried to return the human form to the captured children, which most often ended in failure.

Children-"bears"

There are frequent cases when feral people (examples from history are direct proof of this) were brought up by bears. So, in 1767 in Hungary, hunters discovered a girl with blonde hair eighteen years old. She was distinguished by excellent health, had a strong tanned body and behaved very aggressively. Even after being placed in an orphanage, she refused to eat anything other than plant roots, berries, and raw meat.

How such children survive is hard to say. Bears do not gather in packs, although they have strong long-term alliances between males and females. In the same way, it is not known what the babies ate in winter, when the animals hibernated. Only a few cases of bears raising children have been recorded, 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 only “talk” only with the sounds that the animals that raised them usually make.

Feral people of the 20th and 21st centuries

Most often in the last century, children of the jungle met in India. Among them were wolf children, panthers and leopards. For example, the world learned about two girls - Kamal and Amal, who were caught in 1920. One of them was one and a half years old, the other - 8 years old, but both had already developed wolf instincts. So, they did not tolerate daylight well, but at night they saw perfectly if only raw meat, lapped water, moved on bent arms and legs rather quickly, hunted chickens and small rodents.

The younger girl could not stand captivity and died a year later from jade. Kamala lived for another 9 years and during this period she was able to master primitive human skills: walk straight, wash herself with water, eat from plates and even pronounce 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 “foster parents”, which do not disappear even after a long stay in human society.

Cases of finding feral people in the period from the 1990s to the present day are especially frequent. Whether this is due to the fact that the kids got negligent parents, or they themselves got lost in the forest in childhood, or maybe their habitat was simply disturbed, and therefore they were able to be caught, is unknown.

Significance of the child's social development

Scientists love doing experiments to prove their scientific theory. This way of knowing the truth was not bypassed by psychologists who wanted to prove that a child is already born with a need for socialization.

During the experiment, newborns were divided into 2 groups. In one, the children were nursed, talked to them when feeding or changing diapers, kissed. In another group, they did not communicate with the children, but did everything necessary so that they were fed and well-groomed.

After a while, scientists noticed in children who were deprived of affection, weight loss and other deviations from the norm, so the experiment was interrupted. Thus, scientists have proved 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 discovery of individuals raised by animals indicate that in the wild they had a strong desire for survival. Just so feral people could not stay alive, even with the most best care from their animal "parents".

Animals always act according to their instincts, although there are cases when they experienced anguish, losing their offspring. It doesn't last long and short term memory allows them to forget about the loss, which is not at all like the behavior of people. A person can suffer from the death of a child all his life.

All Mowgli children acted as their instincts told them: sniffing food and water before they began to eat, defecate, hunt, run away from danger and defend themselves like their wild “parents”. This animal nature cannot be eradicated if the child has spent a long time among the animals.

Humanization of 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 moved on straight legs, all other habits betrayed an animal in him.

It took a lot of time and patience to teach him to go to the toilet where it is supposed to, keep his clothes on and eat from dishes. At the same time, the boy never learned to play games, communicate with peers, although no deviations in his psyche were found. 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 ability to socialize inherent in them at birth. They are replaced by instincts that are less developed in ordinary people than in animals.

If the child is lucky and was found at an early age, then he can be returned to his human essence and instilled with proper manners. So it was, for example, with five-year-old Natasha from Chita. She was raised by dogs that turned out to be the best parents than mom and dad. The girl barked, walked like dogs, and ate the same as they did. The fact that she was found at such an early age gives hope that she will be able to “humanize” 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 as his “adoptive parents”. Since too little time had passed, the child was able to return to society.

The reason for the appearance of fertile children

Too often in our time, children who were raised by animals are mentioned. This is due in most cases to the indifference, carelessness or cruelty of their parents. There are many 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 of time, 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 arms like wings when he showed emotions. He ate bird food while locked up by his mother in the parrot room. Now the child is being rehabilitated by psychologists.

Similar cases take place in our time in large cities and small towns around the world: in Africa, India, Cambodia, Russia, Argentina and other places. And what is most terrible, today the unfortunate are found not in the forests, but in houses, animal booths and in garbage dumps - prowling in search of food.

Some predatory animals rescued children and took care of them for many years as if they were their own babies. Dr. Dear Barrett, a psychologist at Harvard Medical School, described all known cases of children living among animals from 1900 to 2004 in her book Supernatural Impulses. She counted 31 children with such a fate.

Here are six such stories.

1 Girls raised by wolves in India

In 1920, 8-year-old Kamala and 18-month-old Amala were found in a wolf den in Midinipur, India. The incident was documented by Christian missionary J. L. Singh, who found them.

“These children were more ferocious than the cubs. Long matted hair hung from their shoulders, their jaws had a strange wolf bite, and their teeth were angular and sharp. They didn't eat vegetables and could smell raw meat from a distance,” writes Dr. Abraham Sperling in his book Psychology for Millions.

After a year spent in an orphanage, Amala died. When this happened, her sister showed human emotions for the first time. Kamala lived for another 8 years. During this time, she learned to walk on two legs and speak a few words. True, when in a hurry, she ran on all fours.

The doctor who took care of them says they only ate milk and meat and didn't sleep at night, Sperling writes.

Their foster wolf mother resisted fiercely when they wanted to take the girls from her as if they were her puppies, writes Barrett. She had to be shot. Other wolves from the pack came to the village and howled.

2The Boy Adopted By Monkeys After His Mother Was Murdered

John Ssebunya from Uganda was 2 or 3 years old when he witnessed his father kill his mother. He fled to the jungle, where he was cared for by monkeys for a year. When a local resident went into the depths of the jungle in search of firewood, he was amazed to see a child among a group of monkeys.

Britons Paul and Molly Vasswa later adopted a child. Journalist Evan Fergusson met him 10 years later in 1999. Fergusson, who described the meeting in an article in The Guardian, says that Ssebunya could only speak Swahili and had a severe stutter. Although the boy's mannerisms, including short responses and avoidance of eye contact, were very different, his responses were logical and meaningful.

For example, when Fergusson asked him about the bad treatment of some children in human society, Ssebunya replied through an interpreter: “They were just interested. I don't want to think badly of them because of this. I was different." He could vaguely remember the first time the monkeys had cautiously approached him when he had been alone in the jungle for several days. He remembers that he was not comfortable sleeping in the trees, and how the monkeys taught him to move through the trees in search of food.

According to Barrett, the monkeys threw sticks and stones at the villagers who tried to take Ssebunya. She writes: “When children are found living among animals, their adoptive parents always resist fiercely when they are taken away.”

3. Ostrich boy from North Africa?

Sidi Mohammed was found at the age of 15 in 1945 in North Africa. He told anthropologist Jean-Claude Armin that he had lived with ostriches since he was five years old. This story appeared in Notes Africaines on April 26, 1945. This incident was also described in the book Unexplained Phenomena by Bob Rickard.

The boy told Armen that when he was five years old he found an ostrich's nest and the birds took care of him. He stayed there, eating grass with them, learning to run at great speed and sleeping under their wings at night. He was found by hunters and returned to his parents, but all the time he yearned for a life with birds. This story is entirely based on the boy's words, and it is not clear if Armen did any research to verify these facts.

4. Chicken coop boy in Fiji

Unlike the children mentioned above, Sujit Kumar was not adopted by animals in the true sense of the word. He was just locked up with the animals and spent so much time with them that he adopted their behavior. For several years, he interacted more with chickens than with people who simply came to feed him and sometimes hose him down to wash him.

When he was a child, his father was killed and his mother committed suicide. Kumar was taken in by his grandparents, but he showed visible signs of mental distress. They locked him in a chicken coop because they couldn't handle him, his cousin says.

In a 2011 interview with ABC, Australian businesswoman Elizabeth Clayton, after learning about Kumar's history in Fiji, decided to take custody of him. By this time, he was already a grown man. He was found at the age of 12 in 1984, after which he was kept tied up in a mental hospital for almost 20 years, where, like in a chicken coop, he practically did not communicate with anyone. It still eats chicken food and attacks people trying to peck at them.

At the time of this interview, Clayton Kumar was in his 30s and still clucking and unable to speak. Clayton tries to teach him to communicate, she believes it is necessary to find another guardian when she dies. She is over 60 and Kumar is in his 30s so she is worried about his future. She says that if he does not learn to communicate, then it will be problematic for him to find a guardian.

5. South African boy raised by monkeys

Mthiyane from South Africa lived for a year among the monkeys after his mother left him. He was found when he was 5 years old and sent to an orphanage, but only by the age of 15 did he learn to walk upright on two legs.

Even 10 years later, he still has not learned to speak, refuses to eat cooked food. Mthiyane's story is mentioned briefly in Child and Adolescent Development: An Integrated Approach by David F. Bjorklund and Carlos Hernandez Blasi.

6. A boy raised by wolves in Central Asia

In 1962, geologists discovered Juma running with a pack of wolves in a desert in Central Asia. They caught him with a net, but with great difficulty - all the wolves had to be killed. The boy was seven years old and spent the next 30 years in a hospital in Turkmenistan, writes Adriana S. Bendzaken in Encounters with Wild Children.

He began talking four years later and told scientists that he rode on the back of his wolf mother, and then she taught him to ride on the back of the rest of the wolves in the pack.