FERAL CHILDREN

Gale Encyclopedia of Childhood and Adolescence

Lost or abandoned children raised in extreme social isolation, either surviving in the wild through their own efforts or "adopted" by animals.

The term "feral" means wild or undomesticated. Psychologists have studied feral children--children reared in complete or nearly complete isolation from human contact--to gain insights into aspects of human socialization and development. When feral children enter human society after their developmental years in isolation, they often continue to be seriously retarded. Researchers seek to answer the question of whether the abnormalities existed before their removal from society or developed because of their isolation.

Interest in feral humans began as early as the 1700s and continues to modern times. When Swedish naturalist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) developed the system of scientific classification for plants and animals, he included the classification of loco ferus--" feral" or "wolf" men, characterized as four-footed, nonspeaking, and hairy. The 1994 film Nell was based on the true story of a young woman introduced to society after living for years in near-isolation.

Victor, the "wild boy of Aveyron," is the most famous case of a human being surviving in total isolation for an extended period of time. Discovered in 1799, Victor had been lost or abandoned in childhood, apparently surviving on his own in the wild up to the age of approximately 11.

Philippe Pinel (1745-1826), pioneering French psychiatrist and director of the Bicêtre asylum in Paris, declared Victor an incurable idiot. But Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard (1775-1838), a physician and teacher of the deaf, undertook to educate Victor. Although he remained almost totally unable to speak, Victor showed great improvements in socialization and cognitive ability in the course of several years spent working with Itard. In 1807, Itard published Rapports sur le sauvage de l'Aveyron (Reports on the Wild Boy of Aveyron), a classic work on human educability, detailing his work with Victor between the years 1801-05.Another well-known historical case involves a young man named Kaspar Hauser who appeared in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1828. He had apparently been locked up in isolation for an extended period, but without being totally deprived of human care. A 17-year-old with the mentality of a child of three, Hauser was reeducated over the next five years. His development had been stunted by extreme social and sensory deprivation, but the process of reeducation enabled Hauser to communicate verbally, although his speech was substandard.

Despite the persistence and popularity of stories about children reared by animals throughout history, well-documented cases of such children are very rare.

In most cases the documentation begins with the discovery of the child, so that virtually nothing is known about the time actually spent in the company of animals.

The best-known modern case of zoanthropy (humans living among animals) is that of the so-called "wolf children of Midnapore" (India). In 1920, two young girls, Kamala (about age 8) and Amala (about one and a half), were observed living with wolves in India. When they were discovered, their "rescuers" actually removed them from the embrace of a pair of wolf cubs in order to take them back to society.Not only did they exhibit the physical behavior of wolves arunning on all fours, eating raw meat, and staying active at night athey displayed physiological adaptations to their feral life, including modifications of the jaw resulting from chewing on bones. The girls were taken to an orphanage where they were cared for and exposed to human society. Amala died within two years, but Kamala lived there for nine years, achieving a moderate degree of socialization.

The study of feral children has focused on some of the central philosophical and scientific controversies about human nature. Researchers have engaged in debates about nature vs. nurture, which human activities require social instruction, whether there is a critical period for language acquisition, and to what extent education can compensate for delayed development and limited intelligence.

Itard's pioneering work with the "wild boy of Aveyron" has had an impact on both education of the disabled and early childhood education. Educators like Maria Montessori have taken the study of feral children seriously. In 1909, Montessori wrote that she felt the work of Itard provided a foundation for her own work with young children.

Further ReadingFor Your Information

BooksCandland, Douglas Keith. Feral Children and Clever Animals: Reflections on Human Nature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Gale Encyclopedia of Childhood & Adolescence. Gale Research, 1998.

http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/chimp/langac/LECTURE1/1home.htm

http://www.feralchildren.com/en/index.php

Wolfskinderen --http://www.feralchildren.com/en/children.php

A list of isolated, confined and feral childrenClick on the child's name to read more. Books that cover all the cases known at that time the book was published include (in reverse chronological order) Kaspar Hausers Geschwister by PJ Blumenthal which, in the current hardback edition, does omit some children in the list below, but also features some children not included here; L'Homme Sauvage by Franck Tinland , and Wolf Children and Feral Man by Zingg and Singh . All highly recommended.

The camera symbol indicates there is a picture of the child.The piece of paper means the primary source is reproduced on this site.

There is extensive information for the children shown in bold.Click on the child's name to read more about that child.

Children raised by wolves, monkeys and other animals"It was as if they had the minds of wolves. They tore off any clothes put on them and would only eat raw meat." (Kamala and Amala) Read more about Kamala and Amala These are children who have supposedly been raised by animals: there are monkey boys, wolf girls, gazelle boys and even an ostrich boy. Click on the child's name to read more about that child. The information available varies greatly from child to child. Where the name is in bold, there is a considerable amount of information here. SolitudeUsually, feral children are somehow lost, or taken by animals, when they are a few months or years old: and are returned to human civilisation when discovered and rescued. But not all: read the haunting story of the Lobo Girl of Devil's River... Unrecorded feral childrenOf course, throughout history there will have been many other cases of feral children, whose story has simply never reached us. And there will have been many more, who never lived long enough to be discovered. AuthenticityAre any of these stories true? The evidence for many is virtually non-existent. Some, such as The Lobo Girl of Devil's River are quite possibly merely folk tales. In The Mother Wolf, the final chapter of his PhD thesis, Paul Williams questions whether any child has really been raised by animals. Kamala and AmalaIn The Wolf Children: Fact or Fantasy?, Charles MacLean sets out to discover whether the best-known case of wolf children, that of Kamala and Amala, is true or a complete hoax. Animal characteristicsMany children who've lived with animals tend to behave like their foster parents: they walk on all fours, make the same noises as the dogs, wolves or other hosts, and can bite and be aggressive. This provides confirmation that they certainly did spend their formative years in the company of

animals. Oxana Malaya can be seen in the Optomen TV production, running around on all fours and barking like a dog. Animal parents?Certainly, it's true that some animals wouldn't make good parents. It's difficult to imagine a crocodile doing anything other than eat a human baby. But from an evolutionary perspective, babies are designed to be extremely cute, or they wouldn't be nurtured even by their own parents. Cases of cross-species nurturing among animals are common; so, perhaps, we shouldn't automatically dismiss tales of a monkey boy, wolf boy, wolf girl, or dog boy. Wolf childrenThere are a large number of wolf children in the list, in particular from India. One explanation is that women with young children or babies would leave their infants at the edge of a field while working, and wolves would emerge from the forest and steal them.

Specifically, it's believed that a she-wolf whose cubs have been killed (and this is the specific theory put forward in the sources for Kamala and Amala) might be attracted to human babies, her maternal instincts all-powerful.

The camera symbol indicates there is a picture of the child.The piece of paper means the primary source is reproduced on this site.

There is extensive information for the children shown in bold.Click on the child's name to read more about that child.

Raised by animals (wolves, monkeys, etc.)

    Name Sex Location Date Age Animals

  Traian Caldarar M Brasov, Romănia 2002 7 dogs  Axel Rivas M Talcahuano, Chile 2001 11 dogs  Ivan Mishukov M Retova, Russian Federation 1998 6 dogs    Bello M Nigeria 1996 2 chimps

  John Ssebunya M Uganda 1991 6 monkeys

    Andes boy M Andes, Perú 1990 12 goats

    Saturday Mthiyane M Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa 1987 5 monkeys

    Jhansi leopard-girl F Jhansi, India 1986 2 leopards

  Robert M Uganda 1985 6 monkeys

    Baby Hospital F Sierra Leone 1984 7 monkeys

  Kunu Masela M Machakos, Kenya 1983 6 dogs

  Tissa M Tissamaharama, Sri Lanka 1973 11 monkeys

    Shamdeo M Musafirkhana, Sultanpur, India 1972 4 wolves    Djuma M Turkmenistan 1962 7 wolves    Saharan gazelle-boy M Rio de Oro, Mauritanie 1960 10 gazelles  Ramu M Balrampur, India 1954 7 wolves

    Sidi Mohamed M N Africa 1945 15 ostriches

    Turkish bear-girl F Adana, Türkiye 1937 9 bears

    Assicia F Liberia 1930s 0 monkeys

    Casamance boy M Casamance, Guinea-Bissau 1930s 16 monkeys

    Jhansi wolf boy M Jhansi, India 1933 10 wolves    Maiwana wolf boy M Maiwana, India 1927 0 wolves

Raised by animals (wolves, monkeys, etc.)

    Name Sex Location Date Age Animals

    Jackal girl F Cooch Bahar, India 1923 0 jackals    Indian panther-child M India 1920 0 panthers    Amala F Midnapore, India 1920 2 wolves  Kamala F Midnapore, India 1920 8 wolves    Satna wolf boy M Satna, India 1916 0 wolves    Leopard boy of Dihungi M Dihungi, India 1915 5 leopards    Goongi F Naini Lal, Uttar Pradesh, India 1914 14 bears

    Mauritanian gazelle boy M Mauritanie c1900 0 gazelles

  Batsipur wolf boy M Batsipur, India 1893 14 wolves  Jalpaiguri bear-girl F Jalpaiguri, India 1892 8 bears

    Skiron M Trikkala, Greece 1891 0 sheep    Second Sekandra wolf boy M Sekandra, India 1872 10 wolves  Dina Sanichar M Sekandra, India 1867 6 wolves

  Third Sultanpur wolf boy M Sultanpur, India 1860 4 wolves  Shajehanpur wolf boy M Shahjehanpur, India 1858 0 wolves  Chupra wolf boy M Chupra, India 1849 9 wolves  Second Sultanpur wolf boy M Sultanpur, India 1848 9 wolves

    The Lobo Girl of Devil's River F San Felipe, Texas, USA 1845 10 wolves

  First Lucknow wolf boy M Lucknow, India 1844 10 wolves  First Sultanpur wolf boy M Sultanpur, India 1843 0 wolves  Bankipur wolf boy M Bankipur, India 1843 12 wolves  Hasunpur wolf boy M Hasunpur, India 1841 9 wolves

  Wolf-boy of Kronstadt M Brasov, Romănia c1780 23 wolves

    Bear girl of Fraumark F Fraumark, Magyarország 1767 18 bears    Second Lithuanian bear boy M Lietuva 1694 10 bears

    Bamberg boy M Bamberg, Bayern, Deutschland c1680 0 cows

    Irish sheep-boy M Éire 1672 16 sheep    Joseph M Lietuva 1660s 12 bears

    Danish bear boy M Danmark c1600 0 bears

  Ardenne wolf boy M Ardenne, France c1500 0 wolves

    Wolf-boy of Wetterau M Wetterau, Deutschland 1344 12 wolves    Wolf-boy of Hesse M Hessen, Deutschland 1341 7 wolves    Aegisthus M Italia 250 0 goats

A list of isolated, confined and feral children

    Name Sex Location Date Age Animals

  The Majola children F Free State, South Africa 2004 26  The Rodriguez twins M Phoenix, AZ, USA 2003 5    Prateep Chumnoon M Thailand 2003 1 dogs

A list of isolated, confined and feral children

    Name Sex Location Date Age Animals

  Traian Caldarar M Brasov, Romănia 2002 7 dogs    Sudam Pradhana M Bargania, Orissa, India 2001 24  Axel Rivas M Talcahuano, Chile 2001 11 dogs  Edik M Mirny, Ukraine 1999 4 dogs  Ivan Mishukov M Retova, Russian Federation 1998 6 dogs  The Naderi twins F Iran 1997 12    Bello M Nigeria 1996 2 chimps  Oxana Malaya F Novaya Blagoveschenka, Ukraine 1991 8 dogs  John Ssebunya M Uganda 1991 6 monkeys    Andes boy M Andes, Perú 1990 12 goats    Saturday Mthiyane M Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa 1987 5 monkeys    Jhansi leopard-girl F Jhansi, India 1986 2 leopards  Robert M Uganda 1985 6 monkeys    Baby Hospital F Sierra Leone 1984 7 monkeys  Kunu Masela M Machakos, Kenya 1983 6 dogs  Imiyati F Sumatra, Indonesia 1983 12  Isabel Quaresma F Tabua, Portugal 1980 9  The Wild Boy of Burundi M Burundi 1976 0 monkeys    The Delphos Wolf Girl F Delphos, Kansas, USA 1974 12  Tissa M Tissamaharama, Sri Lanka 1973 11 monkeys    Adam M Colombia 1973 1    Louise F UK 1973 3    Mary F UK 1973 2    Ramchandra M Baragdava, Uttar Pradesh, India 1973 15    The Koluchova twins M Ceská Republika 1972 12    Shamdeo M Musafirkhana, Sultanpur, India 1972 4 wolves

  The Nullarbor Nymph F Eucla, Australia 1971 0 kangaroos

  Rocco M Abruzzo, Italia 1971 5  Genie F California, USA 1970 13  Marcos Pantoja M Sierra Morena, España 1965 19    Yves Cheneau M Saint-Brévin, France 1963 7    Djuma M Turkmenistan 1962 7 wolves    Saharan gazelle-boy M Rio de Oro, Mauritanie 1960 10 gazelles    Kevin Halfpenny M County Down, Northern Ireland, UK 1956 7  Ramu M Balrampur, India 1954 7 wolves    CauCau M Los Riscos, Chile 1947 12  Syrian gazelle-boy M Syria 1946 15 gazelles    Sidi Mohamed M N Africa 1945 15 ostriches  Misha Defonseca F Europe 1945 11 wolves    Isabelle F Ohio, USA 1938 6    Anna F Pennsylvania, USA 1938 6    Turkish bear-girl F Adana, Türkiye 1937 9 bears    Assicia F Liberia 1930s 0 monkeys    Casamance boy M Casamance, Guinea-Bissau 1930s 16 monkeys

A list of isolated, confined and feral children

    Name Sex Location Date Age Animals

    Istoki M Magyarország 1930s 0    Child of Uzitza M Užice, Serbia 1934 15    Tarzancito M El Salvador 1933 5    Jhansi wolf boy M Jhansi, India 1933 10 wolves    Maiwana wolf boy M Maiwana, India 1927 0 wolves    Jackal girl F Cooch Bahar, India 1923 0 jackals    Indian panther-child M India 1920 0 panthers    Amala F Midnapore, India 1920 2 wolves  Kamala F Midnapore, India 1920 8 wolves    Satna wolf boy M Satna, India 1916 0 wolves    Leopard boy of Dihungi M Dihungi, India 1915 5 leopards    Goongi F Naini Lal, Uttar Pradesh, India 1914 14 bears    Lucas M South Africa 1904 0 baboons

    Mauritanian gazelle boy M Mauritanie c1900 0 gazelles

    Charlotte Deconinck F Ghent, Belgique 1897 7  Batsipur wolf boy M Batsipur, India 1893 14 wolves  Jalpaiguri bear-girl F Jalpaiguri, India 1892 8 bears

    Skiron M Trikkala, Greece 1891 0 sheep    Second Sekandra wolf boy M Sekandra, India 1872 10 wolves

  Wild boy of Overdyke M Overdijk, Nederland ? 0  Dina Sanichar M Sekandra, India 1867 6 wolves

  Clemens M Overdijk, Nederland c1863 0 pigs

  Third Sultanpur wolf boy M Sultanpur, India 1860 4 wolves  Shajehanpur wolf boy M Shahjehanpur, India 1858 0 wolves  Chupra wolf boy M Chupra, India 1849 9 wolves  Second Sultanpur wolf boy M Sultanpur, India 1848 9 wolves

    The Lobo Girl of Devil's River F San Felipe, Texas, USA 1845 10 wolves

  First Lucknow wolf boy M Lucknow, India 1844 10 wolves  First Sultanpur wolf boy M Sultanpur, India 1843 0 wolves  Bankipur wolf boy M Bankipur, India 1843 12 wolves  Hasunpur wolf boy M Hasunpur, India 1841 9 wolves

    Sow-girl F Salzburg, Deutschland ? 22  Kaspar Hauser M Nuremberg, Deutschland 1828 17

    Isabella F Brasil c1817 0

    La Folle des Pyrénées F Vicdessos en Ariège, Pyrénées, France 1807 40

  Victor M Aveyron, France 1799 11

  Wolf-boy of Kronstadt M Brasov, Romănia c1780 23 wolves

    Bear girl of Fraumark F Fraumark, Magyarország 1767 18 bears  M A Memmie LeBlanc F Songy, France 1731 10  Wild Peter M Hameln, Deutschland 1724 13

A list of isolated, confined and feral children

    Name Sex Location Date Age Animals

  Girl of Issaux F Forêt d'Issaux, Pyrénées 1719 16    Kranenburg girl F Zwolle, Over-Yssel, Nederland 1717 19    Second Lithuanian bear boy M Lietuva 1694 10 bears

    Bamberg boy M Bamberg, Bayern, Deutschland c1680 0 cows

    Irish sheep-boy M Éire 1672 16 sheep    Joseph M Lietuva 1660s 12 bears    Jean de Liège M Liège, France 1630s 21

    Danish bear boy M Danmark c1600 0 bears

  Ardenne wolf boy M Ardenne, France c1500 0 wolves

    Wolf-boy of Wetterau M Wetterau, Deutschland 1344 12 wolves    Wolf-boy of Hesse M Hessen, Deutschland 1341 7 wolves

The Green Children of Woolpit F Woolpit, Suffolk, UK 1173 0

    Aegisthus M Italia 250 0 goats

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/thematerialworld_20030227.shtmlSaturday January 19, 2002

Ivan Mishukov (Found 1998) The moscow boy who chose to live with a pack of wild dogs.  Reproduced with permission of Moscoop Picture Library,  Moscow.

In the years since the fall of communism, as the social fabric of Russia fell apart, street children became a common sight in Moscow and St Petersburg. Like the homeless in London, they were both ever present and subtly invisible - a backdrop to city life; an irritating intrusion on the process of simply getting on with things.

But one of these Moscow street kids was different. He was actually to find the visibility that had so long been denied to him.

In 1996, Ivan Mishukov left home.He was four years old. Ivan's mother could not cope with him or with her alcoholic boyfriend, so the little boy decided that life on the streets was better than the chaos of their apartment; and just as Moscow has its homeless, so it has its wild dogs, an inevitable consequence of the inability to create facilities for the city's many strays. Out on the streets, Ivan began to beg, but gave a portion of the food he cadged each time to one particular pack of dogs. The dogs grew to trust him; befriended him; and, finally, took him on as their pack leader.

The relationship worked perfectly, far better than anything Ivan had known among his fellow humans. He begged for food, and shared it with his pack.In return, he slept with them in the long winter nights of deep darkness, when the temperatures plummeted. The heat of the animals kept him warm and alive, despite the snow, the bitter cold; and if anyone should try to molest him or thieve from him, the dogs were there on hand to attack them.

The police came to know of Ivan's life, but could not wrest him from the streets. Three times he escaped his would-be captors, fleeing as the dogs savagely defended their leader. Eventually the police managed to separate the pack from Ivan by laying bait for the animals inside a restaurant kitchen. Deprived of his guard dogs, the savagely snarling boy was quickly trapped.

He had been living on the street for two years. Yet, as he had spent four years within a human family, he could talk perfectly well. After a brief spell in the Reutov children's shelter, Ivan started school. He appears to be just like any other Moscow child. Yet it is said that, at night, he dreams of dogs. When his story was released in July 1998, Ivan's case was extraordinary enough to gain the attention of the world's press. Yet his experience is not unique. Over the past 400 years, several such children have been discovered and brought back into civilised life.

The fascination with the wild child goes back a long way, and Ivan's story also has many counterparts in the myths of antiquity. Again and again we find legendary tales of the hero abandoned at birth and brought up by animals or in isolation: the wild education of Cyrus; the riverside abandonment of Moses; the infancy of Semiramis, founder of Babylon, fostered by birds; the story of Oedipus, lamed and left in the wilderness of Kithairon; the childhood of the twins, Amphion and Zethos, forsaken on a mountainside; the exposure of Paris on the slopes of Mount Ida, where for five days he was suckled by a bear; the story of Tyro, and Neleus and Pelias; the infant Aleas fed by a doe. Often these heroes go on to become the founders of cities - such as Amphion, whose music charmed the very stones to build by themselves the walls of Thebes.

The most famous of all Ivan's mythical progenitors, however, are Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. Their story offers us a template that would fit equally well many of these other versions of the myth. The twins' mother was Rhea Silvia, daughter of Numitor, once the King of Alba Longa, but by then deposed by Amulius, his wicked brother. In order to prevent his niece, Rhea Silvia, from having offspring and so continuing Numitor's lineage, Amulius forced her to become a vestal virgin. One night, however, a ghostly and very large phallus appeared in the vestals' temple and impregnated Rhea. Amulius was maddened with rage, but Rhea protested that it was the god Mars who was responsible for her pregnancy. On her giving birth to twin sons, Amulius ordered that the infants be exposed. They were taken to the river Tiber, where they were left to "the mercy of fortune", as Thomas North's 16th-century translation of Plutarch puts it. Death seemed imminent, but help came from an unexpected quarter: a she-wolf suckled the young infants, and a woodpecker fetched food for them. The twins lived on in this way until a shepherd, named Faustulus, discovered them.

Faustulus and his wife, Acca Larentia, brought up the children, who turned out to be noble, virile and courageous. The twins grew up to lead a band of outlaws who raided the countryside, until eventually their true identity was discovered. They overthrew Amulius and restored Numitor, their grandfather, to the throne of Alba Longa. The twins then set out to found a city of their own.

Restorations and substitutions are at the very heart of the Romulus and Remus story: brothers take the rightful place of others, foster parents bring up other people's children, the god Mars stands in for a human suitor. Yet the crucial substitution occurs when the she-wolf saves the lost children. In that moment, when the infants' lips close upon the she-wolf's teats, a transgressive mercy removes the harmful influence of a murderous culture. The moment is a second birth: where death is expected, succour is given, and the children are miraculously born into the order of nature. Nature's mercy admonishes humanity's unnatural cruelty: only a miracle of kindness can restore the imbalance created by human iniquity. From this experience, the city may begin over again, refounded in the building of Rome.

There are many medieval stories of wild animals coming to the rescue of such children. The folk tales of the period tell of "swan children", and in various Märchen - fairy tales - children are suckled by a hind, a goat, a lioness, a wolf, ravens, or even rats. Sometimes a beast steals a child away from its human mother; in other tales the animal rescues the child from the outrages of human cruelty. In the popular romance Octavian, another set of twin boys is nurtured by, in one case, an ape, and in the other, a lioness. In the romance of Sir Gowther, a malignant child who tears his mother's nipple while feeding from her breast voluntarily chooses the wild life, and so suffers a penance of literally living out this wildness, as he is fed from the mouths of dogs while locked in an atoning silence.

The most famous such tale, however, was that of Valentine and Orson, the twin children of outcast Bellyssant, lost in the forest. One boy, Valentine, is quickly rescued and returned to civilisation; while Orson, his brother, remains behind in the woods, where he is snatched by a

bear and taken back to her lair to be fed to her cubs. There, "God that never forgeteth his frendes shewed an evydent myracle". The bear cubs, rather than devouring the baby, stroke it softly. The bear takes pity on the child and brings him up as one of her own. The brothers separate: Valentine grows up civilised; Orson metamorphoses into that medieval bogeyman, the "wild man". Such wild men haunted the forests of medieval and renaissance romance: irrational, carnivorous, dangerous, untamed. They lived and died in the wild woods, far from the sound of church bells; hairy as demons, or sometimes leafy; always solitary; moving alone through the wilderness; sometimes snatching children or, more often, women from the beleaguered villages; marauding, angry, violent; though, if tamed, useful and loyal servants to the wandering knights given up to adventure in the trackless forests. They were invariably incapable of speech. Valentine and Orson, the parted twins, meet, fight, recognise each other, and are reunited. Perhaps stories such as this are fables that suggest the need for a reconciliation between civilisation and the wild.

Ivan Mishukov is only the most recent real-life example of the phenomenon. In the 18th century, in woods near Hameln in Hanover, villagers came across a naked boy, whom they named Peter the Wild Boy, who went on to live for a time with George I in St James's palace. Victor of Aveyron was captured naked and mute in the woods near Lacaune in 1800. Kamala and Amala, the wolf girls of India, emerged on all fours from the jungles of Midnapore in 1921. But one of the best-documented "true" stories is that of Memmie le Blanc, the savage girl of Champagne.

Memmie was first sighted near the village of Songi one September evening in 1731. She emerged from the woods, armed with a club, in search of water. She was perhaps nine or 10 years old. Her feet were bare, but she wore a scanty dress of rags and skins, and a gourd leaf on her hair. Her face and hands were "black as a negro's", the villagers said.

After several unsuccessful attempts to catch her (she killed a guard dog with a single blow of her club), villagers tried to lure her into captivity with a pitcher of water, but she was startled and fled to the topmost branches of a tree. A canny villager then suggested that they station a woman and some children near the tree, as these would be less intimidating to the girl than the men, and that they smile to her and placidly act out a show of great friendliness. Accordingly, a woman with a child in her arms approached the tree, carrying root vegetables and two fish in her hands. She held out the food to the girl, who, pressed by hunger, came down part of the way, before taking fright and scurrying back once more to safety. The woman calmly persisted in her gentle invitation, smiling and gesturing by laying her hand upon her breast, "as if to assure her that she loved her, and would do her no harm". The deceit was successful: the girl slipped down from her place of refuge to receive the food. The woman continued to entice her, but moved imperceptibly away, still smiling and feigning generous love. The girl followed her further from the tree; and the men who had lain in wait seized their chance to spring out from hiding and take her by force.

The girl was brought to the kitchen of the chateau of Viscount d'Epinoy. The cook was dressing some fowls for the viscount's dinner. Before anyone knew what was happening, the girl flew at the dead birds and had one of them held tight in her teeth, tearing at the raw meat. D'Epinoy arrived and, seeing what and how she was eating, ordered that she should be given an unskinned rabbit: the little girl instantly stripped its skin and devoured it.

They examined her and questioned her, but she could not understand a word of French. At first they assumed she was black. However, once they had washed her several times, they found that she was white, her apparent blackness being the result of dirt and, possibly, paint. Her hands were oddly shaped, the palms as small and neat as any little girl's, while the fingers and thumbs were curiously enlarged. Later they conjectured that this formation was the result of leaping from one tree to another, like a squirrel, her strong hands grabbing at the branches. She wore a necklace, some pendants, and a pouch fixed to a large animal skin that was wrapped round her body and hung down round her knees. In the pouch were a club and a small knife, inscribed with strange characters, unfamiliar to everyone. The Viscount d'Epinoy was the first of several dignitaries to take up the savage girl's cause. She was baptised in 1732 and given the name Marie-Angelique Memmie Le Blanc. She learned French rapidly over the next 10 years, lived in a series of convents, and her biography was written by two patrons and contemporaries: Madame Hequet and the Scottish lawyer James Burnett, later Lord Monboddo.

Memmie supposed that she must have been only seven or eight years of age when she had been snatched away from her own country, which she could not remember. She had, she said, been put aboard a great ship and carried off to a warm country. There they sold her into slavery, but not before they had first painted her black all over, for there were many black slaves then, taken across the sea in great ships, she added. In the hot country she was put on board another ship, and on that ship her master put her to needlework; if she did not work, he beat her. But her mistress was kind to her and would hide her away. Then the ship was wrecked and the crew took to the boat; but Memmie and a black girl were left to survive as best they could. They swam from the sinking ship, but because the black girl could not swim well, she kept herself from drowning by holding on to Memmie's foot.

At last they reached shore. They then travelled a great distance across land, moving only by night so that no one would see them, and sleeping through the day in the tops of trees. They ate roots that they had dug out from the ground, and when they could, they caught game and ate it raw with the blood still warm, like beasts of prey. She learned to imitate birdsong, for that was the only music known in her country; but she could not speak with the black girl, for neither knew the other's language. They could communicate with each other only by signs and by wild cries, such as had frightened the French villagers when Memmie was caught.

Two or three days before she had been taken, "she who is now become Mademoiselle Le Blanc, perceived a chaplet on the ground, which no doubt had been dropt by some passenger," wrote Burnett. "Whether the novelty of the object delighted her, or whether it brought to her remembrance something of the same kind that she had seen before, is not known . . ." She immediately broke into dancing.

As she was scared that her companion would take the chaplet, she reached to pick it up; but the negro girl, seeing her do so, struck her outstretched hand as hard as she could with the club that she carried. Although Memmie's hand was hurt badly, she returned the blow, striking her opponent on her brow; at this, the black girl fell to the ground bleeding, and screamed. Memmie, touched with compassion and guilt, ran in search of some frogs. When she found one, she stripped off its skin and spread it over the girl's brow to staunch the

wound, binding the dressing in place with the thread from the bark of a tree. With this, the two companions wordlessly separated. The wounded girl retraced her route to the river, and the victorious one took the fateful path towards Songi.

The account of Memmie's discovery of Europe parodies and inverts the European discovery of the New World. Like Peter the Wild Boy, she presents to us the possibility of seeing ourselves as strange and new. For in Memmie's story, we find a curious inversion of the tourist's dilemma. This was not a case in which the outsider alone felt the shock of strangeness. The French were themselves perplexed and disturbed by Memmie. The inexplicable fact of her arrival seemed to endanger the security and certainty of the known. Without setting one foot outside the familiar streets of Paris, here could be had an experience just then being repeated across the Americas, Africa and the South Seas: the complex fear, shame and enticement that European colonists felt on their first contact with "savages". While Madame Hecquet was printing her biography of Memmie, Jean-Jacques Rousseau published his seminal work, Discourse On The Origins of Inequality. Rousseau looked back with regret to the primitive origins of humankind, seeing in our simple beginnings a dignity, grace and vitality lost in sophisticated society.

Through the stories, factual and fictional, of the feral children, there emerges, perhaps, another narrative: the fragmented and haunting story of our continuing relationship with the savage image of ourselves.

· This is an edited extract from Savage Girls And Wild Boys: A History Of Feral Children by Michael Newton, published by Faber,

Read a review16.02.2002: Review: A History of Feral Children by Michael Newton