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Feral Children. HSP3M. Feral Children. Also known as wild children (or sometimes wolf children) Have grown up with minimal/no human contact Often they have been raised by animals Sometimes they have been confined and denied any interaction with people. Romulus and Remus.
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Feral Children HSP3M
Feral Children • Also known as wild children (or sometimes wolf children) • Have grown up with minimal/no human contact • Often they have been raised by animals • Sometimes they have been confined and denied any interaction with people
Romulus and Remus • Legend has it these twins were raised by wolves • Grew up to be the founders of Rome
The Forbidden Experiment • Egyptian experiment to see which race was the most ancient – the Egyptians or the Phrygians • Psammetichus (the King) took two newly born infants and gave them to a shepherd to be brought up among his flocks, under strict orders that no one should utter a word in their presence. They were to be kept by themselves in a lonely cottage, and the shepherd was to bring in goats from time to time. to see that the babies had enough milk to drink and to look after them in any other way that was necessary. • Psammetichus because he wished to find out what word the children would first utter, once they had grown out of their meaningless baby/talk. • Two years later the shepherd happened one day to open the door of the cottage and go in, when both children running up to him with hands outstretched, pronounced the word "becos". The shepherd found that every time he visited the children the same word was constantly repeated by them • Psammetichus found out that “becons” was the Phrygian word for "bread", and so admitted the superior antiquity of the Phrygians.
Real cases • Wild Peter • Kaspar Hauser • Kamala and Amala • Victor • Genie
Wild Peter • From 1724 there are records describing a naked, brownish, black-haired boy who was found running up and down in the fields of the German town of Hamelin • The “creature” was enticed into town, and once there immediately became a subject of great interest • He behaved like a trapped wild animal, eating birds and vegetables raw, and when threatened, he sat on his haunches or on all fours looking for opportunities to escape • The boy was given the name “Peter” and was soon made the possession of King George I of England, where he lived the rest of his life • During his life Peter never learned to talk, showed a complete indifference to money or sex, and was never seen laughing • However he loved music, and he was able to learn a number of menial tasks before he died in 1785.
Victor • Discovered foraging for roots and acorns in the woods near Aveyron, France in 1799 • He appeared to be about eleven or twelve years old, but he didn’t speak • He was taken to Paris, where he resembled a human only in appearance • Victor behaved like an animal, he ate rotten food with pleasure, he was incapable of distinguishing hot from cold, and he spent much of his time rocking back and forth like a caged animal • He was taken into the care of scientist Dr Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard, who dedicated himself to the education of the boy • Over the years, he only learned two terms, “lait,” and “oh dieu.” • His sense of touch seemed to be far more important than his sense of sight, and he did not demonstrate an ability to distinguish right from wrong • Like Peter before him, he was indifferent to sex, and he did learn some menial tasks, such as setting a table
Kaspar Hauser • Discovered in Nuremberg, Germany in 1828. He was unsteady on his feet, held a letter for a man he had never met, and only spoke the phrase “I want to be a horseman like my father is.” The letter was addressed to the captain of the 4th squadron of the 6th cavalry regiment
Kaspar Hauser Honored Captain,I send you a lad who wishes to serve his king in the Army. He was brought to me on October 7th, 1812. I am but a poor laborer with children of my own to rear. His mother asked me to bring up the boy, and so I thought I would rear him as my own son. Since then, I have never let him go one step outside the house, so no one knows where he was reared. He, himself, does not know the name of the place or where it is. You may question him, Honoured Captain, but he will not be able to tell you where I live. I brought him out at night. He cannot find his way back. He has not a penny, for I have nothing myself. If you do not keep him, you must strike him dead or hang him.
Kaspar Hauser • Kaspar was about sixteen years old, but he behaved like a small child • At first, when a mirror was handed to him he would look behind it trying to find the person behind the mirror, and he burned his hand while touching a candle’s flame in curiosity • Kaspar had excellent night vision and a keen sense of smell. He detested meat and alcohol, and was offended by the smell of flowers • Unlike many of the other cases described here, Kaspar did learn much over time, eventually learning to speak enough to describe the small cage in which he had been raised, and the mysterious keeper who finally released him outside of town • But about five years after appearing from nowhere, Kaspar was assassinated. The mystery of his early life and violent death has never been satisfactorily answered.
Kamala and Amala • Two young girls were said to have been discovered under the care of a she-wolf in Godamuri, India in 1920 • The girls were taken to an orphanage • The children, Kamala, aged eight and Amala, aged eighteen months, behaved exactly like small wild animals. They slept during the day and woke by night. They remained on all fours, enjoyed raw meat, and were given to biting and attacking other children if provoked. They could smell raw meat from a distance, and they had an acute sense of sight and hearing • The youngest child, Amala, died one year later, but Kamala lived for nine years in the orphanage until she died of illness at the age of seventeen • Kamala did eventually acquire a small vocabulary, but she remained very different from other children until the time of her death.
Genie • On November 4, 1970 she was brought into a welfare office in California by her mother, who claimed that she and her daughter were victims of abuse from the woman’s husband. • Genie appeared to be about six of seven years old, but when the social worker learned that Genie was actually thirteen years old, she contacted the police. • It was soon revealed that Genie had been locked away in a room alone for over ten years. She had been tied to a potty-chair and left to sit alone day after day. At night, she was tied into a sleeping bag which restrained her arms, and placed in an over-sized crib with a cover made of metal screening.
Genie • At first, people could hardly believe that Genie was thirteen years old; she weighed only 59 pounds and was 54 inches tall. • While she seemed to understand a few words, the only words she could say were “stop it” and “no more.” • She had a strange bunny-like walk, possibly due to malformed limbs. She held her hands up in front of her like paws and moved in a halting way. • She could not chew solid food and could hardly swallow. She spat and sniffed constantly. She was not toilet-trained and could not focus her eyes beyond 12 feet.
Genie • Genie proved incapable of learning language beyond very simple sentences, scientists at first thought she might be mentally handicapped; but she proved to be quite intelligent, scoring perfectly on an adult-level test that measured spatial abilities, and scoring the highest recorded results ever on tests that measure a person’s ability to make sense out of chaos and to see patterns. • Today she lives anonymously in an assisted living facility somewhere in Southern California.
Feral Children • What was the end result for most of these cases? Why? • Do you think that feral children should be removed from their environment and brought into the “human” world? OR should they be allowed to remain where they were found?
The Interest in Feral Children • We can learn things that we couldn’t ethically learn from experiments • Origins of language and other human attributes • How close is human nature to animal nature? • What aspects of human nature are genetic, and what aspects are learned? • Could we learn how to speak to animals, or could we teach animals to speak to humans?
