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Are Feral Children Real? · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, we are going on tour in twenty eighteen,
0:03
Speaker 1: and where are we going? On April fourth, we're gonna
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Speaker 1: be in Boston at the Wilburg. You can get tickets
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Speaker 1: Colorado at the Gothic Theater on June twenty eighth, and
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Speaker 1: good time. Come on out. Welcome to stuff you should
0:48
Speaker 1: know from HowStuffWorks dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
0:58
Speaker 1: Son Josh Clark's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, I almost forgot
1:02
Speaker 1: my name for a second. There's Jerry. It is a
1:04
Speaker 1: little weird. Jerry Jerome the Germster Roland kaboom, how you
1:13
Speaker 1: doing fine? Jerry stops snorting. I have a complete whip
1:23
Speaker 1: flash over this topic. Ok of what and you know
1:27
Speaker 1: why I have? I have just doing this topic after
1:33
Speaker 1: what the story is behind it? Yeah, I still kind
1:37
Speaker 1: of like shudder. So should we even talk about her twitching? Yeah? No,
1:43
Speaker 1: here's the story is. And I think it was two
1:47
Speaker 1: years ago now, rightly, yeah, two years ago in March,
1:52
Speaker 1: it'll be two years At south By Southwest in Austin, Texas.
1:57
Speaker 1: We were going to do a live podcast, which we've
1:59
Speaker 1: done there before. It's always been great. Yes for this one.
2:03
Speaker 1: We had a bar that we were doing it in
2:07
Speaker 1: that was set up with a lot of events all
2:09
Speaker 1: day long, and we thought, Okay, no big deal, we'd
2:13
Speaker 1: like bars, we're closer to the booze, no props. But
2:18
Speaker 1: what they failed to do and failed to tell us
2:21
Speaker 1: was that they did not clear the room after the
2:24
Speaker 1: hippie jam band beforehand, and so what ended up happening
2:29
Speaker 1: was we ended up doing a live podcast in front
2:32
Speaker 1: of a noisy, crowded bar full of drunks, with about
2:39
Speaker 1: seventeen stuff you should know, fans upfront trying to listen,
2:42
Speaker 1: turning around and shushing the people at the bar. And
2:46
Speaker 1: it was about as fruitless as a shift could get.
2:49
Speaker 1: And this is the part I feel though worst about
2:51
Speaker 1: a couple of hundred real deal stuff you should know,
2:54
Speaker 1: listeners standing out on the sidewalk in the hot sun,
2:57
Speaker 1: unable to get in. Yeah, it was all around maybe
3:02
Speaker 1: our third worst show, but I know VidCon is up
3:06
Speaker 1: there in the top three, right, Yeah, I'm just putting
3:09
Speaker 1: a phantom show in to hold the number two slot
3:11
Speaker 1: because I'm sure there's one I've blocked out too. Just
3:14
Speaker 1: so you guys know, VidCon and was bad because we
3:16
Speaker 1: did a show in front of about seventeen people maybe,
3:20
Speaker 1: and we worked with eleven of them, although we did
3:24
Speaker 1: get to meet Taijon day that day. Oh true. So anyway,
3:28
Speaker 1: we did feral children in front of a crowded, noisy
3:32
Speaker 1: bar full of drunks, and you and I we've been
3:35
Speaker 1: doing this for so long and we have such great
3:37
Speaker 1: you know, unspoken eye contract eye contact chemistry. Sh don't
3:43
Speaker 1: speak it that I remember looking over at you, and
3:46
Speaker 1: our eyes both said skip through as much of this
3:50
Speaker 1: as possible. Let's get the heck out of here as
3:52
Speaker 1: soon as we can. I cocked it. We did it
3:54
Speaker 1: in like twenty two minutes. I believe it was supposed
3:57
Speaker 1: to be at least forty five. We were talking like
3:59
Speaker 1: the guy from the old FedEx ads from like the
4:02
Speaker 1: early eighties. Oh man. It was truly truly a miserable experience.
4:07
Speaker 1: So it's taken a full two years until I could
4:09
Speaker 1: wrap my head around actually doing this again. Yep. So
4:12
Speaker 1: here we are. We're gonna do it, Chuck, and it's
4:14
Speaker 1: gonna be great because it's just the three of us today. Yeah.
4:18
Speaker 1: And that's also where we had that too drunk guy,
4:22
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, remember him. That was a bad jam all around,
4:26
Speaker 1: and that's where I lost my hat. That was the
4:27
Speaker 1: worst trip ever, what's really bad. It really just sucked
4:32
Speaker 1: all the way around. We considered burning Austin to the
4:35
Speaker 1: ground on the way out of town, but I did so.
4:38
Speaker 1: We're glad we did because we've been back to Austin
4:40
Speaker 1: a couple of times and we're always happy to be there. Now,
4:42
Speaker 1: this is not Austin's fault. No, but we just didn't
4:46
Speaker 1: want to have any memories of it. Aye, I hear you.
4:49
Speaker 1: So we're talking fearal children. And even if you were
4:53
Speaker 1: at that show, this is probably really the first time
4:55
Speaker 1: you'll hear it, So it doesn't matter, and we're gonna
4:58
Speaker 1: start in Moscow. In the late nineties, there was a big,
5:04
Speaker 1: big problem that had developed from the dissolution of the USSR,
5:08
Speaker 1: namely that the fabric of society had largely disintegrated in
5:12
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, and one of the results of
5:15
Speaker 1: this was that there were a lot of families that
5:18
Speaker 1: were broken up for one reason or another, and a
5:21
Speaker 1: lot of very young children from what I see, something
5:24
Speaker 1: like two million of them living on the streets of Russia.
5:28
Speaker 1: In Moscow, of course, being the biggest city in Russia,
5:32
Speaker 1: it had the largest problem. And one of those kids
5:37
Speaker 1: was a little boy named Ivan Mushikov and nailed it sure.
5:46
Speaker 1: And Ivan was six in nineteen ninety eight, they estimate,
5:50
Speaker 1: And he was a little different from the rest of
5:52
Speaker 1: the children living on the street at the time because
5:55
Speaker 1: he was what you would was widely considered and actually
6:00
Speaker 1: example of a feral child, because not only was he
6:03
Speaker 1: living by his own wits, from the age of four
6:05
Speaker 1: to six on the streets. He was leading a pack
6:08
Speaker 1: of stray dogs that protected him as well, and he
6:11
Speaker 1: had been fully absorbed into their pack, into their society. Yeah, so,
6:18
Speaker 1: as the story goes, like you said, he left home
6:22
Speaker 1: at four and was basically just another one of the
6:25
Speaker 1: begging children on the streets until he started to feed
6:30
Speaker 1: a little bit of the food he would get to
6:33
Speaker 1: these dogs, and the dogs they trusted him, they befriended him,
6:39
Speaker 1: and you know, you hang out with dogs long enough
6:41
Speaker 1: and give enough food, all of a sudden they say, hey,
6:44
Speaker 1: you know, we're pals. And they literally took him in
6:47
Speaker 1: as one of their own and would show him, would
6:50
Speaker 1: guide him to the warm places to sleep at night, underground,
6:54
Speaker 1: your heated pipes and things like that. They and they
6:57
Speaker 1: lived together for a couple of years to the point
6:59
Speaker 1: where the cops could not get close to this kid
7:03
Speaker 1: because of these dogs. Right, So they finally apparently baited
7:08
Speaker 1: some traps and got the dogs just systematically away from Ivan,
7:13
Speaker 1: and they finally had him cornered, and he snapped and
7:16
Speaker 1: growled and barked at the social workers who were advancing
7:20
Speaker 1: on him to get him and to take them off
7:22
Speaker 1: of the streets and into a group home, and they
7:24
Speaker 1: were finally successful. But they said, like, this kid was
7:27
Speaker 1: acting like a dog with its back against the wall,
7:31
Speaker 1: and they got their hands on him. They put him
7:34
Speaker 1: into a group home, and he was actually a success story.
7:38
Speaker 1: He managed to become enculturated into human society as a
7:45
Speaker 1: result of just being taken over by the state. But
7:49
Speaker 1: he is one of these He stands as one of
7:53
Speaker 1: the very few documented examples of a feral child. I mean,
8:00
Speaker 1: there have been stories all throughout history people have been
8:03
Speaker 1: fascinated with this notion, whether it was Mowgli in the
8:08
Speaker 1: Jungle Book, or stories of baboon girls and ostrich boys
8:13
Speaker 1: and bird girls. And then you know, they give them
8:16
Speaker 1: these names because that's who they eventually take up with,
8:19
Speaker 1: and they're very compelling stories. But and in fact, I
8:23
Speaker 1: think at one point there's a taxonomist named Carl Andaeis
8:26
Speaker 1: who he's credited who created the tree of life. He
8:30
Speaker 1: actually established a whole separate category Homo ferus, which was
8:35
Speaker 1: literally a different variety of human being because they didn't
8:39
Speaker 1: even think at one point that they counted as humans. Yeah,
8:42
Speaker 1: there was a time when this is all very much
8:45
Speaker 1: discussed and talked about what exactly feral children were who
8:49
Speaker 1: they represented in One of the competing theories is that
8:53
Speaker 1: they were like basically like sasquatch. Like if we found sasquatch,
8:57
Speaker 1: you'd be like, oh, there's we need to expand the
8:59
Speaker 1: tree of life to inclin. Dude, these cousins to homies
9:02
Speaker 1: Homo sapiens. That's right. So Romulus and Remus were Another
9:08
Speaker 1: very famous story too that Romulus, the founder of Rome.
9:12
Speaker 1: He and his brother Romulus and Remus were cast out
9:16
Speaker 1: by their uncle, their wicked uncle, and they were raised
9:20
Speaker 1: by wolves, I believe, according to legend. So yeah, there's
9:25
Speaker 1: this long standing legend of children of wild children, feral
9:30
Speaker 1: children being raised. But for the most part, it has
9:34
Speaker 1: existed in legend. It's not like there's all these great
9:38
Speaker 1: well documented cases. There's just enough documented cases. There's just
9:43
Speaker 1: enough tantalizing evidence that science has remained interested in this
9:48
Speaker 1: idea of what are feral children that it's just kept
9:54
Speaker 1: it's kept it going, and still to this day we
9:57
Speaker 1: don't really have enough evidence to say definitively feral children
10:02
Speaker 1: are this, or more to the point, feral children tell
10:06
Speaker 1: us this about ourselves, about human development, But there are
10:11
Speaker 1: documented cases. Ivan Mushakov is not the only one. Yeah,
10:15
Speaker 1: and this could happen in a lot of ways. What
10:17
Speaker 1: would cause a child to become separated from their family
10:21
Speaker 1: and end up with a pack of monkeys or wolves
10:24
Speaker 1: or ostrich It sort of depends. It was one girl
10:29
Speaker 1: name Emiyata Emiyati who survived a boat capsizing. It killed
10:35
Speaker 1: her friends and left her stranded in nineteen seventy seven
10:38
Speaker 1: in the Sumatran forest. Eventually, she was found in the
10:42
Speaker 1: early eighties living with orangutangs orangutung. I think she was
10:48
Speaker 1: living alone. She was mistaken for an orangutang. Oh I
10:51
Speaker 1: thought she had taken up with them. No, that was
10:53
Speaker 1: what I saw. That actually makes her kind of different
10:56
Speaker 1: as far as feral children concerned. She was living by herself. Oh. Interesting.
11:00
Speaker 1: Other ones have been taken in by everything from pigs.
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Speaker 1: This girl in China, Wang Shingfing was discovered living with pigs.
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Speaker 1: She had been nursing on a pig, later fed as
11:15
Speaker 1: a pig. And that's one of the more depressing cases
11:19
Speaker 1: of straight up abuse from parents. Yeah, her parents were
11:23
Speaker 1: unable to raise her. They were both cognitively impaired and
11:26
Speaker 1: they basically left her with the pigs out back, and
11:30
Speaker 1: the pigs ended up raising her for years. There was
11:34
Speaker 1: another girl, and this is if this is even more depressing, frankly,
11:39
Speaker 1: there was a girl named Jeanie that was a pseudonym.
11:43
Speaker 1: Obviously I don't know what her real name was, but
11:45
Speaker 1: she's very well known as Genie, who was raised back
11:49
Speaker 1: in the nineteen thirties or forties, I believe, locked in
11:53
Speaker 1: a closet for the first ten from age two to
11:57
Speaker 1: age twelve, she was kept away from hum in society.
12:02
Speaker 1: So rather than being kept away from human society by
12:05
Speaker 1: being stranded in the wilderness or being raised by animals,
12:10
Speaker 1: she was left by herself and as a result, she
12:13
Speaker 1: developed a feral nature as well. So there's basically like
12:17
Speaker 1: three categories that develop when you're looking at stories of
12:21
Speaker 1: feral children, and Genie would be one that's called isolated.
12:25
Speaker 1: There's also or no, she would be confined. Imi Yati
12:30
Speaker 1: would be isolated where she was just stranded in the
12:32
Speaker 1: woods and lived by herself. And then the third category
12:35
Speaker 1: would be among animals like Ivan Mishchikov. Yeah, and we're
12:39
Speaker 1: gonna talk mainly about the ones who live among animals.
12:42
Speaker 1: Because the other two are just some of the you know,
12:46
Speaker 1: worst cases of abuse and neglect you could imagine. And
12:50
Speaker 1: it's not like the ones who live among animals are fun.
12:53
Speaker 1: But at least they have their pack of dogs and
12:56
Speaker 1: they're not like chained in a closet, you know, right,
12:59
Speaker 1: that's the the weird silver lining it. What would you
13:03
Speaker 1: want to be taken in? What kind of animal? Dogs
13:07
Speaker 1: would be pretty good? Yeah, yeah, you know, lots of apsos. Yeah,
13:13
Speaker 1: I could probably become the leader of that pack. I
13:16
Speaker 1: think monkeys would be pretty great. They would be. But
13:19
Speaker 1: they're also man. Those things will bite you. Well, they'll
13:22
Speaker 1: bite their own, do they It depends if you say
13:25
Speaker 1: something wrong. I would get along. They would they would
13:28
Speaker 1: just pick my nets and they would love me as
13:30
Speaker 1: their own. In my jungle book story, do you wait
13:34
Speaker 1: a minute? Do you have knits now? Occasionally? Oh? Man,
13:38
Speaker 1: should we take a break? Yeah, I think we should.
13:41
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a break, and we're going to
13:43
Speaker 1: talk more about feral children right after this, So Chuck.
14:12
Speaker 1: One thing that one of the big reasons that feral
14:15
Speaker 1: children has really kind of kept the interest of science
14:18
Speaker 1: over the years, especially starting in about the eighteenth century
14:21
Speaker 1: on is that they provide this the idea that they
14:27
Speaker 1: provide a window into human nature. Right, They're like a
14:31
Speaker 1: natural laboratory. Nobody's gonna say, hey, get that kid away
14:34
Speaker 1: from its parents. It's one and a half years old.
14:37
Speaker 1: Now throw it out into the forest, and then we'll
14:39
Speaker 1: come back and get it in twelve years and see
14:42
Speaker 1: what happens with it. You just can't do that. Even
14:44
Speaker 1: back in the eighteenth century, they wouldn't have done something
14:47
Speaker 1: like that. It was just too unethical, right, Yeah, So
14:50
Speaker 1: the idea that there are children that this actually happened
14:53
Speaker 1: to through you know, no scientist's fault. They can be
14:58
Speaker 1: studied and they could answer conceivably some questions. And some
15:02
Speaker 1: of the questions are things like language acquisition, like do
15:06
Speaker 1: we go through what's called a critical period where we
15:10
Speaker 1: either learn language or we don't, And if we don't,
15:13
Speaker 1: then we've and we missed that window. We'll never be
15:15
Speaker 1: able to learn language even a native language, let alone
15:18
Speaker 1: a second language like you and me are having trouble
15:20
Speaker 1: with these days. And then another is well, basically any
15:25
Speaker 1: any way that they differ from a normal kid, like
15:29
Speaker 1: their behaviors there, the way they carry themselves, all this
15:32
Speaker 1: stuff you could say this clearly stands for nature or nurture. Bam,
15:42
Speaker 1: that's right. And when these kids are out, at least
15:44
Speaker 1: the ones with the animals, they become as much like
15:48
Speaker 1: these animals and sometimes even physically as as they can.
15:52
Speaker 1: They a lot of times, like even the dog boy
15:54
Speaker 1: would bark. There's another a dog girl that we'll talk
15:57
Speaker 1: about later, she would bark. Some would chirp like birds.
16:02
Speaker 1: Sometimes they would run on all fours like a dog,
16:05
Speaker 1: or clean themselves like a cat, and they would eat
16:08
Speaker 1: raw meat. They would sleep on the floor because of
16:12
Speaker 1: the way, like you know, going all fours, their bodies
16:14
Speaker 1: would actually change in a lot of cases, like their
16:17
Speaker 1: knees would become just super tough from running around on
16:21
Speaker 1: their knees, or their teeth would become sharp from eating
16:25
Speaker 1: bones like an animal. So sometimes they were super fast,
16:30
Speaker 1: sometimes they might and a lot of this stuff is anecdotal,
16:33
Speaker 1: but you've heard stories about them developing even like keener
16:37
Speaker 1: senses of smell that they're animals that they live with have,
16:42
Speaker 1: which is amazing. Yeah, there was a kid named Jean
16:44
Speaker 1: Delige who is five in Liege, Belgium, which is why
16:48
Speaker 1: he's called John of Liege. But he and his whole
16:51
Speaker 1: village moved to the woods because war was taking place,
16:55
Speaker 1: and once the war subsided and they moved back to
16:58
Speaker 1: their village, Jean stayed and over time he became like
17:01
Speaker 1: a feral child, and he was known to be able
17:04
Speaker 1: to root out like truffles and stuff from the bases
17:08
Speaker 1: of trees just with his nose. Again, it's anecdotal, but
17:12
Speaker 1: it's a pretty good story. Yeah, And I mean some
17:17
Speaker 1: of them could climb trees like an animal, or sleep
17:20
Speaker 1: in a tree. Some could run on all fours faster
17:23
Speaker 1: than their counterparts could run on two legs. So the
17:27
Speaker 1: really remarkable stories over time that have been collected. But
17:30
Speaker 1: again the problem is this, these are a lot of
17:33
Speaker 1: these stories, like Jean Deligia's story comes from the sixteen twenties,
17:39
Speaker 1: so there are some modern ones, but there's plenty of
17:42
Speaker 1: ones that came between this the eighteenth century, the seventeenth century,
17:46
Speaker 1: and like the nineteenth century or even early twentieth century.
17:50
Speaker 1: And the stories are almost invariably so fantastic that they
17:56
Speaker 1: defy belief. Yeah right, especially if you're a scientist. Start
18:00
Speaker 1: hearing about these things like so, wait, the kid could
18:02
Speaker 1: outrun a human, but on all fours. That doesn't make
18:07
Speaker 1: any sense. It's just basically not possible. And if there
18:11
Speaker 1: were enough people who are eyewitnesses to this and who
18:13
Speaker 1: documented it independently, then maybe it would get some credence.
18:17
Speaker 1: So there's this whole problem here where feral children the
18:20
Speaker 1: stories are so fantastic that science wants to believe it,
18:23
Speaker 1: but they don't know what to believe. And it does
18:25
Speaker 1: turn out that there's actually been plenty of cases of
18:28
Speaker 1: fraud over the years where I mean, somebody said, hey,
18:33
Speaker 1: I think the best way to get famous is to
18:36
Speaker 1: make up a feral child story. So I'm going to
18:38
Speaker 1: do that. Yeah, and one dude, foresure did that. Mister
18:42
Speaker 1: j Al Singh in the nineteen twenties found two young girls,
18:47
Speaker 1: a toddler eighteen months old and an eight year old
18:51
Speaker 1: in India and claim they were raised by wolves, named
18:56
Speaker 1: them Amala and Kamala, and said they prefer raw meat,
19:00
Speaker 1: walk on all fours, they howl at the moon. I
19:03
Speaker 1: can't get them to walk upright or speak, you know,
19:07
Speaker 1: like a human being would speak. I was about say,
19:10
Speaker 1: speak English, but it was India, sure, uh. And they
19:13
Speaker 1: had books written about them and it was sort of
19:15
Speaker 1: a big media sensation until people started poking around and said, well,
19:20
Speaker 1: these girls are real, but you know what, they weren't
19:22
Speaker 1: raised black wolves at all. They actually had developmental and
19:25
Speaker 1: birth defects, and he would eventually admit that, and then
19:30
Speaker 1: we start learning that in a lot of these cases,
19:33
Speaker 1: although not all, a lot of these cases are kids
19:38
Speaker 1: with autism or or other developmental birth defects that they
19:44
Speaker 1: just maybe at the time didn't know how to deal
19:47
Speaker 1: with or how to categorize, or just would straight up
19:50
Speaker 1: lie about. Yeah, there's there's this this line in here
19:54
Speaker 1: that says that the the investigation into feral children's kind
19:59
Speaker 1: of revealed that you could also call feral children's stories
20:02
Speaker 1: stories of amazing survival of attempted and fanticide. Basically that
20:07
Speaker 1: that accounts in some people's minds, and this is not
20:11
Speaker 1: a new idea. Going back a couple hundred years, some
20:14
Speaker 1: people have said, you know what, I think, I think
20:16
Speaker 1: all of the stories of feral children are probably true.
20:20
Speaker 1: But they weren't really raised by wolves, or they weren't
20:22
Speaker 1: necessarily raised by wolves, or they hadn't adopted wolf like behavior.
20:26
Speaker 1: They were kids who had cognitive impairments and intellectual disabilities,
20:30
Speaker 1: who had been left to die and friend for themselves
20:33
Speaker 1: in the woods by their parents, had grown wild and
20:36
Speaker 1: then were Somebody came across them five or ten years
20:39
Speaker 1: later and mistook them for a wolf boy or an
20:43
Speaker 1: ostrich boy or a wolf girl or whatever animal you
20:46
Speaker 1: want to call it, or loss opso man. Some people
20:50
Speaker 1: think that accounts for basically all stories of all of
20:54
Speaker 1: the older stories of feral children. I think that's definitely debatable,
20:58
Speaker 1: but that's when one camp. Yeah, here's another case. Misha
21:01
Speaker 1: the Wolf Girl nineteen ninety seven, Monique Misha Difonesca. Even
21:07
Speaker 1: though she's not Italian, she actually published her memoirs about
21:12
Speaker 1: the Holocaust called Misha Colin and memoir of the Holocaust
21:17
Speaker 1: years basically you mean her memoirs, that's right, memories. She
21:25
Speaker 1: said that Nazis killed her parents in Brussels when she
21:30
Speaker 1: was seven. She set off on her own through Europe,
21:34
Speaker 1: ended up in the Ukraine, and then a pair of
21:37
Speaker 1: wolves brought her in and she lived with them for years.
21:41
Speaker 1: Published this story. It was a big sensation, and like
21:44
Speaker 1: I said, this was in the nineties. It turns out
21:47
Speaker 1: she made it all up, which was I mean disappointing
21:52
Speaker 1: in that she could have been a real good case
21:55
Speaker 1: study and ended up just lying about it all. Yeah.
21:58
Speaker 1: She said that she told the Belgian press that her
22:01
Speaker 1: she had made it up, but that her story was
22:03
Speaker 1: her way of coping with what had happened to her.
22:07
Speaker 1: In reality, like her parents had been killed during World
22:10
Speaker 1: War Two, but her grandfather raised her and by all
22:13
Speaker 1: accounts he was not a wolf at all, just a
22:16
Speaker 1: dude with a beard. Yeah. There was another famous case
22:20
Speaker 1: that's not necessarily fraud, but just isn't very well documented.
22:24
Speaker 1: A woman named Marina Chapman who supposedly was left in
22:28
Speaker 1: the woods after a kidnapping that went bad and was
22:32
Speaker 1: raised by monkeys and eventually became a housewife in England
22:38
Speaker 1: and published her story with the help of her daughter.
22:41
Speaker 1: I think again, in the nineties, the nineties must have
22:43
Speaker 1: been super hot for feral children memoirs. I guess that
22:47
Speaker 1: was probably some stupid Jerry Springer or something. I'll bet
22:52
Speaker 1: it was. The people were you know, it was his influence,
22:55
Speaker 1: the Springer influence. Yeah, should we talk about should we
22:59
Speaker 1: take a break of talk about Peter the wild Boy first?
23:01
Speaker 1: I think Pete deserves his due before the break. All right,
23:05
Speaker 1: we'll talk about Peter the Wild Boy. Then this was
23:06
Speaker 1: a true one, because there are a few cases which
23:09
Speaker 1: are verified. This is the summer of seventeen twenty five
23:14
Speaker 1: in the forest of Hertzwold, near Hamil in northern Germany,
23:20
Speaker 1: which we know has no bodies of water near it.
23:23
Speaker 1: This landlot, he was about twelve years old, walked on
23:27
Speaker 1: all fours, fed on grass. He would run up trees.
23:32
Speaker 1: He could not speak the language, and then he became
23:37
Speaker 1: hereto known as the wild Boy of Hamilon, and achieved
23:42
Speaker 1: such fame at the time. After he went to the
23:44
Speaker 1: house of Correction for a little while, the king, the
23:47
Speaker 1: Duke of Hanover and King of the UK, said, George said,
23:51
Speaker 1: you know, bring him to me. Basically, they trot him
23:56
Speaker 1: out there like a spectacle, essentially, dress him up in
24:00
Speaker 1: a little boy's outfit, sit him down at a table,
24:04
Speaker 1: and of course he acts like an animal. And then
24:07
Speaker 1: George is like, you know, take him away. He discussed
24:10
Speaker 1: me right, so he wasn't like. It wasn't like put
24:15
Speaker 1: him back in the woods. Once he was brought to court,
24:18
Speaker 1: he was under the King's care, and he was they
24:22
Speaker 1: attempted to tutor him. Not only could he not speak German.
24:25
Speaker 1: He couldn't he couldn't speak any language. He just basically
24:29
Speaker 1: grunted right, But he was basically under the royal largess.
24:34
Speaker 1: After that point, they baptized him, they dressed him up,
24:38
Speaker 1: they cleaned him up, they tried everything they could to
24:41
Speaker 1: teach him. But eventually they were like this, this kid
24:43
Speaker 1: can't be taught. We don't know what we're doing. We
24:45
Speaker 1: can't get through to him. So let's send him over
24:48
Speaker 1: to London. Apparently they'd heard about him in London, because
24:52
Speaker 1: I mean, you noticed that the Duke of Hanover in
24:54
Speaker 1: Germany was also the same person who was the King
24:58
Speaker 1: of the United Kingdom. Didn't that seem odd to you? No? Okay, well,
25:04
Speaker 1: at any rate, he had a connection to London. So
25:07
Speaker 1: London heard about Peter the Wild Boy and they went
25:10
Speaker 1: crazy for him. They're like, send him over here if
25:12
Speaker 1: you guys are sick of them. So Peter the Wild
25:15
Speaker 1: Boy made his way over to London and became like
25:17
Speaker 1: a sensation, but basically had like the same experience there.
25:21
Speaker 1: Everybody wanted to be around him. They saw what he
25:23
Speaker 1: was actually like and they were like, Okay, I don't
25:25
Speaker 1: want to be around this kid any longer. Because he's
25:27
Speaker 1: grossing me out. Well, yeah, except for the Princess of Wales.
25:31
Speaker 1: Caroline said I want him and give him to me,
25:37
Speaker 1: and so they did, and she persuaded the King to
25:40
Speaker 1: allow Peter to move into her place in the West End,
25:44
Speaker 1: and he was basically like a pet for her. Yeah,
25:47
Speaker 1: he would still insist on sleeping on the floor. They
25:50
Speaker 1: would dress him up again in his little green and
25:53
Speaker 1: red suit every day like little Lord Fauntleroy still tried
25:57
Speaker 1: to tutor him, baptize him, taught him the manners of
26:01
Speaker 1: the day. They taught him to bow and to kiss
26:03
Speaker 1: the hands of the ladies in the court, and he
26:06
Speaker 1: was a sensation there for a while and was the
26:10
Speaker 1: talk of the town. And they even painted a very
26:12
Speaker 1: famous painting of him and put it on the King's
26:15
Speaker 1: grand staircase at Kensington Palace. Yeah. So again though he
26:21
Speaker 1: kind of I guess, lost his luster as far as
26:23
Speaker 1: the courtiers were concerned, and he was sent off to
26:27
Speaker 1: live on a farm, and again he was cared for
26:30
Speaker 1: by the Crown. I think he got like a thirty
26:33
Speaker 1: five pound pension for the rest of his life, thirty
26:35
Speaker 1: five pounds a year maybe, And he was just taken
26:39
Speaker 1: care of by a kindly old farm owner. The problem
26:43
Speaker 1: is is he would well, he had a good life.
26:45
Speaker 1: Supposedly he liked gin a lot, right, yeah, man, and
26:48
Speaker 1: he would clap and sway to music and dance basically
26:53
Speaker 1: until he would just fall over. He'd be so tired.
26:55
Speaker 1: So he was like me, Yeah, he was having a
26:57
Speaker 1: good time out in the country. I think it was
27:00
Speaker 1: definitely more his speed than say, like London. The problem
27:04
Speaker 1: was he would wander off sometimes, so they eventually after
27:07
Speaker 1: he was arrested a couple times and thought to be
27:11
Speaker 1: somebody who was undermining the state like a spy. Basically,
27:14
Speaker 1: he was fitted with a leather collar that basically gave
27:18
Speaker 1: instructions to anybody who found him if they brought him
27:21
Speaker 1: back to this farm, they would be rewarded for their troubles.
27:26
Speaker 1: And he lived a long life still. Yeah, he died
27:29
Speaker 1: at like seventy two years old in seventeen eighty five.
27:33
Speaker 1: And the story actually has an interesting ending. Not too
27:37
Speaker 1: long ago, a historian named Lucy Worsley did some investigating
27:41
Speaker 1: and saw this painting that we mentioned at Kingington Palace
27:46
Speaker 1: and said, hold on a minute, I think he may
27:50
Speaker 1: have actually had this been suffering from Pitt's Hopkins Pitt
27:55
Speaker 1: Hopkins syndrome, and it's an intellectual disability and character rise
28:00
Speaker 1: by developmental delay, breathing problems, seizures, epilepsy, and these facial
28:06
Speaker 1: features that it looks like he had in this painting,
28:10
Speaker 1: like he was short, he had coarse hair, droopy eyelids,
28:14
Speaker 1: thick lips and club fingers and everything kind of led
28:19
Speaker 1: people to think, well, wait a minute, this wasn't a
28:21
Speaker 1: fairal child at all. Again, it's another case of mistaken
28:26
Speaker 1: developmental delay. Yeah, that's what they think. Unbelievable, it really is.
28:32
Speaker 1: Now you want to take a break, Yeah, we'll take
28:34
Speaker 1: a break and talk about a pretty remarkable story, the
28:37
Speaker 1: story of Oksana Malaya, the Ukrainian dog girl. And okay, Chuck,
29:06
Speaker 1: we're back and we're in Ukraine. Now. I don't know
29:09
Speaker 1: if you noticed. It's not bad. So there's this girl.
29:15
Speaker 1: She's probably in her mid to late twenties by now,
29:18
Speaker 1: but at the now today, yes, I think she's like
29:22
Speaker 1: thirty five. Oh really, I thought this article is way
29:24
Speaker 1: more recent than that. She was born in November in
29:27
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three. Oh okay, yeah, she's old. So this wow,
29:31
Speaker 1: this is a very old article. So at the time
29:34
Speaker 1: of this visit with her that the article is based on,
29:37
Speaker 1: she was twenty three and she was living in Ukraine,
29:44
Speaker 1: but she had been raised on a village, on a farm,
29:48
Speaker 1: actually in a village called Novaya Blagoveshenka nailed that one too,
29:54
Speaker 1: I think, so in Ukraine, and she was raised there,
29:58
Speaker 1: not by her parents, who apparently they discarded her like
30:01
Speaker 1: so much human garbage, but she was raised by dogs,
30:04
Speaker 1: a pack of dogs that lived on the farm. After
30:07
Speaker 1: her parents left her out one night and didn't bring
30:10
Speaker 1: her in, she just stayed outside for basically the next
30:15
Speaker 1: I think five years, living with the dogs who took
30:18
Speaker 1: her under their care. Yeah, her parents were severe alcoholics
30:22
Speaker 1: and didn't even notice she was gone for a while,
30:27
Speaker 1: and so yeah, she stayed there. She lost what little
30:32
Speaker 1: She was three years old, so she only had a
30:33
Speaker 1: little bit of language at that point anyway, so she
30:36
Speaker 1: had tapped into a bit of that critical period, but
30:39
Speaker 1: then lost that after becoming a member of this dog pack. Yep.
30:44
Speaker 1: So again for five years she lived like this, basically
30:48
Speaker 1: living on raw meat and scraps. Being a member. I
30:52
Speaker 1: didn't get the impression that she was the pack leader,
30:54
Speaker 1: but a member of the pack of dogs, and finally
30:57
Speaker 1: a neighbor's like, okay, it's been five years. I got
31:02
Speaker 1: to call somebody. So the neighbor called the authorities, and
31:05
Speaker 1: the authorities came out and got her, and apparently they
31:07
Speaker 1: didn't do a very good job documenting when she was found.
31:13
Speaker 1: But later on the people who worked with her all
31:17
Speaker 1: basically very roundly said, like, yes, this girl behaved exactly
31:21
Speaker 1: like a dog, which she slept on the floor, she
31:23
Speaker 1: walked on all fours, she ate raw meat, she would
31:27
Speaker 1: bark at you, she would she just had the demeanor
31:31
Speaker 1: of a dog. And so this is actually one of
31:34
Speaker 1: the more documented cases. It's also a case that turns
31:37
Speaker 1: out was it turned out about as well as you
31:42
Speaker 1: could hope for from a situation like that, because she
31:45
Speaker 1: managed to, like ivan, to be inculturated into human culture,
31:51
Speaker 1: human society over the course of years. Yeah, I mean
31:56
Speaker 1: she I don't know if she's marry now, but she
31:58
Speaker 1: got a boyfriend at one point, learned to speak intelligently.
32:04
Speaker 1: Seems about as well adjusted as you can be. At
32:08
Speaker 1: the time of this article, which was now a while ago,
32:11
Speaker 1: she was working on a dairy farm. But at this time,
32:15
Speaker 1: which was like I said, this was quite a few
32:17
Speaker 1: years ago that they wrote this, but she was deemed
32:21
Speaker 1: to have the mental capacity of a six year old
32:24
Speaker 1: because a child's college named Lynn Frye ended up doing
32:28
Speaker 1: a lot of interviews and tests with her, and she
32:30
Speaker 1: had a low, a dangerously low boredom threshold. Could count,
32:34
Speaker 1: but couldn't add, could not read or spell her name correctly.
32:39
Speaker 1: And she said that she would still like when she
32:43
Speaker 1: was just feeling bad or whatever, she would still go
32:45
Speaker 1: off in the woods by herself because that made her
32:50
Speaker 1: feel better and more calm. Right, And so her case
32:53
Speaker 1: is one of the ones that's pointed to is evidence
32:57
Speaker 1: that there is a critical period and that it can
32:59
Speaker 1: be got and back if it started because she was
33:03
Speaker 1: beginning to be verbal, like you said, when she was
33:06
Speaker 1: left by her parents, and then she managed to get
33:09
Speaker 1: it back. So they think that that's evidence for the
33:12
Speaker 1: critical window period. And you can see videos on YouTube
33:17
Speaker 1: and pictures of Alexander the Dog Girl, and it's pretty
33:20
Speaker 1: remarkable to see. She was on a Ukrainian TV show
33:24
Speaker 1: and I think it ended up. I think Discovery Channel
33:27
Speaker 1: did a special on her that used that footage. I
33:29
Speaker 1: don't think they did any new footage but just really
33:33
Speaker 1: really amazing to look at the footage of her running
33:36
Speaker 1: around like that. Yeah, it was like she knew that
33:40
Speaker 1: that was socially unacceptable, they were saying, but she could
33:43
Speaker 1: still do it. Yeah. That also is a check in
33:46
Speaker 1: the box of people who say, like, there's this thing
33:49
Speaker 1: where if that critical window is if it happens to
33:54
Speaker 1: pass over a period where the kid is being encultured
33:58
Speaker 1: by a non human culture, sure they could conceivably adopt
34:02
Speaker 1: the behaviors or learn those behaviors just like they would
34:05
Speaker 1: learn human behaviors, but they're not surrounded or interacting with humans.
34:09
Speaker 1: They are surrounded by and interacting with wolves or ostriches
34:13
Speaker 1: or chickens or whatever, so they're actually they're not mimicking it,
34:17
Speaker 1: they're actually learning this behavior. So goes one school of
34:20
Speaker 1: thought that is kind of a subgroup of the critical
34:23
Speaker 1: window people. Yeah, and there's some people that have thought,
34:27
Speaker 1: I think incorrectly. There was this one psychologist named Bruno
34:31
Speaker 1: Bettelheim that said, basically, all of these examples are children
34:34
Speaker 1: with autism who are abandoned. Sadly, a lot of them
34:38
Speaker 1: probably were, but there have definitely been enough cases that
34:41
Speaker 1: weren't to know that it's not always the case. Yeah,
34:45
Speaker 1: So as it stands now, apparently the sciences science believe
34:52
Speaker 1: that for a little while, the Bruno Bettlheim theory that
34:57
Speaker 1: it was just all cases of mistaken identity were just
35:00
Speaker 1: children with cognitive impairments or developmental disabilities who'd been abandoned
35:04
Speaker 1: by their parents. But they're I think the science, the
35:09
Speaker 1: scientific community who studies this kind of thing are kind
35:12
Speaker 1: of coming around to say, like, well, you know, we
35:14
Speaker 1: actually don't know, and that's probably not that's probably just
35:19
Speaker 1: too broad of a statement. That probably covers a lot
35:23
Speaker 1: of them, but clearly it doesn't cover all of them,
35:26
Speaker 1: because Ivan Mushikov was not cognitively impaired and he was
35:31
Speaker 1: clearly a documented feral child. There's another There was another
35:35
Speaker 1: one from the eighteenth century the seventeen thirties. I think
35:38
Speaker 1: Memmy LeBlanc, who showed up in Champagne, France, and they
35:45
Speaker 1: taught her to speak French. She wasn't cognitively impaired, and
35:48
Speaker 1: she eventually told them that she gave them enough clues
35:51
Speaker 1: to figure out that she was a Huron Indian who
35:55
Speaker 1: been captured by slavers and escaped from a shipwreck and
35:58
Speaker 1: made her way to France and showed up as a
36:01
Speaker 1: wild child there, so she wasn't cognitively impaired at all.
36:05
Speaker 1: There's there's just too many examples of ones that are
36:08
Speaker 1: probably true that weren't cognitively impaired, but we're still clearly feral,
36:14
Speaker 1: feral children. Yeah, to say Bruno Bettlheim was right. Yeah,
36:18
Speaker 1: I mean it's a shame because there is so much
36:19
Speaker 1: you could learn. It's a shame that so many of
36:23
Speaker 1: these stories turn out to be dead ends or these
36:26
Speaker 1: really sad stories or fakes. Yeah, because if they were true,
36:30
Speaker 1: we'd be able to say this is a great, perfect
36:32
Speaker 1: natural laboratory for human development. Yeah, but they're just there.
36:37
Speaker 1: We don't know enough to base it on that, And
36:40
Speaker 1: that's not necessarily the case across the board. Like j
36:42
Speaker 1: al Singh and Kamala and Amala, they wrote like textbooks
36:47
Speaker 1: on their case Unfounded it turned out. So I think
36:51
Speaker 1: science has kind of learned to say this is really interesting,
36:54
Speaker 1: but we don't know enough about it to really extrapolate
36:57
Speaker 1: onto the larger the larger human race. Yeah, yeah, but
37:01
Speaker 1: it's still pretty interesting, dude. Yeah, I had a script idea.
37:06
Speaker 1: I'm not going to reveal any more of those on
37:09
Speaker 1: the show, though, because I think people are ripping me off. Okay, yeah,
37:13
Speaker 1: definitely the Sharknado people did. But I will just well, no,
37:17
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna say anything. Okay, don't don't keep it
37:21
Speaker 1: under your hat, and we'll announce it when the thing's
37:24
Speaker 1: in production, which will never happen. You don't know, so
37:30
Speaker 1: you got anything else, No, let me say this. I
37:33
Speaker 1: will sell this idea for one thousand dollars to a
37:36
Speaker 1: Hollywood big shot. Oh wow wow, but you have to
37:40
Speaker 1: pay before you hear the idea. I think that's good man,
37:42
Speaker 1: because those Hollywood big shots they will they'll trick you.
37:46
Speaker 1: We'll try it. They'll be like, go ahead and tell me. Okay, Well,
37:50
Speaker 1: if you want to know more about feral children, there's
37:52
Speaker 1: actually a lot more cases that we didn't get to cover,
37:54
Speaker 1: like Shamdeo who was raised by wolves, and Suji Kumar,
37:58
Speaker 1: the chicken boy of Fuji. They all have pretty astounding names,
38:02
Speaker 1: but when you start to dig in, they're actually all
38:04
Speaker 1: pretty depressing cases. But it's really interesting stuff. So dig
38:08
Speaker 1: into feral children by jumping onto your favorite search engine today,
38:13
Speaker 1: because oh no, there is an article on how stuff
38:16
Speaker 1: works isn't there. Yeah, well you can check that one
38:19
Speaker 1: out too. Yeah. And since I said that, it's time
38:22
Speaker 1: for listener mayo, I'm gotta call this one proud pothead
38:28
Speaker 1: anonymous proud podhead, so he's not that proud. Hey, guys,
38:32
Speaker 1: long time listener. I want to let you know I'm
38:34
Speaker 1: a chronic pot user for most of my life. I'm
38:38
Speaker 1: not condoning the use of marijuana. Individual results may vary,
38:42
Speaker 1: but here's my story in my mid thirties of smoke
38:44
Speaker 1: pot on an almost daily basis since I was sixteen.
38:48
Speaker 1: I have no medical reasons to use it, and I
38:51
Speaker 1: am also not in a state word as legal. But
38:53
Speaker 1: I enjoy it similar to the reason people enjoy alcohol.
38:57
Speaker 1: I am not a frequent drinker. I enjoy nice bourbon
38:59
Speaker 1: every now and then. If I can't recall the last
39:01
Speaker 1: time I was drunk, it's just not my cup of tea.
39:04
Speaker 1: I view pot as a luxury, though, so if money
39:06
Speaker 1: becomes tight, it's the first thing to go. I did
39:09
Speaker 1: not smoke for an entire year to save money for
39:10
Speaker 1: my wedding. I smoked daily and then would not advise
39:14
Speaker 1: us to many smokers. But most days I start and
39:17
Speaker 1: end the day with a bowl. Almost ninety five percent
39:20
Speaker 1: of the time I'm driving, I'm stoned. All right, dude,
39:24
Speaker 1: maybe you shouldn't say that, yeah, or do that. But
39:27
Speaker 1: I've never been in an automobile accident, never wrecked a car,
39:31
Speaker 1: never received a ticket, never follow an entrance claim. I've
39:33
Speaker 1: never damaged any vehicles, own a house I bought my
39:36
Speaker 1: mid twenties, drive a nice sports car, pay my Texas, Texas,
39:40
Speaker 1: pay my taxes. He pays his taxes in Texas. I've
39:44
Speaker 1: never been in trouble with a law and have a
39:46
Speaker 1: successful career as a chef, worked long, hard hours. Most
39:50
Speaker 1: people would enjoy drink after a long day. I enjoy
39:52
Speaker 1: a bullpack. That's funny, Like he could have just summed
39:56
Speaker 1: all this up originally by saying, hey, guys, I'm a chef.
39:59
Speaker 1: The no, A lot of chefs are drunks. Oh yeah yeah,
40:05
Speaker 1: and a lot of them are just you know, regular, awesome,
40:09
Speaker 1: normal people without vices. Yeah, actually that's not true. All
40:12
Speaker 1: chefs have vices, hardcore gambling, et cetera. I would do
40:17
Speaker 1: a lot of chefs. They're a different breed. They're good people, though,
40:20
Speaker 1: Oh sure, for sure. Yeah. Anyway, back to the email,
40:24
Speaker 1: But in my state, I'm still viewed as a criminal,
40:26
Speaker 1: which to me makes no sense. Although I never travel
40:28
Speaker 1: around with my pot, I do have to buy it
40:31
Speaker 1: and drive it with it home. I'm always incredibly nervous.
40:34
Speaker 1: I could end up in cuffs during that drive. I'm
40:37
Speaker 1: glad times are changing, though, and I wait the day
40:39
Speaker 1: when I can smoke I legally in my state. I
40:41
Speaker 1: just want to say thank you for not putting Pat pot.
40:44
Speaker 1: What is going on with me? Pass from Texas. We
40:47
Speaker 1: just cracked the coat subliminally, not putting pot in the
40:50
Speaker 1: same category as methamphetamines and speaking the facts rather than
40:54
Speaker 1: a bunch of untrue propaganda. Yeah, except when it comes
40:57
Speaker 1: to chefs, and we're just paint everybody with the same broadbrush.
41:00
Speaker 1: Chef's newer. Thanks Pat from Texas. We appreciate that letter,
41:06
Speaker 1: that anonymous letter. If you want to get in touch
41:09
Speaker 1: of this anonymously, we will keep your name secret. How
41:12
Speaker 1: about that? Tell us whatever? You can tweet to us
41:16
Speaker 1: at Josh M. Clark or s Y s K podcast.
41:19
Speaker 1: I also have a website you can visit called ru
41:21
Speaker 1: Series Clark dot com. Chuck is on Facebook at Facebook
41:25
Speaker 1: dot com, slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's an
41:28
Speaker 1: official Facebook page for Stuff you Should Know too, called
41:32
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know. You can
41:34
Speaker 1: send all of us an email to Stuff podcast at
41:36
Speaker 1: HowStuffWorks dot com and has always joined us at our
41:39
Speaker 1: homeown the web, stuff Youshould Know dot com. For more
41:46
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks dot
41:50
Speaker 1: com