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Feral Children and the True Story Behind The Jungle Book · Ridiculous History

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Yea. Now this is the law of the jungle, as
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: old and as true as the sky, and the wolf
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: shall break it must die. That is part of the
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: law of the jungle. Rudder kipling, Ben, you know what
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: I thought you were gonna do? What do you think
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: I was gonna thought you're gonna do? Now, this is
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: a story all about how my life got flipped it
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: upside there. Let me take a minute. Just sit right
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: back as on the bell air. I think you're nailed it.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: I guess if we wanted to do parody lyrics would
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: be like now, this is a story all about how
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: my parents left me in the woods across town own.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: I like to take a minute, just sit right there.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Tell you how I grew up with a cat and
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: a bear. You know what I mean? That's pulled up
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: to I don't know. This is your bag, Ben. You
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: did a good job. Yeah, Because we're talking about what
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: we're talking about sort of a slice of history, a
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: type thing that that encompasses a couple of different periods.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Um The at the base of our story today is
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: uh one particular feral child that was found in India
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: and likely served as the basis for one of your
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: favorite racist works of fiction. Ben is one of my
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: my favorite I'm doing favorite in quotation fingers here, Well
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: it is. The Jungle Book is an amazing story. It's
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: almost as amazing as our super producer Casey Pegram. But
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: you're right, No, the story of Dina Santa Char not
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: his real name. As far as we know. Our story
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: takes us to part of India called utter Pradesh, which
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: I may be mispronouncing. It's sort of like northern central
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: India on the border of Nepal And. In eighteen seventy two,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: there was a group of hunters who encountered a pack
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: of wolves bounding through the forest. But not just any
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: ordinary pack of wolves, right, No, no, they say, what ho,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: I've cited a man cub on all falls scamperings as
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: though he was a member of the pack. And then
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: they proceeded to smoke the wolf pack out of their cave,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: kill the wolves, and bring this this man cub to
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: like a local orphanage, because you know, he clearly couldn't
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: possibly be happy living in the woods, free and naked
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: and with his animal brethren. I feel like you've got
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: a personal steak in this blood, right, You're right, I don't.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: I just think, like, you know, I mean, it's so sad.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: They literally there's different accounts of the story that they
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: killed all of the wolves, or that they at least
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: old the mother wolf and again smoked them out of
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: the cave. But you know, it's such so presumptuous to me.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: It was he was he was like, what six years old?
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: I want to say, yeah, he was six. I guess,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I guess they felt like they were
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: doing their their Christian duty. They probably did, but you know,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: the wolves most likely attacked them because first off, they
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: set a fire and then they were actively intruding into
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Like if unless a wolf is threatened or starving, it
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: doesn't care what you do. Human. Would these have been
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: white hunter has been or would these have been Hindi
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: like people from the region. Is this during colonialism or
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: is this a little bit before. This is during the
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: British raj. So so it's not clear if these were
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: white hunters or if these were local men, and not
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: that that really matters, but um, well we'll get to that. So,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: so the boy is brought to town, to the village
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: and to a a mission run orphanage that's run by
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: a priest by the name of Father Earhart, who is
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: very much trying to convert the local population to his
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: type of his his way of thinking, right, which is
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: which is Catholicism. He's a missionary, right. And he says
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: he actually gives the kid his name. The kid doesn't
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: have a human name yet, and so he names him
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Dina and Sonny Char and Sonny Char means Saturday. It's right,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: which is the day of the week that he was
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: delivered to this guy, which I I think that checks out.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: It's not a huge burst of creativity. But I also
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: think I also this is just a personal aesthetic nom
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: But I think it's really cool when people have names
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: their days of the week, like Wednesday Adams. I thought
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: that was great. Somebody's last name is Saturday. They just
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: feel kind of fun to me. And I like the
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: idea of his girl Friday, you know, yeah, And also
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Mr Wednesday from American Gods, Yes, yes, Mr Wednesday. I
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: don't know any I don't think I know anyone named Tuesday.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: If you're listening and you happen to be named Tuesday
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: or after any day though, after any day of the week.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: We don't want to discriminate. Yeah, let's what happens next.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: So what happens next is that father Earhart says some things.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: We have a quotation from him that I think encapsulates
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: the condescending attitude so prevalent at the time. He says
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: that he thinks Santa char is undoubtedly what he called pagal,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: meaning idiotic or slow. But he says, despite this, Santa
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Chars still shows signs of reason and sometimes actual shrewdness.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: But what we know now with the benefit of retrospect,
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: is that Santa Charg's behavior had a lot in common
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: with the behavior of other case similar cases of feral children. Yeah,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: and that's the thing, the most important takeaway from this
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: and the interaction with some we'll talk about some others,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: but they there's a window, very crucial window for language development,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: and and uh, this child had soundly missed that window.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: So it basically means that developing any kind of spoken
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: in language or being assimilated into speaking with you know,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: the folks in the village was going to be noon impossible. Right,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: That's that's the problematic part. You're absolutely correct about this,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: not just this concept of language learning or language acquisition,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: but also the concept of certain other behavior acquisitions. So
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Santa Char allegedly would not express himself in ways that
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: seemed innately human. For instance, for a long time, we
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: as a species assumed that smiling or laughter were innate things,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: sort of how like people, you say, all babies are
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: born knowing how to swim? You know what I mean?
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: I thought you were going to say swear all babies
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: are born knowing how to swear? And if if luke
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: who's talking, is any indication? Right? Right? Fantastic series of documentaries.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: But the problem with Santa Char is that he did
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: not seem to laugh or smile, and he didn't seem
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: to bond with people. With one notable exception, he would
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: only bond with animals. There was a kid that he
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: bonded with, which was another feral child who came to
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: the same orphanage. By this time, Santa Char had learned
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: to wear human clothing. He could reportedly dress himself quote
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: with difficulty, and keep track of his cup and his plate.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: But he showed this younger kid they would hang out,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: and he showed him how to drink from a cup,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: And apparently he also became quite the chain smoker. Yeah,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: that was his Uh, that was his one big human
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: habit he picked up, right, what a what I one
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: to pick up? That's you know, it's it's heartbreaking when
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: you think about this because in other cases, or other
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: alleged cases, we should say, because we can get into
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: the the science of this a little bit later, in
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: many other cases where something like this is alleged to
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: have occurred, there's not a way to fix it. You
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: can mitigate some of the some of the issues, but
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: you can't repair them. These this this guy's Sanda char
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: was likely incapable of, you know, going on to become
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: a priest himself or make a ted talk. Here's my
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: question for you, Ben, this is why I had such
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: an extra grind at the top of the show with
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: these horrible, horrible men smoking out the lovely wolf and
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: family that had raised this young lad. I think I
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: know where you're going. Yeah, wouldn't he has been better
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  Speaker 1: off frolicking in the forest, free and naked with the
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: wolf pack rather than the Sicondra mission orphanage. Yeah, it's
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: a good question. Stuck between two worlds, right, he can't
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: fully be human and he can't fully be an animal.
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  Speaker 1: It's it's just, uh, it's really heartbreaking if you think
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  Speaker 1: about it. Yeah, you know, and we have to ask ourselves,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: what's the what is the ultimate um priorities? Equality of life?
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Is it because our civilization is doing something that are
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: we conflating living the way we do with living the
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: correct way? You know what? I mean? That's right. I
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: think it's a I think there's an inherent judgment call
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: at play here. Is it about protecting the life of
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: the child? Um, I don't know. Obviously, a six year
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: old orphan running around with a bunch of wolves probably
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: isn't the most safe thing in the world. But um,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure. Man, I'm of two minds of it.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: It's clearly it's clearly causing me some conflict internally. There
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: are arguments on both sides. You know what, when you
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: see pictures of the guy, because there are actual photographs
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: of Dina Sano char which is why we can put
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  Speaker 1: some more weight into this story in comparison to other
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: stories like Romulus and Remus raised by a wolf that's mythology,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: there are any photographs of them. This this guy though,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: when you look at the pictures, it's heartbreaking man. He's
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: clearly uncomfortable having to wear these clothes. He doesn't look
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: like he's super comfortable standing on two feet, stand on
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: two legs rather, and apparently he continued like he did,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: learning from a plate like you said, but he continued
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: to prefer raw meat to anything else, and he would
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: still sniff it before eating it up until he passed away. Um,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: I believe at a pretty early age. If I'm not
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: mistaken from what's thought to have been tuberculosis. Why don't
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: we talk a little bit more about some other famous
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: feral children throughout history, Ben, and kind of do a
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: little contrast and compare. Sure, Yeah, let's let's go with
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: let's see, do you wanna Why don't we start with
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: children who had also been quote unquote raised by other animals?
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: How does that sound? That does sound good to me? Ben?
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, we have that, we have that other
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: feral child that was found and brought to the same
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: mission orphanage. But then we have we have examples such
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: as um the Lobo wolf girl from eighteen forty five
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: to eighteen fifty two. In eighteen forty five, she was
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: seen running in Mexico on all fours with a pack
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: of wolves attacking a herd of goats. A year later,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: she was seen with the wolves eating a goat. People
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: tried to capture her, She was captured, but she escaped.
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  Speaker 1: And then she was seen in eighteen fifty two suckling
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: two wolf clubs, at which point she ran into the
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: woods and was never seen again. And I just want
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: to backtrack just lightly. Um, India in particular has a
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: history of producing these feral children. Um. In addition to
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Santa chere there and his his buddy who was at
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: the orphanage. UM, over the years, there have been uh
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: several other cases including wolf children, panther children, dog children,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: chicken children, and even gazelle children. So UM, this this
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: is kind of mythology that Rudyard Kipling would continue to
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: kind of inject into the minds of the West. Um,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: there was some truth to it. Yeah, this is this
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: is where we get into a little bit of a
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: speculative thing. But I believe it's safe to speculate here.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Rudard Kipling was aware of the story of Dina, and
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: he then went on to write The Jungle Book with
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: a character of Mowgli. Now did we talk about we
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: we we we kind of alluded pretty harshly to Kipling's
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: imperialist leanings in his um kind of inherent not greatness. Um,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: what was he trying to communicate with the story of
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: the man Cub beyond just the kind of lighthearted story
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: of a of a boy, you know, connected back to nature.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: It's an interesting question. So this guy is most well
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: known for things like the Jungle Book, maybe that mongoose story. Uh,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: the poem if, which is a wonderful poe him. But
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: he is also the author of a poem called the
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: white Man's Burden. And this was not a sarcastic comment
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: on his part or a sarcastic statement. When he is
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: writing the Jungle Book, he is writing in a context
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: of rampant othering and rationalization. So British forces at this
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: time are thinking, we the The implicit problem is you
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: cannot subjugate people an entire culture and then say, oh,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: they are equal to us. We're just doing it because
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: we want resources and we're you know, we're no better
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: than robbers. You have to say that we are somehow better,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: we're somehow more human for lack of a better state.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: So the white Man's burden is that like the inherent
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: betterness of the white man and their mission to kind
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: of indoctrinate anyone that they see as being lesser. Yeah,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: that's that's the idea. It's UM that they are somehow
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: ideologically freeing people who have existed thousands of years before
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: being backward or something right right, bringing them forward, awakening
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: to them to what they thought was the true religion,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: which would be something like the aristocracy, Christianity, capitalism, kind
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: of all in its morass, in its own mix, uh,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: and then over time making them a little less bad,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: never white, never as good as the British, just a
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: little less bad, right. And this theme resonates in some
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: of the ideas of UM things that would would be
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: depicted in the US as well, the concept of the
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: noble the quote unquote noble savage you've heard that, you know,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: like untouched by the fetters of true civilization, which is
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: kind of what Mowgli is meant to be. Mowgli is
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: kind of this innocent babe in the woods who has
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: this nobility, but of course, at the end of the
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: story pursues his destiny in the world of men because
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: it's inevitable, because that's what you're supposed to do. And
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: this leads us to some other stories. You had mentioned
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: that India had seemed to have a higher frequency of
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: feral children. There was one named Shamdo in nineteen seventy two,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: which is pretty recent right. He was about four years old.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: He was found enforced in India playing with wolf cubs.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Apparently his skin was very dark. He had long hooked fingernails.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: I don't know how much of this is true because
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: they also say as sharpened teeth, which feels a little
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: out there for me. But he had calluses on his palms, elbows,
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: and knees. Uh. He never talked. He learned sign language.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: He also was eating raw meat. Uh. He was admitted
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: to Mother Teresa's Home for the destitute and died in
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Lucknow was renamed Pascal All. He died in a lot
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: of times after being apprehended. At least in these stories.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Ferald children don't do well in society. Like you said,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: I really appreciate you bringing up that fres Now, they
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: don't fit into either world completely. There in this what's
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: called a liminal space there on the border between the
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: world of humanity and the world of animals that raised them.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: We also know that there's a what we call tantalizing
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: science about ferald children. There's not as much research on
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: them as there should be. While there are several confirmed cases,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: there are a lot of speculative ones. And look, this
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: is kind of dark, ridiculous historians, but it needs to
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: be said. Sometimes when children appear to be feral, they
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: may have run away because they experienced severe abuse or trauma.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: There was a girl in the Ukraine whose parents were
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: very very serious alcoholics. Her name was Oxana Malaya In
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: She was found living with dogs in a kennel. She
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: was eight years old. She had been living with the
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: dogs for six years because her parents left her outside
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: one night and she crawled in with the dogs. So
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: that's something that And just like we mentioned earlier with
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: the language acquisition window, she ran on all fours panted
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: with her tongue out, communicated like a dog. She only
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: knew the words yes and no, and she was luckily,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: with intensive therapy able to learn some basic social verbal skills.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: Now or at the last report, she lives in Odessa
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: and works with farm animals under the supervision of her caretakers.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: So that is a happy ending. But we have to remember,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: as easy as it is to romanticize this idea of
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: someone raised with animals and having this innate bond with them,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: it can this kind of bond can occur because of
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: some very terrible things. Absolutely, absolutely, we don't know where
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: the boy who would go on to be called Dina,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: what his story was, but surely, I mean, it sounds
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: like he spent enough time with these creatures and they
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: did not eat him, and he developed their traits that
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: he was relatively safe. I don't know. I keep beating
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: the drum for this whole let the kid live in
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: the forest line of thinking, and I'm probably gonna get
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: some people yelling at me about that, but I stand
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: by my position. I think it's good to have a position.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: I could see the validity of the argument. You know,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: it's it's weird because this is not a perfect comparison.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: But back when I lived in Central America, there was
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: this huge epidemic of stray dogs in particular, and they
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: would run impacts, they had, you know, matted hair, they
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: had all the problems that you would have if you
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: were straight dogs. You didn't go to the vet, and
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: you were outdoors all the time. And I was talking
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: to another ex pat, and I asked them, you know,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: what do you think about all these dogs? Should they
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: round them up? Do people adopt dogs the way they
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: do in the US? And all this other stuff? And
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: he said it used to really bother me, But look
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: at them. There's so much more free than they would
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: be in a kennel or something. And their lives are hard,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: but there's still their lives. You know. I'm still I'm
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: still conflicted about that, you know what I mean? Because
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: are their lives that good? You know? How? First off,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: how long would he have lived like this in the
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: woods if those hunters hadn't intervened, would have lived longer
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: than the wolves who would have ultimately been alone? Again,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: that's very true, and I do see all that, so
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: it's hard to say. I don't know. Yeah, it's tough
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: to say which life is better. I guess that is
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: what I'm getting what I'm struggling with. Yeah, And I'm
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: right there with you, man, Although you know what I
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: think we we should mention. You mentioned Gazelle the gazelle kid.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: So this gazelle child. The story comes from someone named
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Jean Claude Augur, who is an anthropologist and was traveling
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: across the Spanish Sahara in nineteen sixty when he met
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: some nomads who told him that there was a wild
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: child living a day's journey away, so he followed their directions.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: The next day he sees this naked kid galloping and
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: gigantic bounds, along with a quote long cavalcade of white gazelles.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: The boy walked on all fours, sometimes assumed an upright gate,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: but he twitched his muscle scalt in those ears like
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: the rest of the herd eight desert roots. He appeared
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: to be herbivorous, and his teeth were leveled like that
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: of a herbivore. But he lived this way for at
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: least another six years. People tried to catch him in
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: a net suspended by helicopter, but unlike so many other
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: feral children, according to this story, he was never removed
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: from his companions. Good. Yes, so he liked that story.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: That's a happy ending, And he lived life as a gazelle.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: But you know, I always, even from a young age,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: I always thought the life of something like a gazelle
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: or a deer must be so oh rife with panic
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: and paranoia and just you know, death around every corner.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: So you know what, maybe I take it back running
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: with the wolf pack might have been safer. Yeah, like
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: befriending some tigers, although that could Uh, you have to
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: work pretty hard to stay on their good side. Right,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: very true. And just to clarify, there was more than
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: one gazelle boy. Uh. And there's also a rumor the
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: gazelle stories are interesting because there are rumors that the
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: entire thing was a hoax made by board reporters. I see.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: So I don't know, because it sounds it sounds kind
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: of unusual, right, it really does. So what are some
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: what what are were there any examples that really stuck
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: out to you of children raised by animals? Yeah, there
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: were a few. But I do want to take an
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: opportunity to point something out, and it's more of me
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: pointing out that I'm kind of a dummy when it
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: comes to this. I did not realize that Gnoam Chomsky
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: was like this pre eminent linguists. He kind of like
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: wrote the paper that figured out about that window of
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: language acquisition that we were talking about earlier. Um. I
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: only knew him from his political um talks and his
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: you know, anti government rhetoric, but apparently early on in
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: his career he was this like incredible linguist. Generative grammar, yeah,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: generative grammar. Yeah. Chompsky doesn't always get the the credit
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: he deserves, at least in nutfield, you know what I mean.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's not something that was super out there,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: but UM, it's fascinating if you look at his work
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: in that field, he did some really important stuff. So UM,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: moving on to some of my favorite feral children. I
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: got one that stood out to me at least it
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: kind of and it sort of falls in line with
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: what you're talking about earlier, ban about how you'd want
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: to befriend some lions and definitely more like clean than
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: being a gazelle boy. We've got Leopard Boy UM, who
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: was supposedly taken in by a leopard s in nineteen twelve,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: and UM lived with her for three years. Of course,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: surprise surprise, managers the picture and kills the leopard Um
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: and found her offspring, one of which was was this
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: boy who was now five years old UM and he
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: they found his family and again this was in India,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: and UM is very very similar to UH to the
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: wolf boy, where he was most comfortable running around on
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: all fours. Um. He had callouses to the point of
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: almost like paw pads on his hands and feet, and
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: he had a very tough hide just from you know,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: can you imagine scampering through the woods and getting nicked
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: by tree branches and I'll call manner of rough edge,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean, you would have to really develop
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: some thick skin literally right, crawling trees as well, right yep.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: And he was a bye eater and a fighter as
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: you might have to be. And he would eat live
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: chickens from around the village straight up. Sea horse teeth,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: my man, big time. You're bringing it back. I'm bringing
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: it back. I knew you would. One of us had
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: to if we did, in case, he would probably have
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: jumped in right before the end. But this story is
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: so sad. He actually apparently uh gradually lost his sight
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: due to cataracts, but that was just a coincidence to
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: do with his upbringing or his jungle days. So you know,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: I put it to you would have been better off
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: hanging out with the leopard family in the jungle. I
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: see how a man hadn't swooped in and murdered his mother. Yeah,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: it's a it's a philosophical question at this point. You know, now,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: what were there any other ones that really stuck out
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: to you? I think we mentioned a chicken boy, we did,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: we should follow, we should deliver on that. This particular
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: chicken boy came from Fiji, uh and he was dubbed
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: Sujeet Kumar, the Chicken Boy of Fiji, and was found
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy eight and is one of the sad ones,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: like you had mentioned earlier, very very sad. In fact,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: he had a very tragic, dysfunctional childhood. His parents as
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: punishment locked him in the chicken coop, and his mother
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: took her own life, and his father was killed, and
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: apparently his grandfather, who sounds like a terrible twisted man,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: kept him in the chicken coop and was there for
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: eight years. He was found in the middle of the
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: road clucking and flapping his arms and and pecking. It
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: is this is this is dark, dude. I don't want
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: to end on this one. Well, it does have a
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: happy ending because he got out. Yeah, then he has
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: human assistance. And you know, according to everything that I found,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: he's still living and he has cared for by the
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: woman who rescued him from the home a woman named
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Clayton. So um, good good on her. That is
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: a dark one though. Wow. I'm just saying nowadays, were
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: I out in the wilderness and I saw a dirty
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: naked kid running around with any sort of animal, I
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: would feel responsible. I feel like I have to call
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: the authorities, yes, in case the kid had, you know,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: been lost or separated from their parents. It's true, It's true. Man.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: I don't know why I go nax to grind about this.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of it has to do with
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: just man thinking he knows best. Now. But here's the thing.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: I mean very ages about this, because if I walked
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: out and I saw somebody our age running around naked
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: with some wolves or whatever, I would just say, keep going, man,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: more power to you, you know what I mean. They've
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: clearly made their choice. But let us know what you
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: think would would age matter if you saw somebody running
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: naked through the woods with some animals with the type
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: of animal matter you know, And we want to hear
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: your stories of any fair old children, whether you think
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: they're anecdotal or whether you think they are backed up
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: by evidence, because as we're looking through this, we found
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: a lot these were either I hate to say, sensationalized,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: but maybe exaggerated in some cases sure you know, and
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: some cases that were some actual I'll call them con
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: jobs uh in Europe in days of yore. But we
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: as always want to hear from you. You can find
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. We especially like to recommend
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: our community page, Ridiculous Historians, which has really been cooking
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: with gas, really has um, so please join us over there.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: We'd like to thank our super producer Casey pegram as
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: always for being uh straight seahorset teath our favorite new expression.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: We gotta use it like once an episode. Now now now
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: we don't want to. We don't want to. We don't
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: want to. We don't want to burn out. I don't
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: want to wear it thin um. We'd like to thank
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: our buddy Alex Williams who composed our theme, our research
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: associates Christopher Eves and Gabe, and I would like to
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: thank you Nold, because I have been sneak eating Derrito's
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: this entire episode, trying not to be rude. I just
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: haven't eaten spoiler alert. Wasn't that sneaky ground? Oh? Could
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: you hear it? I can smell the dust well Hopefully
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: it doesn't translate to the to the podcast let us know.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Did you hear Ben sneak eating shame him? Did you
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: congratulate me? There you go. You always have to be
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: you know, it's better to be positive. Very true, Ben,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: very true,