© Real World Records
Leviathan Press:
I always think of Herzog's film The Mystery of Caspar Hauser (1974), the famous German wild boy who was also the prototype for Peter Handke's Caspar. Unlike the children raised by animals, Casper was locked up in a dark, cold room from an early age, where he was given bread and water to keep him alive. For the "wolf children" who accidentally appeared in the sight of civilization, raising and re-educating them seemed to be an irreproachable common choice, and behind them seemed to have a faint smell of anthropocentrism. Human children raised by wild beasts, though homo sapiens as we do, have played a certain role that the beasts care about from the beginning (otherwise how could they have been raised). So in the eyes of the beasts, the human companion may not have gone to return to the race, but had been robbed against his will, if they had an emotional system similar to that of humans. For the "wolf children", this change may not be what they want, after all, their imminent "return" to life is exactly where they once avoided it. Perhaps after a few years of assimilation they will have a completely different view and even rejoice in what happened at that time, but this is not the result of indoctrination. Moreover, for human beings who have encountered wild children, the initiative to bring them back to human society can certainly be called some kind of humanitarianism, and we will not doubt that there are other undesirable purposes in this regard. But does the motivation include the removal of some kind of "humanoid heresy," or the denial of animality that has always been seen as the antithesis of human nature? This is still a question worth pondering. Byron Metcalf, Steve Roach, Dashmesh Khalsa - From the Inside00:0009:18 We have a new number to follow: Leviathan planet Leviathan-2018
In the years after the fall of the CPSU, with the collapse of the Soviet social fabric, more and more street children began to appear on the streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg. Like the wanderers of London, they had all appeared, but mysteriously disappeared—in an inconsequential and disturbing gesture of interference, submerged into the curtain of city life.
But a boy on the streets of Moscow is different, seemingly neglected but still in the spotlight.
In 1996, four-year-old Ivan Mishukov left home. Unable to handle the relationship between her alcoholic boyfriend and Ivan, the little boy decides to take to the streets away from the chaotic apartment.
Trash cans and stray dogs on the streets of Moscow. This was once where Ivan lived with stray dogs. © Jeremy Nicholl
There are a lot of tramps in Moscow, and there are also a lot of wild dogs, because the city simply can't afford to provide shelter for so many homeless people. So Ivan began begging in the streets and gave a portion of the food he had brought each time to a group of puppies. The dogs gradually began to trust him and became friends with him. Eventually, Ivan even became the captain of the dogs.
Compared to the pattern of human interaction, this relationship looks perfect. He begged for food and shared it with the dogs. On each long dark winter night, the dogs would snuggle up with Ivan and warm him with their own body heat, despite the snow and bitter winds in the streets. If someone wants to bully Ivan or steal from him, the dogs will also stand up for him.
The police found Ivan and wanted to arrest him. But under the protection of the dogs, he managed to escape three times. Eventually, the police placed some food as bait in the kitchen of a restaurant, and the dogs were successfully lured away. Losing the protection of the dogs, the wild boy was quickly caught.
In 1998, Ivan returned to human society. © Real World Records
Ivan has been sleeping on the streets for two years. However, because he has lived in a human family for four years, he can communicate normally with people. After spending some time at the Reutov children's shelter, Ivan began school. He looked no different from other Moscow children. But it is said that he always dreams of dogs at night.
In July 1998, when this extraordinary story was made public, it attracted a lot of attention from the world press. Ivan's experience, however, is not unique. In the past 400 years, several children who have experienced the same experience have been discovered and brought back to human society.
This wild obsession dates back a long time, and there are many similar stories in ancient mythology in which the protagonist is abandoned at birth but raised by animals. For example, the savage education of Cyrus; Moses abandoned by the river; Semiramis, raised by birds; Oedipus, the "swollen foot" abandoned in the barren mountains of Katairong; Amphion and Zethus, born on the peaks of Siselon; Paris, who was fed by bears on Mount Ida; the story of Tirol, Nelius, and Perias; and Aleas, who was fed by a doe.
Such protagonists often become the founders of cities, such as Amphion, whose piano has inspired the stone and built a city around him.
However, the most famous of these should be the founders of the Roman city in Roman mythology, Romulus and Remus, whose stories bear similarities to many other mythological stories. The twins' mother was Rhea Silvia, whose grandfather was Numitor, the former king of Albalonga, but was later usurped by his brother Amulius.
© World History Encyclopedia
Death seemed imminent, but unexpectedly, a she-wolf fed them, and woodpeckers brought them food. After living like this for some time, a shepherd named Faustulus found the brothers and brought them home.
Raised by Fosturus and his wife Acca Larentia, the brothers became increasingly strong and brave. They led a group of outlaws to attack the territory of Amulius, but revealed their true identity. They then overthrew Amurius and restored their grandfather, Numit, to the throne. Then the two brothers set out to build their own city.
Resetting and replacing are at the heart of Romulus and Remus's story: the two brothers take the place of the baby she-wolf, the shepherd couple raises the offspring of others, and Mars inexplicably becomes the scapegoat. As the she-wolf feeds the twins, the baby's lips are tightly wrapped around the she-wolf's nipples, and a cross-species motherhood triumphs over the wild. In this way, the children miraculously survived in nature.
Nature's goodwill warns mankind that only miraculous mercy can wash away man's sins. Because of this, with the birth of Rome, the city was rebuilt.
There are many stories in the Middle Ages about wild beasts raising human children. It seems to be the era of "swan children", and in various mythological stories, it may be female deer, goats, lionesses, wolves, crows, or even a mouse that feeds children.
There are beasts that steal children from their mothers, and there are wild beasts that rescue children from human atrocities. In Octavian's story, a pair of twin boys are raised by an ape and a lioness. An evil child in Sir Gowther tore her nipples apart while her mother fed him and then went into the wild to live alone, only to soon be in trouble. At this time, a dog brought food to save him, which made him begin to repent of his sins.
The most famous of these stories is probably Valentine and Orson. They are twins of the homeless Bellyssant, but they are lost in the forest. One of the boys, Valentine, was soon discovered and returned to human society, while his brother Orson remained in the forest. Orson was taken by a bear and taken back to the nest to feed her cubs. Yet "our eternal friend God has shown us yet another miracle." The baby bears did not eat Orson, but gently stroked him. Perhaps out of compassion, Mother Bear raised Orson as her own child.
© The Victorian Web
After the separation of the brothers, Valentine grew into a civilized man of human society, but Orson became a medieval "savage". In medieval and Renaissance legends, these "savages" often haunted the forest, they were irrational, they ate raw meat, and they could not be tamed; they lived in the woods far from the church bells and died there; they were furry like devils, sometimes full of leaves; they were lonely, always walking alone in the wilderness; they would take children or women from villages; they were brutal and violent. However, if they could be tamed, then the loyal servants of the wandering knights would not have to venture into the deserted forest. But they don't speak.
Valentine and Orson, long-separated twins, recognize each other during a fight and are reunited. Although this is only a fictional story, it enlightens us that civilization and barbarism should be reconciled.
Ivan Mishukov is just one of the most recent examples of this phenomenon in real life. In the 18th century, in the woods near Hameln, Hanover, villagers met a naked boy who they named "Peter the Wild Boy." Later, the Wild Boy lived with George I for a time in the Palace of St. James.
Indian wolf girls Kamala and Amara. © JAL Singh/Gesell
When Victor of Aveyron was found in the woods near Lacaune in 1800, he was naked and silent. Kamala and Amala, Indian wolf girls, were found in the jungles of Midnapore in 1921, and both girls were accustomed to walking on all fours.
However, the story record about Memmie le Blanc, a wild girl in the Champagne region, is more true and complete.
On a night in September 1731, Memi first appeared near the village of Songi. She took a stick and came out of the woods looking for water to drink. She looked about 9 or 10 years old, barefoot, draped in a tattered fur dress, and a gourd leaf hanging from her hair. Villagers say her face and hands are particularly dark.
The villagers made several unsuccessful arrests of her, and even a watchdog was killed by her stick. So everyone tried to trap her with a bucket of water, but she was startled and fled to the top of a tree. A clever villager proposed that women and children stand by the tree because they looked more kind. They smiled at her and acted extremely friendly. Then a woman with a child in her arms went under the tree and handed the little girl some vegetables and two fish, who was obviously hungry and wanted to come down from the tree to take the food.
The woman holding the child remained gentle, smiling and putting one hand on her chest, "as if to assure the little girl that she liked her very much and would not hurt her." "The plot succeeded: the little girl slid down the tree ready to take the food. But the woman continued to seduce her, moving backwards, smiling, and pretending to be very generous. The girl followed her and left the tree. The villagers who were ambushed nearby seized the opportunity at this time and quickly jumped out to catch the girl.
The little girl was then taken to the kitchen of the chateau of Viscount d'Epinoy. The chef was preparing some poultry for the Viscount's dinner. Without anyone noticing, the girl quickly bit down on a dead poultry and began to eat it. When Epinois arrived, he saw the girl eating raw meat, so he had her given a dead rabbit that had not been skinned. The little girl immediately skinned the rabbit and swallowed it.
They examined the girl and asked her some questions, but she couldn't understand a word of French. At first they mistakenly thought the little girl was black, but after bathing her, they found that she was actually white, and the black on her body was dirt, possibly paint. Her hands were strange, and although the palms were as small as those of a normal girl, the fingers were surprisingly large. Later, it was speculated that this might be the result of her frequent jumping around the tree, and like a squirrel, she needed strong fingers to grasp the branches.
She wears a necklace and some pendants, and wears a large animal skin with a small pouch that is up to the knee length. Inside the pouch was a stick and a knife with words engraved on it that no one knew.
© Timeline
Viscount Epinois was the first dignitary to defend the wild girl. The Wild Girl was baptized in 1732 and named Marie-Angelique Memmie Le Blanc. Over the next 10 years, Memmy quickly learned French and lived in several convents, writing her biography by two contemporaries: Madame Hequet and Scottish lawyer James Burnett, later Lord Monboddo.
Memi said she was only seven or eight years old when she was taken. She vaguely remembered that she had been taken to a big ship and then went to a warm country. The slaves at that time were almost all black, so people painted Memi black all over. After that, they crossed the sea in a boat and came to a hot country. There, she was taken to another boat, doing needlework for her master, and if she didn't work, she would be beaten. But the hostess seemed to be very nice to her, and she always sheltered Memi. Later, something went wrong, and the crew hurried into the dinghy, but left Memmy and another black girl on board. Memi and the black girl begin to struggle to get out of the shipwreck, but the black girl doesn't swim very well, and she clutches Memmy's feet tightly to avoid drowning.
Finally, they reached the shore. After landing, Memi began a long life in the wild with the black girl. They would only come out at night to forage for food, because then they would not be noticed, and they would sleep in the trees during the day. They eat roots dug out of the ground and sometimes eat animals raw, like wild beasts. Memi also learned to imitate bird songs because it was very much like a kind of music from her motherland in her memory. However, since neither of the girls understood each other's language, they could only communicate through gestures and frantic shouts, like the screams that Memmy uttered when she was captured by the French.
Burnett wrote: "Although she is now Miss LeBron, just two or three days before she was taken, she was excited when she saw the wreath on the ground that someone had dropped. Whether it was out of novelty, or whether the garland reminded her of something she had seen before, it was unknown... She even danced for it. ”
Fearing that the black girl would snatch the wreath, Memi quickly reached out to pick it up, while the black girl picked up the stick and slammed it into her outstretched hand. Memi's hand was badly injured, but she returned the shot, hitting her opponent in the forehead. The black girl screamed and fell to the ground, her forehead bleeding. With sympathy and guilt, Memi ran to find a frog, then peeled off the frog's skin, applied it to the girl's wound, and wrapped it in bark. In this way, the two companions separated in silence. The injured girl returns to the river, while the victorious girl embarks on the fateful path to The Village of Songkichi.
Memi's experience in Europe parodies and subverts Europe's exploration of a new world. Like "Peter the Wild Boy," she allows us to discover both the strange and new sides of the human world. In Memi's story, we see the little girl's strange life experiences and the difficult situations she has faced, and even as an outsider, we will be shocked.
The French themselves were puzzled and disturbed by Memmy's experience, and her arrival was so inexplicable that it seemed to endanger the safety and certainty of the existence of known things. Without having to take to the streets of Paris, you can experience the history that has been staged in the Americas, Africa, and the South China Sea: the mixed feelings of fear and shame that European colonists had when they first came into contact with the "barbarians."
While Madame Heckay was printing Memmy's biography, Jean-Jacques Rousseau published his seminal book Discourse On The Origins of Inequality. Rousseau regretfully recalls the primitive origins of mankind, arguing that people are gradually losing their former dignity, compassion and vitality in complex societies.
Some of the above stories about wild children are true and some are fictional. Perhaps there is another narrative, the continuing, fragmented and unforgettable relationship between us and our own wild side.
Text/Michael Newton Translation/Sodium potassium
Proofreading/Rabbit's Lingbo microstep
Original/www.theguardian.com/books/2002/jan/19/extract