WILD CHILDREN: 11 SURPRISING REAL CASES - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

The wild children are infants who have grown up in jungles, forests and generally removed by society because they were lost or orphaned. They normally live away from human contact from an early age without having had relationships with other people, or having heard language.

Some wild children have been confined by people (usually their own parents), and in some cases this abandonment was due to the parents' rejection of a child's severe intellectual or physical retardation.

These children may have experienced severe abuse or trauma before being abandoned or running away. They are often subjects of folklore and legends, typically portrayed as being raised by animals.

The mythology of wild children

Myths, legends, and fiction have depicted wild children raised by animals such as wolves, apes, monkeys, and bears. Famous examples include Romulo and Remus, Tarzan and Mowgli.

They are often depicted as growing up with relatively normal human intelligence and skills and an innate sense of culture or civilization, along with a healthy dose of survival instincts. Furthermore, their integration into human society is made to appear relatively easy.

However, the reality is that when a scientist tries to rehabilitate a wild child, he encounters many difficulties.

What are wild children really like?

Wild children lack the basic social skills normally learned in the process of enculturation. For example, they may be unable to learn to use a toilet, have trouble learning to walk upright after walking on all fours, or show a complete lack of interest in human activities.

They often appear to be mentally challenged and have almost insurmountable trouble learning human language. The inability to learn a natural language after being isolated for so many years is often attributed to the existence of a critical period for language learning and is taken as evidence in favor of the critical period hypothesis.

11 real cases of wild children

1- Vicente Caucau

This child, known as "the wolf child" was found in southern Chile in 1948 and it seems that he was raised by pumas. The locals of Puerto Varas began to realize that food was lacking in their pantries, chickens and eggs in the chicken coops. Without knowing who could be responsible, the neighbors went to report.

After several hours searching the forest, they found the culprit: a 10-year-old boy who walked on all fours and was covered in hair, which caused great surprise because no one understood how he had survived in those conditions. The little boy grunted, bit and scratched like an animal; so they put him in jail.

Later on, he was taken in by a religious hospital where the psychiatrist Armando Roa took care of the child together with Gustavo Vila. They taught him to say a few words and changed his eating habits, although, on full moon nights, he still howled like a wolf.

After a while he was referred to Berta Riquelme, a language specialist who ended up adopting Vicente. She developed a happy life and managed to adapt to the world, dying at the age of 74.

2- Marcos Rodríguez Pantoja

This Spaniard is known for living with wolves for 12 years. When he was little, Marcos' mother died and his father married another woman, settling in Fuencaliente, Sierra Morena. At the age of 7 and after having undergone abuse, they sold the little boy to a goatherd with whom he lived in a cave.

But this man died, leaving Marcos completely alone before nature where he fought to survive with the help of wolves and without having any contact with humans.

In 1965 the Civil Guard found him and he was admitted to a Madrid hospital where they educated him and taught him the language.

This case was studied by the writer and anthropologist Gabriel Janer Manila, who came to the conclusion that Marcos had survived due to his brilliant intelligence and the adaptive capacities that he had already acquired when he was mistreated by his father. Then the child was able to learn the noises of animals, and could communicate with them.

Despite managing to adapt to the world of humans, Marcos always preferred things related to animals and the countryside, rejecting life in the city.

This case has managed to inspire several, such as Kevin Lewis who wrote a children's book called “Marcos” or Gerardo Olivares, who directed the movie “Entrelobos”.

3- Oxana Malaya

This is the case of a Ukrainian girl who was found living with dogs in 1991.

Oxana lived in a poor environment, her parents were alcoholics and did not take care of her, leaving her at night in the open. So the girl decided to sleep with the dogs to avoid getting cold in a kennel behind her house.

When they discovered her, she was 8 years old and had been living with the dogs for 6 years, for this reason she behaved like them: she walked on all fours, used their gestures, grunted, barked and could not speak. In addition, it was found that she had developed vision, hearing and smell above normal.

It was very difficult for him to acquire the emotional and social skills necessary to relate; Although he has been working as a farmer since the age of 13 and lives in the Baraboy clinic in Odessa. She was able to learn to speak and to walk upright, but she still shows a clear mental retardation.

4- John Ssabunnya

It was found in Uganda in 1991 by a young woman named Milly when she went into the jungle to look for firewood. She was surprised to see a little boy looking for food with a colony of monkeys (Chlorocebus sabaeus), and she went to the village to ask for help to rescue the little boy, who was resisting.

When he was found he was malnourished, his knees were worn from moving with them, his nails were very long, he climbed trees with great agility and he did not know how to communicate with humans.

It is believed that the boy fled the house when he was 2 or 3 years old when he saw his father brutally kill his mother, spending 3 years living with the monkeys after they offered him yuccas, potatoes and bananas. It seems that from there the monkeys taught him to survive in the jungle and he was one of the colony.

Later he was admitted to a religious orphanage where they taught him to speak, walk, and eat properly; he even entered the choir and learned to play the guitar.

In fact, she has participated in the Special Olympics, has been a chorus girl for Pearl of Africa and lives in her own home in the village of Bombo.

5- Andrei Tolstyk

This wild child known as "the dog child" was found in Siberia when he was 7 years old, and appears to have been raised by a dog since he was 3 months old.

Andrei's mother left home when he was a baby and left him in the care of his father, who had a problem with alcohol and ignored the little boy. According to the doctors, the child was born with speech and hearing problems, which is why the parents did not want to make an effort to take care of him.

Then Andrei ended up spending his days together with the family's watchdog, who somehow helped him survive.

He was found by some surprised social workers, who wondered why this child was not enrolled in any school. When they took him to the orphanage, the little boy was afraid of people, he was aggressive, he did not speak and he behaved like a dog, growling and sniffing the food.

However, the professionals worked to educate him, getting him to walk upright two weeks after his stay there, to start eating with cutlery, making his bed or playing ball.

6- Natasha Lozhkin

This girl from Chita (Siberia) was treated by her family like a pet, being kept in poor condition in a room full of dogs and cats.

When it was discovered in 2006, the girl was 5 years old and it is suspected that she spent her entire life in this way. It behaved like an animal: it drank with its tongue, it barked, it moved on all fours, it was totally dirty and it jumped on top of people like a dog.

The girl ate the food that her family placed behind a door, along with the other animals; And at 5 she had the appearance of a 2 year old girl.

Her parents were arrested for negligence, as they never let her go out. In fact, the neighbors did not even know that they existed, although they noticed that something strange was happening because of the stench that came from the apartment and called the police.

The little girl has been under observation in a social rehabilitation center and the professionals try to help her recover with an extensive education.

7- Rochom P'ngieng

She was born in 1979 in Cambodia and it seems that she got lost in the jungle when she was 9 years old, and she was heard from again in 2007; when she was found trying to steal food in a village.

It is believed that he was lost in the Cambodian forest and the mystery of how he could survive there for so many years remains. Some believe that wild creatures raised her, while others believe that she spent periods in captivity because of the marks found on her wrists, as if she had been tied.

It was very difficult to adapt her to civilization, in fact, she still does not speak, manifests an acquired hearing loss and refuses to dress or eat.

They managed to find her family, who currently take care of her and are forced to lock her up as she tries to escape and continues to behave wildly.

Interestingly, it disappeared for 11 days; so everyone thought he was back in the jungle. But they found it full of debris, in a 10 meter deep bathroom where no one knew how it got there. After that, the jungle woman seems to be more subdued and the progress she made is losing.

It seems that the main problem with their rehabilitation is that they do not have the necessary means for it.

8- Victor of Aveyron

He is the most famous wild child and the most documented case of all time is Victor of Aveyron. It caused a great intellectual and social impact, and the philosophers saw in Victor the opportunity to solve mysteries about human nature such as what human qualities are innate or acquired or how the lack of social contact can be made up in early childhood.

Little Victor was found naked and scarred by 3 hunters in the Caune forest in 1800. Despite his short stature, he seemed to be about 12 years old and some had seen him before running on all fours, looking for acorns. and roots for feeding and climbing trees. On other occasions they tried to capture him, but he ran away, and he refused to wear clothes and had unusual resistance to cold and heat.

The story of how and why he was abandoned was never known, but it is believed that he spent practically his entire life in the forest.

He entered a school in Paris for deaf-mute children and there he was treated by the doctor Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard who observed him conscientiously and tried to re-educate him for the next 5 years.

Itard became a pioneer of special education, making Victor learn to name objects, read, write some sentences, express wishes, follow orders, and even showed affection and emotions.

However, he was never able to learn to speak, which showed that there is a critical stage of learning in which we are prepared to receive language and that when it passes, it is almost impossible to learn it.

If you want to know more, François Truffaut directed a film in 1960 about this case called L'enfant sauvage.

9- Sujit Kumar

This boy, found in 1978 in the Fiji Islands, spent 6 years thinking he was a chicken; since he grew up locked in a chicken coop. It exhibited typical chicken behavior, pecking, cackling and had not acquired speech.

It all started when he was 2 years old, after the suicide of his mother and the murder of his father. The grandparents then decided to lock the child in the chicken coop that was under the house, where he spent 6 years without human contact.

Since there was no place for abandoned children in Fiji and no one wanted to adopt him when they discovered him, he was sent to a nursing home. There he remained 22 years tied to a bed where he received ill-treatment.

However, one day the businesswoman Elizabeth Clayton met Sujit and was greatly moved, so she decided to welcome him into her home. The first months were very hard because he continued to behave like a chicken, he became aggressive, he did not control his needs and he did not sleep in bed; but little by little he got me to learn. He has not been able to speak, but he can communicate with gestures.

Although the authorities tried to take him away, he is currently under the care of Elizabeth, who founded a center for abandoned children.

10- Marina Chapman

Marina does not know her real name, or her own age, nor does she know who her family is. Just remember that when she was 4 years old she was in Colombia, playing in a garden when a man kidnapped her and put her in a truck with more children.

They finally left her alone in the jungle, where she had to learn to survive. According to Marina, one day she ate some bad food and became ill. Then a monkey appeared who took her to a river and forced her to drink to make her vomit.

Thus he began to live with a colony of capuchin monkeys for about five years. Until one day some hunters discovered her and sold her to a brothel where she spent the worst stage of her life, being mistreated by the owner of the site.

However, he managed to escape from there and began to live on the streets of Cúcuta where he survived by stealing food. Later, trying to find work, she ended up being the slave of a mafia family. But life returned to smile when her neighbor rescued her at the age of 14 and sent her to Bogotá with one of her daughters.

Eventually she moved to England, where she married John Chapman and had two daughters. One of them encouraged her to write a book about her life called "the girl with no name."

11- Genie

It is the sad case of a girl named Genie, who is considered a case of abuse both family and professional. This wild girl was found in 1970 in Los Angeles, after more than 11 years of deprivation (absence of stimuli, something very detrimental to the development of the person), abandonment, and physical and psychological abuse.

She was 13 years old and had not learned to speak, was wearing diapers and was unable to walk alone, as she had been locked in a small room all that time, tied to a chair with a urinal. It seems that the family locked her up when she was diagnosed with a hip dislocation and possible mental retardation, refusing to treat her.

This case was discovered because the mother went to seek help from social services, desperate because of the abuse that the father exercised in the family.

Genie was quickly hospitalized to rehabilitate her, resulting in research by a group of psychologists who were trying to determine which factors the person are innate and which are learned, as well as what elements are necessary for language to appear.

In this process, Genie was used and various experiments were carried out, forgetting her value as a human being. She went through 6 different families where she was mistreated again in some cases, causing her learning to barely advance.

Finally, he ended up in a shelter for elderly people with disorders.