The images and the stories you’re about to see might look like an episode from unsolved mysteries, but that’s not the case. The images are recreated, but the stories are real. Julia Fullerton-Batten is a German-born, London-based photographer and this is her newest project.
The whole idea of this project is to show the world how it looks like to grow up under unusual circumstances. But the word unusual is probably not good enough to describe the fate of these feral children.
We all have bad childhood memories, and some of us didn’t even had a happy childhood at all. But this is on a different level. The London-based photographer was inspired by The Girl With No Name: The Incredible Story of a Child Raised by Monkeys book.
“I found that there were quite a number of these. Some cases resulted from children becoming lost, snatched by wild animals, and especially those left or neglected by their parents. The documented cases exist over four of the five continents,” she said.
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This sounds like Mowgli, but this is not a cartoon. This girl was living with wolfs, and she was seen running on all fours while hunting a heard of goats. She was even captured once, but she managed to escape and return to the wild.
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Marina had a quite interesting life indeed. She was kidnaped at the age of 5 and left in the jungle by her kidnappers. She managed to survive thanks to a group of capuchin monkeys. She was basically raised as a monkey as well. She learned to climb trees and she ate bananas, roots and berries. She couldn’t speak when she was found by a group of hunters who later sold her to a brothel. She managed to escape from the brothel and ended up being enslaved by a mafia-style family. Her life changed when she was saved by a neighbor who adopted her as well. She moved to Bradford, Yorkshire in the UK in 1977 and how she’s married and has her own family.
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It seems like humans can easily get along with wolfs and dogs. The Shamdeo boy was living with a pack of wolfs since he was only 4 years old. He ate and behave like a wolf. Just like the Oxana girl, when the boy was discovered he changed his diet to raw meat to cooked meat but he still had problems with social and verbal skills. He only managed to learn the some sign language, and he never talked.
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You don’t need to live in the jungle to lose your human touch. The Bird Boy lived with his mother in a tiny, two-bedroom apartment. But he wasn’t alone. His mother had plenty of pet birds, and even though she didn’t abuse the boy or mistreated him, she didn’t speak to him at all. She treated him just like one her birds. He couldn’t speak when he was found, he only chirped and waved his hands and arms when he wasn’t understood. He’s now released into child care by his mother and doctors are working hard on his rehabilitation.
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At the age of 3, the Oxana Malaya girl was left outside in the cold by her alcoholic parents. Looking for a warmth she moved into the farm kennel to cuddle with the dogs. This act probably saved her life, and she spent 6 years of her life living with the dogs. That’s the reason why she acted more like a dog than a human being when she was discovered. She only knew two words at the time “yes” and “no.” She is now 30 years old and intensive therapy, but she still has the social and verbal skills with the ability of a five year old.
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The Madina girl was left by her father and her alcoholic mother didn’t care for her at all. She was forced to live with a group of dogs. She ate and slept with the dogs, and she didn’t learn how to speak. She’s rescued now and despite having an unusual childhood, she is mentally and physically healthy. Which means that there’s hope for Madina to live a normal life as soon as she learns how to socialize.
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Genie was extremely abused by her father, and we’re not talking about ordinary abuse here. When she was born, her father decided she was “retarded” and restrained Genie in a child’s toilet seat in a small room of the house. That’s how she lived for more than 10 years. She was rescued by the child support service when she was 13 years old. But she didn’t talk at all, and she became a research object. When the funding was cut, she moved from a foster home to another foster home while constantly being abused. She ended up in a private facility for mentally underdeveloped adults where she probably spent the rest of her life.
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This is quite an unusual story as well. This boy from India was taken by leopards when he was only two years old. He lived with the leopard family for 3 years, until the hunters managed to locate the boy and kill the leopards. When the boy returned to his family, he couldn’t speak and he behaved like a Leopard. He was extremely aggressive, he ran on all fours caught and ate the village fowl raw. Even though he started to socialize, he became blind from cataracts.
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His mother committed suicide and his father was killed. But before that, this boy lived in a chicken coop because he exhibited dysfunctional behavior as a child. His grandfather took care of him after his parents died, but he was still locked in a chicken coop. And when he was rescued, he crouched on a chair as if roosting and even pecked at his food. He moved to live with the woman who saved his life; Elizabeth Clayton.
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The jungle girls were found in 1920 in a wolves’ den. Kamala, 8 years old, and Amala, 12 were discovered by Reverend, Joseph Singh. He captured the girls after noticing how they ran on all fours and didn’t look human at all. Even after they were captured, they only ate raw food and howled. Sadly, Amala died just a year after she was captured with no progress at all. Her sister died from of kidney failure when she was 17, but she managed to walk upright and say a few words.
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Abused by his family, Ivan the pup boy ran away when he was only 4 years old. He lived on the streets and begged for food. He managed to develop a relationship with a pack of street dogs. Ivan became the pack leader after sharing the food he got from begging. Luckily, he was rescued after spending two years at the streets and he managed to fully recover.
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This is just one of the two cases where humans were able to make it on their own in the wild. Marie spent 10 years in the jungle on her own. She walked for miles, she hunt on her own and fought off wild animals with a club. She couldn’t eat raw food for years, until she was rescued by the Queen of Poland, mother to the French queen in 1737. That’s when her life changed and she started to socialize.
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John Ssebunya, or known as the monkey boy, run away from home when he saw how his father murdered his mother. He was just 3 years old when he started to live with a pack of monkeys. Not surprisingly, he behaved like a monkey and ate roots, nuts, sweet potatoes and cassava before he was rescued. He managed to socialize and thanks to his great singing voice that was later discovered, he ended up singing and touring in the UK with the 20-strong Pearl of Africa children’s choir.
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Victor, the wild boy from France, is the second case of a human being living on its own in the jungle. The first time Victor was captured was at the end of the 18th century in the woods of Saint Sernin sur Rance, but he escaped. He was caught again when he was 12 years old, and this time the news were spread across France about Victor’s life. Plenty of people wanted to examine and socialize Victor, but with no progress. He died at the age of 40 in an institution in Paris.
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