1920, in a mountain village near Calcutta, India, after killing the wolf, two girls raised by the wolf were found in the wolf's den. The older one is about seven or eight years old and his name is kamala. The youngest is about 2 years old and his name is Amara. Later, they were sent to an orphanage to be raised. The following year, Amara died and kamala lived.
1929. j·e· Singer, the director of the orphanage, recorded in detail the re-education process of these two wolf children in his book Wolf Children and Savages.
When the wolf child was first discovered, his life habits were the same as those of wolves; Walking on all fours; Sleep during the day and come out at night, afraid of fire, light and water; I only know that when I'm hungry, I look for food, and when I'm full, I sleep. Eat meat instead of vegetarian food (don't hold it with your hands, put it on the ground and eat it with your teeth); I can't talk. I howl like a wolf after midnight. After seven years of education, kamala mastered 45 words, barely learned a few words, and began to move towards people's living habits. When she died, she was estimated to be around 16 years old, but her intelligence was only equivalent to that of a child of 3 or 4 years old.
If the wolf child is not born with congenital defects, this case shows that human knowledge and talent are not born, and walking upright and talking are not born instinct. These are the products of acquired social practice and labor. From birth to primary school, this age stage is extremely important for people's physical and mental development. Because at this stage, the development of human brain has different age characteristics, the development of speech may have a critical period (the pronunciation system gradually forms a relatively stable neural pathway, which is difficult to change in the future). Missing this critical period will bring irreparable losses to people's psychological development. Therefore, children who have been divorced from human social environment for a long time will not have the brain functions that people have, nor will they be able to produce abstract thinking and human consciousness associated with language. If adults leave human society for a long time for some reason and then come back, the above situation will not occur. This proves that human social environment plays a decisive role in the physical and mental development of babies from both positive and negative aspects.
In addition, people also found Xiong Haizi, leopard children, monkey children and sheep-fed children. Like wolf children, they have the habit of raising their wild animals. In the 1970s, another wolf child was found in India, and people are doing further research to try to uncover all the secrets of the wolf child's life.
It was in 1920, a small town called Midnapol in the northeast of Calcutta, India. People often see a "mysterious creature" haunting the nearby forest. Often at night, two "humanoid monsters" landing on all fours follow the three wolves. Later, people killed the wolf, and finally found these two "monsters" in the wolf's den, which turned out to be two naked girls. The oldest is about seven or eight years old and the youngest is about two years old. The two little girls were sent to the orphanage in Midnapo and raised, and they were given names. The older one is kamala, and the younger one is Amara. The following year, Amara died and Kamara lived to 1929. This is the once sensational "Wolf Child" incident.
According to the book review published in the April issue of American Journal of Natural History 1976, Singh, the discoverer of "Wolf Child" and the owner of the orphanage, recorded in detail how he and his wife worked together in Qi Xin to turn these two girls like wolves into human beings, with comments from American anthropologist Zinger.
① This book was published in 1947 and reprinted in 1966.
There is more than one example of a beast like the Indian "Wolf Child" raising human children. 1875, Linnaeus, a famous Swedish biologist, wrote a book about biological classification, which recorded the cases of raising children by wild animals: for example, 1344 found children raised by wolves in Hesse, Germany; Children who grew up with bears found in Lithuania1661; And 1672 sheep-fed children found in Iran. It is said that there are also cases of "wolf children" recorded in ancient books in China.
Recently, the comrades in the knowledge group of the editorial department of Shanghai Youth Daily also provided an interesting material for this article-according to the Iraqi Di Zi Journal (1978) No.339 report:
A group of doctors and psychology professors will go to Nairobi, Kenya, to study a boy who once lived among monkeys.
The boy was found by some villagers in Burundi four years ago. When he was found, he was naked, mostly hairy, crawling and jumping on all fours. After intense pursuit, the villagers caught him. First he was sent to a mental hospital, and now he lives in a hospital in Kenya.
People named him "John". It is confirmed that he is eight years old. He was separated from his family in the forest, or was left alone after all his family suffered misfortune. The monkeys were very happy to see him and raised him as their own child to protect him from other animals.
After being discovered, he learned to walk on two feet for some time, and his temperament became docile because he returned to human life. However, he still can't speak. At first, he only ate bananas, but gradually he got used to eating all kinds of foods that people eat.
The most famous story about abandoned children who grew up in the forest is 1797. During the French Revolution, hunters found a boy of 17 years old from the forest. Because he was isolated from human society for a long time, he became a "beast-like child" when he was found. This discovery has aroused widespread concern in academic circles and has been studied in many aspects. The wild child died at the age of 40. It is said that after a long period of artificial training, he was finally "domesticated" and "lost all animal behaviors". 1976 published the book "The Wild Boy of Avilon", which introduced the general situation of the discovery of this wild boy.
By the end of 1950s, 30 children were known to have grown up in the wild, of which 20 were raised by wild animals: 5 were bears, 1 were leopards, and 14 were raised by wolves, the most famous of which was the Indian "wolf child" mentioned at the beginning of this article.
People will ask: how did these "wolf children" live after returning to human society? How are they different from normal children?
According to records, the Indian "wolf child" mentioned in the article was just found walking on all fours. He landed on his knees and hands when he walked slowly, and on his palms and soles at the same time when he ran fast. They always like to act alone, hiding during the day and sneaking around at night. Afraid of fire, light and water, people are not allowed to bathe them. Eat meat instead of vegetarian food. You don't have to hold it with your hands when eating, but put it on the ground and eat it with your teeth. Every day from midnight to three in the morning, they howl like wolves. They have no feelings, only know that they feed when they are hungry, rest when they are full, and take no initiative to take interest in others for a long time. But they soon learned to ask Singh's wife for food and water, just like domestic dogs. Just one year later, when Amara died, people saw Kamala "crying-there was a tear in every eye".
According to research, when kamala, who was seven or eight years old, was first discovered, he only knew what a six-month-old baby knew. It took a lot of effort to make her adapt to the human lifestyle quickly. It took two years to walk upright and six years to learn to walk independently, but she had to use her limbs when she ran fast. I didn't really learn to speak until I died: I learned only six words in four years, understood a few simple words, learned only 45 words in seven years, and barely learned a few words. In the last three years, kamala finally learned to sleep at night. She is afraid of the dark. Unfortunately, she died just as she began to move towards human living habits. Singh estimated that kamala was about 16 years old when he died, but his intelligence was only equivalent to a child of three or four years old!
What does the example of "Wolf Child" tell us?
We know that anthropologists and psychologists often explore the formation process of human language, intelligence and many social behavior habits through observation and experiments on higher apes, but the accidental case of human children living with animals provides a rare opportunity, and valuable information can be obtained through observation and research on people in this special situation.
First of all, the fact of "wolf child" proves that human knowledge and talent are not innate, but the product of human social practice. People are not isolated, but highly socialized people. Without the social environment and collective life of human beings, the inherent characteristics of human beings cannot be formed. The human brain is the product of the long-term development of the material world and does not automatically produce consciousness. Its raw materials come from the objective outside world and from people's social practice. Therefore, if we lose this social environment and unique habits of human beings from childhood, his intelligence and talent will not develop, just like when the "Wolf Child" was just discovered: he can't speak with his mouth and think with his brain, and the difference between man and beast will be blurred.
What needs to be pointed out here is that "Wolf Child" itself is the descendant of human beings for generations, so when "Wolf Child" returns to human society, it will inevitably gradually restore the unique habits of human beings. Although the Indian "wolf child" looks like a beast, she died very close to people. Singers' domestic dogs have never learned to walk upright, let alone talk.
Secondly, the example of "Wolf Child" illustrates the importance of childhood in people's physical and mental development. In a person's life, childhood is a period of rapid physical and psychological development. For example, in terms of brain weight, the average weight of newborns is about 390 grams, 9-month-old babies are 560 grams, 2.5-3-year-old children are 900 ~10, 7-year-old children are about 1280 grams and adults are about10. This shows that children's brains develop rapidly under the influence of social environment. It was in my childhood that I gradually learned to walk upright and speak, and learned to think with my brain, which laid the foundation for the future development of intelligence and talent. "Wolf children" missed the opportunity of social practice because they grew up in animals, which made their intelligence level far less than that of normal children of the same age.
Third, just as the individual's development history is a brief repetition of its development history, the growth process of human children's intelligence also reflects the development history of human intelligence from apes to humans. Due to the lack of social practice, "wolf children" failed to learn to walk upright, but only crawled on all fours, which hindered the use of their speech organs-larynx and vocal cords, and prevented them from producing a language with distinct syllables. More importantly, due to the separation from human society, there is naturally no need for Indian "wolf children" to produce language. In addition, they always crawl on all fours, face down and have to get impressions from below, which makes their brains unable to get more impressions than other quadrupeds, which fundamentally hinders their intellectual development. The example of "Wolf Child" profoundly reflects from the opposite side that without the upright walking and the formation of language in the process of human origin, human ancestors could not realize the transformation from apes to humans, and the upright walking and the formation of language could not be separated from the most basic practical activity-labor. Therefore, the wolf child gave people a profound revelation: without labor, it is impossible to realize the transformation from apes to people!
◆ Developmental psychology
* Research and theory of psychological development: heredity, environment and psychological development, maturity, learning and psychological development, motivation of psychological development, education and development, stage theory of cognitive development, genetic epistemology, stage theory of representation model development, stage theory of personality development, stage theory of moral development, repetition theory, pediatrics, games, imitation, sculpture, critical period, egocentrism, early experience, parent-child relationship, etc.
* Individual development stages: fetus, newborn, infancy, infancy, childhood, adolescence, adolescence, adulthood, old age, etc.
* child psychology:
* * Action development: sucking reflex, rooting reflex, grasping and pinching reflex, Babinsky reflex, etc.
* * Cognitive development: attention development, sensory perception development, memory development, intelligence development, language development, thinking development, etc.
* * Personality development * * Only child * * Extraordinary child * * Mentally retarded child * * Problem child * * Defective child * * Wolf child.
* Juvenile psychology * Youth psychology * Adult psychology * Geriatric psychology * Lifelong development psychology