Tarzancíto

The naked wild boy lived on his own, scampering around the jungle between Ahuachápan and Sonsonate, in El Salvador.  Villagers had been aware of him for a couple years, but efforts to catch him always failed.  He was a superb runner, swimmer, and tree climber.  Folks called him Tarzancíto (Little Tarzan).  The lad lived on a diet of wild fruit and raw fish.  He slept up in the branches to avoid becoming a warm meal for hungry predators.

When a woodcutter finally captured him in 1933, the boy was about five years old.  You must understand that Tarzancíto was not, in any way, delighted about his “rescue,” and he took every opportunity to escape.  He was a healthy, happy wild animal, and all he wanted to do was go back home, to the jungle.

He often attacked and bit his captors, but they were civilized people, and refused to let him go.  In their minds, it was intolerable to allow a young boy to be illiterate, unbaptized, naked, and free.  Proper young boys should understand words and numbers, sleep indoors, wear clothing, and eat cooked food on a clockwork schedule.  Tarzancíto hated this.

His life in the jungle had been enormously stimulating, because the land overflowed with an abundance of living beings, all of them fully alive, free, and dancing to the wild music of the big beat.  It was no different from living in paradise, because it was paradise.  Compared to the rapture of life in the jungle, life in a box in the village was crushingly empty, dull, and sad.

I think about Tarzancíto with great fondness.  The lucky lad was merely five years old, but he could live at one with the land, easily, confidently, and happily.  Indeed, the human journey originally began in a similar jungle, long, long ago.  The jungle is the womb of our species, our sacred home, the mother of our evolution.  Nutritious food was available year round, and we could enjoy a wonderful life without tools, weapons, clothes, fire, or cell phones.  We were simply ordinary animals, thriving in pure fairyland.

To this very day, all of our wild relatives in the family of life continue to exist as ordinary animals, living in a state of balance, innocence, and integrity.  Their populations are not exploding, they are not erasing vast forests, they are not poisoning the sacred waters.  Deer continue to live like deer, ducks continue to live like ducks, but most humans have forgotten how to live like humans.

The amazing thing is that all humans everywhere are still born as ordinary wild animals, ready for a thrilling life in the jungle.  Sadly, almost none of them are born into tribes of wild jungle people anymore.  Most are born into societies of consumers, where they are raised to be the opposite of wild, free, and healthy.

Ordinary animals rarely get the respect they deserve.  Exactly what happened to the countless millions of mastodons, wooly mammoths, Irish elk, sabre tooth tigers, cave bears, aurochs, and on and on?  Everyone agrees that they were not driven to extinction by ordinary wild animals.  A number of reputable scholars have concluded that most or all of the megafauna were exterminated by human tool addicts, notably lads with the deadly new stone-tipped lances — creatures that had abandoned ordinary, and had come to live outside the laws of nature.

Long, long ago, our ancestors started farting around with simple tools of sticks and stones.  So did the ancestors of chimps.  The ancient chimps were blessed with good luck, and never swerved into the tool addict lane.  Yes, they used sticks to fish for termites, but this useful trick never mutated into a dependency.  Chimps can still survive perfectly well without termite sticks.  Our ancestors were not so lucky.  Gradually, across long spans of time, our cleverness with tools increased.  Eventually, we became highly addicted to them, and could no longer survive without them.

Our ancestors were not evil.  It was with good intentions that they innocently slid deeper and deeper into the technology trap.  They invented better hunting tools, killed more critters, and ate very well, for a while.  Their numbers grew to the point where they could not all fit in Africa anymore.  Many clans packed up and migrated to other continents, into challenging non-jungle ecosystems where it was impossible to survive without new and improved technology.  We are the only species that wears clothes.

It was inevitable that we would wake up one day with our backs up against the wall — too many humans, not enough wild food.  We started farting around with domestication, and our success with it was the most unlucky event in the entire human journey.  This led to the emergence of civilizations, insane societies obsessed with a single idea — perpetual growth.  These runaway trains doomed the long-term survival of far less destructive hunter-gatherer groups, most of which have now blinked out.

There’s a very important lesson here.  In a number of ways, we remain ordinary wild animals.  Like every other species, humans have almost no powers of foresight, because animals who live within the laws of nature have no need for foresight.  I could be gazing at a group of wooly mammoths right now, if only the inventor of the stone-tipped lance had the foresight to imagine the consequences of giving weapons of mass destruction to a gang of scruffy-looking illiterate longhaired rednecks.  Lions and tigers and bears have no need for long-term thinking, because they live in their natural manner.  They simply hunt with tooth and claw, an ancient time-proven method that doesn’t rock the ecological boat.

Likewise, the first farmers could not begin to imagine the catastrophic changes that their clever new stunt would unleash.  New innovations that provided short term benefits tended to be highly contagious.  If your neighbors adopted guns, horses, or corn-growing, you would be wise to do likewise, in order to survive.  Few hunter-gatherers refused knives, pots, or axes.  Bows and arrows spread to just about everywhere.  In the wake of stone-tipped lances, the disaster of technological innovation snowballed exponentially, and has yet to slow down.

Today, our civilized world is rolling and tumbling into a turbulent era of collapse, downsizing, and healing.  There are far too many of us, living far too hard, but the temporary bubble of abundant energy is thankfully moving toward its conclusion.  The remaining days of extreme madness are numbered.  It would be grand if this led to great awakening, and inspired us to explore better ways of living.  If humans manage to survive the coming storms, they would be wise to remember the lessons of Tarzancíto — live as simply as possible, joyfully.

Wolf-Children and Feral Man

Reverend J. A. L. Singh was ordained in 1912, and became a missionary.  He spent over 20 years wandering through the vast forests of deepest, darkest India, saving the souls of Hindus and assorted animists.  He travelled with an entourage of at least 30 men, including drummers, to reduce the odds of becoming lunch for tigers.  Along with his wife, he operated an orphanage in Midnapore. 

In the autumn of 1920, he began hearing reports from villagers who were living in fear because of “man-ghosts” in the forest.  An investigation revealed that the ghosts lived in a termite mound that also served as a wolves’ den.  Singh’s men broke into the den, and out flew three adult wolves and two pups.  Inside the den, they found two naked, filthy human girls who viciously bit and scratched the uninvited visitors.

The wolf-girls were captured and taken back to the orphanage, where they were given the names Amala and Kamala.  Amala was about one and a half years old, and Kamala was about eight.  They could not stand or walk upright, but moved on all fours, with their palms to the ground.  They could run so fast that it was difficult to catch them.  They frequently tried to escape and return to precious freedom. 

The girls did not speak, and preferred to sit by themselves, away from humans, in dark places.  They could see very well at night, and had excellent senses of smell and hearing.  After midnight, they would prowl around the yard and howl from time to time.  They ate and drank like dogs, preferring a diet of milk and raw meat.  Clothing was immediately ripped off.  They were impervious to cold weather, and did not sweat when it was very hot.

Amala died after a year in captivity.  Kamala survived for nine years at the orphanage.  Eventually, she learned to stand upright, and walk on two feet, in a wobbly manner.  She learned a few words, and could nod yes or no.  She died on November 14, 1929.  Reverend Singh kept a diary about the wolf girls, and took some photos of them.  A number of reputable witnesses verified that this story was true.  Skeptical scholars failed to discover evidence of mischief.

Singh’s diary became part one of Wolf-Children and Feral Man.  The second half of this book, Feral Man, was written by Professor Robert M. Zingg.  This book is fascinating, important, and unforgettable.

Zingg shared a number of stories about other wolf children, all quite similar to Amala and Kamala in their appearance, behavior, and failure to “recover” to “normal.”  In the old days, for religious reasons, Indians did not kill wolves, even if the wolf had their child in its mouth.  Poor families often slept outside during the hot season.  Field workers would commonly set their babies on the ground.  It was perfectly normal and natural for predators to seize easy prey.  An estimated 5,000 to 6,000 children were carried away by wolves every year in British India.  Some of the kids were not eaten, but raised by the wolves. 

One story described the capture of a wolf-boy who was about ten years old.  He had been snatched by wolves when he was four.  He could pronounce one sound: “aboodeea.”  At night, he would sit on a hillside, where he would be visited by his wolf relatives.  They would play and howl together.  Finally, the boy found his opportunity, and ran away.  He was never seen again.

A 1920 story told of an Indian boy who spent three years with leopards.  Many children were raised by bears in India, Lithuania, Poland, Denmark, Turkey, and Hungary.  There were also wolf-children in Europe.

In 1931, peasants in El Salvador discovered a wild child, but were not able to capture him until 1933.  When captured, Tarzancito was about five years old.  He had lived independently, dining on fruits, fish, and other forest delicacies.  Five years old!

Feral humans fiercely resisted efforts to capture them.  In captivity, they often made efforts to escape, even jumping from second floors.  Some were chained to trees.  They were not fond of the funny-looking creatures who wore clothing, ate cooked food, slept indoors, held them against their will, and tirelessly tried to force them into living a totally unnatural way of life.  Freedom was their one and only desire.

The German scholar, August Rauber, believed that feral humans were not ordinary idiots by birth; they were idiots because of isolation.  They suffered from dementia ex separatione.  The unfortunate feral idiots were separated from the wonders of civilization, and were reduced to living in harmony with the ecosystem.  Heretical wordsmiths cannot help but wonder if it’s not the other way around.  Could a global pandemic of dementia ex separatione be hammering billions of civilized people who have lost their connection to life?  Could this explain the perplexing daffiness of consumer society? 

Maybe 100,000 years ago, humans were more or less ordinary animals.  By 40,000 years ago, we were painting in caves, wearing clothes, using tools, and accumulating knowledge.  We had developed culture — a powerful and dangerous thing.  Cultural evolution could change human society a million times faster than genetic evolution, and cultural evolution has never been guided by wisdom or foresight.  About 10,000 years ago, exceedingly clever humans invented catastrophe — the domestication of plants and animals — and cultural evolution blasted into warp speed. 

In Ishmael, Daniel Quinn described two forms of human cultures: Takers (civilized) and Leavers (“primitive”).  The emergence of Taker societies created a sharp break from relative harmony and balance.  As it took root, Taker culture resembled an aggressive cancer that grows as quickly as possible until it kills its host.  Today, Leaver cultures are on the brink of extinction.

The Taker bubble is temporary, because it is totally unsustainable.  It will end either by wisdom or by self-inflicted wounds.  Our current disaster could never have happened without the development of culture — the ongoing accumulation of knowledge and technology. 

Is it possible that our acquisition of culture by 40,000 years ago moved us beyond the point of no return?  We ceased being ordinary animals, and turned into unstable loose cannons, entrusting our fate to the freaky whims of cultural evolution.  Were Leaver cultures simply embryonic forms of slowly developing disasters?  How many of them refused to accept new things like horses, maize, guns, and iron pots? 

Amala and Kamala were not Takers or Leavers.  They had no culture.  They show us a third category of humankind that we routinely disregard — free people — ordinary animals (like every newborn baby).  Free people had no language, no tools, no fire, no self-awareness, no directed thinking, no sin, no guilt, no greed.  They could catch birds, fish, and frogs with their bare hands, and eat them raw.  They ate birds’ eggs, roots, nuts, berries.  They could survive for years in a state of pure freedom, while leaving no scars on the ecosystem.  This was the norm for almost the entire hominid journey.

Takers, with their plows and armies, could easily suppress Leavers.  Leavers, with their spears and bows, could easily suppress the free people.  The free people were completely in harmony with their ecosystem, but were sitting ducks for human societies having cultures.

Zingg quoted a frustrated gent who failed to tame the Wild-boy of Aveyron, “In spite of five years’ ingenious tutelage, the boy never became a normal human being.”  What exactly is a normal human being?

Singh, J. A. L. and Zingg, Robert M., Wolf-Children and Feral Man, Archon Books, 1966.  [1939]