
A girl was found living among monkeys in an Indian forest - mrb
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/04/07/a-girl-was-found-living-among-monkeys-in-an-indian-forest-how-she-got-there-is-a-mystery/
======
sandworm101
The story is too good. The girl, the monkeys defending her, the policeman ...
all Disney-level stuff but where are the non-disney facts? A real story always
has dark sides. This one is too perfect. I'm not saying that it is all fake,
rather that I don't think we are getting the entire story. I wouldn't be
surprised if we eventually learn that this girl was only living with the
monkeys for a very short while, that her issues are more long-standing.
Perhaps the truth is that she was a disabled girl found amongst monkeys and
the story has been elaborated from those simple facts.

>>> "She behaves like an ape and screams loudly if doctors try to reach out to
her."

Like an ape or like a monkey? She was raised by monkeys but acts like an ape?
A lay person perhaps wouldn't know the difference but by now someone with
knowledge would be on site. I have been around several disabled children. The
screaming and fear of being looked at or touched is not uncommon. No mention
of how she reacts to being clothed? I'm no expert on feral children but I
would expect that after eight years of being naked one would not be happy
about clothing and that would deserve some mention ... unless of course
clothing is nothing new to her.

I want to see her feet, specifically her toes. If she really hasn't ever worn
shoes then her toes will show it.

[http://www.drgangemi.com/kids-health/childs-
shoe/](http://www.drgangemi.com/kids-health/childs-shoe/)

~~~
mojomark
"When the girl arrived at the hospital, she had wounds all over her body."

"“These aren’t Jungle Book stories, they’re often harrowing cases of neglect
and abuse...”

If you read the entire article, it's clear that this isn't a fairytale story.
However, the fact that Ssebunya was abandoned by his human family and
'adopted' by a primate family gives me even more affection for the animal
kingdom over the human kingdom. It's just as true, but at least there's heart
at the core.

~~~
hueving
>gives me even more affection for the animal kingdom over the human kingdom

Because humans never adopt animals? Or is it because animals never abandon
their young?

~~~
geon
Or kill the cubs of competing males.

~~~
ge96
That poor hippo

------
kumarm
Hope her integration to society is handled carefully. So far she has been
treated like an animal in zoo by humans too (Check the photos of groups of
people looking at her):

[http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/eight-year-old-
girl...](http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/eight-year-old-girl-found-
living-with-monkeys/articleshow/58037884.cms)

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4386060/Mowgli-
girl-...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4386060/Mowgli-girl-living-
monkeys-India.html)

~~~
tangoalpha
Don't even think about it. This is one reason I felt she was better left the
way she was.

Rehabilitation in India is a joke. The people attending to her neither have
the knowledge not resources to cater to her.

Mental asylums and health centers in India are filled with sexual predators.
They know that she can't complain about it nor would someone lend an ear if
she tried to say something. Which makes her an easy target. Sexual abuse is
the norm in mental health centers here.

Most mental health centers lack infrastructure, resources and fall short of
trained personnel. It is a common sight to see patients chained, and thrown
food at.

My first reaction when I heard the news - She was better in the forest away
from the predators. I hope she gets the right sophisticated care and
compassion she needs at this point of time.

~~~
sn9
A naked girl running through the wilderness isn't exactly safe from sexual
abuse and predation.

~~~
titanomachy
Sounds like she had a cadre of monkeys protecting her. That would probably
deter all but the most determined sexual predators.

~~~
linkmotif
Heh, that's what I was thinking.

------
pmoriarty
This reminds me of the story of Kaspar Hauser[1] (which was made in to a movie
by Werner Herzog[2]) and of the fascinating book _Seeing Voices_ by Oliver
Sacks.[3]

In his book, Sacks investigates various cases of children growing up without
language, how they cope (or don't cope) with it, how they finally acquire
language (if they do), and how differently they see the world in both the pre-
linguistic and post-linguistic states. Hauser was one of the most famous cases
of this sort, Helen Keller[4] was another.

Reading this book inspired me to learn sign language, which I expected to be
radically different from spoken and written language, and more powerful in
many ways, as you can physically describe things in ways that has little
parallel to spoken and written languages.

[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaspar_hauser](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaspar_hauser)

[2] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Enigma_of_Kaspar_Hauser](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Enigma_of_Kaspar_Hauser)

[3] - [https://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Voices-Oliver-
Sacks/dp/0375704...](https://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Voices-Oliver-
Sacks/dp/0375704078)

[4] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_keller](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_keller)

~~~
Filligree
> Reading this book inspired me to learn sign language, which I expected to be
> radically different from spoken and written language, and more powerful in
> many ways, as you can physically describe things in ways that has little
> parallel to spoken and written languages.

Was it?

~~~
pmoriarty
Yes and no. Yes, it's really different from spoken and written language,
that's true. But I was disappointed in that a lot of it was really obvious,
and I didn't get much insight from it. For example, to make a sign for a house
you take both hands and kind of make the shape of an prototypical house (a
peaked roof and two walls)... hard to describe in words, but obvious when you
see it. Or when making the sign for drive, you move your hands as if turning a
car's steering wheel.

Those kinds of signs didn't give me the aha moments I was yearning for. But
perhaps part of my problem was that I only took a couple of introductory sign
language courses. Maybe with exposure to more advanced sign language it would
be different. I've considered taking some more courses to see what I'm
missing.

~~~
Filligree
> Those kinds of signs didn't give me the aha moments I was yearning for. But
> perhaps part of my problem was that I only took a couple of introductory
> sign language courses. Maybe with exposure to more advanced sign language it
> would be different. I've considered taking some more courses to see what I'm
> missing.

Given that, I would say there's a good chance you aren't missing something;
that sign language really isn't much different from any other language. I'm
sure you've considered that yourself, though.

------
jacquesm
The monkeys seem to have been doing a better job at parenting than the people
here. Note how the text below one of the pictures says she's frightened of
people and the picture right above it has a whole bunch of (all male cast)
busybodies crowding into a little room with her in it.

~~~
diziet
She has some access to hygiene, clean water and food, medical attention, etc.
Her life expectancy is going to be much higher in human society, though she
will likely have difficulty adopting to society and will be behind on language
and other skill development.

Of course she is frightened of people as it's still a new experience for her,
and of course there's a cast of busybodies crowding her room, especially
during a photo/camera op. However, it's wrong to say that the monkeys are
doing a better job at parenting. There is no noble Mowgli fairy tale going on
here.

~~~
AmVess
If she was very young when she was abandoned, then it's likely her speech
center never developed and will never develop.

~~~
codyogden
Huh? Feral children can acquire language skills, but they will never have a
full native fluency. Genie learned to communicate with language. In OP child's
case, she'd be learning language like most people learn to speak a second
language late in life.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_(feral_child)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_\(feral_child\))

~~~
krackers
Don't people usually learn a second language by bootstrapping on their native
language though?

~~~
codyogden
In a formal learning environment like a classroom, sure. Native language (or
even another second language) is a crutch to associate concepts in the new
language. Informal environments without a base language, I'm not sure many (if
any?) know how that feral person learns, but we do know it is possible for
them to communicate using language.

I think a lack of metalinguistic awareness plays a major role in language
learning as the learner would have no way to reflect/process on the language.
This skill is huge, and it's built in ages 6-8. This is the language skill
that lets us discern literal and implied meaning from language (statements vs
sarcasm), reflect on non-literal concepts (idioms and "love") and analyze and
correct incoming communications that contain incorrect usage in word choice,
grammar or pronunciation (e.g. If someone misspoke "He is...to the
store...going," we infer the speaker likely means "He is going to the store").

Without a base language and meta linguistic skills, language learning would be
done with very concrete utterances and gesturing which is consistent with
immersion learning of a second language, but the learner's fluency will likely
never progress to the point that a second language learner's fluency could
reach.

------
DanielleMolloy
This is the darker (and probably more truthful) variant of the story:
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/08/indian-girl-
fo...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/08/indian-girl-found-in-
jungle-was-not-living-with-monkeys-officials-say)

" 'In India, people do not prefer a female child and she is mentally not
sound,' DK Singh said. 'So all the more [evidence] she was left there.' "

~~~
devoply
They probably should have left her there. There have been a few cases of feral
children found that were older and they did not end up well, in the end just
pushed them into a mental institution. I think it's better living with the
monkeys than living in a mental institution. We don't actually have much
better solutions to the problem.

~~~
therealdrag0
Is there any evidence a human CAN be raised by monkeys? Are you suggesting
it's better to leave her to die?

------
malandrew
Would have been interesting to have Jane Goodall involved. She could have left
the child integrated but used the circumstance to bridge the communication
divide between us and other primates because this girl surely knows things we
never will.

------
faitswulff
I read somewhere that reintegration with human society mostly fails for feral
children. Is it really a rescue if she dies at a young age, alone?

~~~
gfody
in New Horizons Chomsky writes a bit about cases like this. IIRC a person
raised like this has never been reintegrated and per Chomsky it's not really
possible because the person will have developed a kind of consciousness that
is fundamentally different from what we consider a 'normal' consciousness.
Here's a video of him talking about it:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-30ZCHk1Ydk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-30ZCHk1Ydk)

~~~
Tagore
I think it's pretty clear at this point that citing Chomsky in cases like this
is like citing Velikovsky when discussing celestial mechanics. Wrong and
inapposite.

~~~
gfody
you're probably right - somebody start teaching this girl english, she'll be
fine! what's the father of cognitive science and modern linguistics know about
anything?

~~~
Tagore
Who's 'she'? Anyway, I think you ought to rethink your claim that Chomsky is
the father of cognitive science and of modern linguistics.

~~~
x0137294744532
> Who's 'she'?

The feral girl.

> Anyway, I think you ought to rethink your claim that Chomsky is the father
> of cognitive science and of modern linguistics.

He is one of the founders of cognitive science, and a major contributor to
linguistics.

So his claim is factually true.

------
narrator
Now the battle begins to shape her story such that it can be used to reconfirm
one of a number of different competing narratives about man's relationship
with nature, nature vs nurture, theories about language acquisition, the
"critical period" and early childhood development. Did I miss any?

------
srean
Editor’s note:

    
    
        New information has been reported since publication
        of this story that raise significant doubts
        about the veracity of the initial accounts on which it
        was based. The story relied on reports by the Associated
        Press and the New Indian Express quoting local officials
        who came upon her, and a video interview with the
        physician who treated her. These versions of what
        happened to her are now being questioned by other
        officials quoted in the Guardian and the Hindustan Times.
        While the girl appears to have been abandoned near the 
        forest in question, according to these new reports, 
        these officials do not believe she had been living 
        among monkeys. The original headline has been changed, 
        and you can read about the new developments here.
    

Whoah! An editor cautioning against sensationalism, I dont get to see that
often.

------
dmix
Anyone know what kind of monkeys they were? I can't find any mention of it in
this article or the original referenced source.

------
baron816
It's possible she could end up like this unfortunately:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_(feral_child)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_\(feral_child\))

~~~
themgt
I want to quote at length because it's fascinating in the context of the
left/right hemisphere concepts Iain McGilchrist has been best known for
(especially the idea that left-hemisphere dominance is a relatively recent
human adaptation):

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFs9WO2B8uI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFs9WO2B8uI)

[https://www.ted.com/talks/iain_mcgilchrist_the_divided_brain](https://www.ted.com/talks/iain_mcgilchrist_the_divided_brain)

[https://www.thersa.org/globalassets/pdfs/blogs/rsa-
divided-b...](https://www.thersa.org/globalassets/pdfs/blogs/rsa-divided-
brain-divided-world.pdf)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_His_Emissary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_His_Emissary)

 _Linguists also administered several brain exams specifically geared towards
measuring Genie 's language comprehension. On one such test she had no
difficulty giving the correct meaning of sentences containing familiar
homophones, demonstrating that her receptive comprehension was significantly
better than her expressive language. Genie also did very well at identifying
rhymes, both tasks that adult split-brain and left hemispherectomy patients
had previously been recorded performing well on. During these tests an EEG
consistently picked up more activity from the two electrodes over the right
hemisphere of her brain than from those over the normal locations of the
Broca's area and Wernicke's area, and found especially high involvement from
her right anterior cerebral cortex, lending further support to the
researchers' conclusion that Genie was using her right hemisphere to acquire
language.

As early as 1972 Genie scored between the level an 8-year-old and an adult on
all right-hemisphere tasks the scientists tested her on, and showed
extraordinarily rapid improvement on them. Her ability to piece together
objects solely from tactile information was exceptionally good, and on spatial
awareness tests her scores were reportedly the highest ever recorded.
Similarly, on a Mooney Face Test in May 1975 had the highest score in medical
literature at that time, and on a separate gestalt perception test her
extrapolated score was in the 95th percentile for adults. On several other
tests involving right-hemisphere tasks, her results were markedly better than
other people in equivalent phases of mental development; in 1977 the
scientists measured her capacity for stereognosis at approximately the level
of a typical 10-year-old, significantly higher than her estimated mental age.
The scientists also noted in 1974 that Genie seemed to be able to recognize
the location she was in and was good at getting from one place to another, an
ability which primarily involves the right hemisphere.

Genie's performance on these tests led the scientists to believe that her
brain had lateralized, and that her right hemisphere had undergone
specialization. Because Genie's performance was so high on such a wide variety
of tasks predominantly utilizing the right hemisphere of her brain, they
concluded her exceptional abilities extended to typical right-hemisphere
functions in general and were not specific to any individual task. They
attributed her extreme right hemisphere dominance to the fact that what very
little cognitive stimulation she did receive was almost entirely visual and
tactile. While even this had been extremely minimal it had been enough to
commence lateralization in her right hemisphere, and the severe imbalance in
stimulation caused her right hemisphere to become extraordinarily developed.

By contrast, Genie performed significantly below average and showed much
slower progress on all tests measuring predominantly left-hemisphere tasks.
Stephen Krashen wrote that by 2 years after the first examinations on her
mental age Genie's scores on left-hemisphere tasks consistently fell into the
2½- to 3-year-old range, only showing an improvement of 1½ years. On
sequential order tests she consistently scored well below average for someone
with a fully intact brain, although she did somewhat better on visual than on
auditory tests. The scientists especially noted that she did not start to
count until late 1972, and then only in an extremely deliberate and laborious
manner. In January 1972 the scientists measured her in the 50th percentile for
an 8½- to 9-year-old on Raven's Progressive Matrices, although they noted she
was outside of the age range of the test's design. Similarly, when the
scientists administered Knox Cubes tests in 1973 and 1975 Genie's score
improved from the level of a 6-year-old to a 7½-year-old, more rapid than her
progress with language but significantly slower than that of right hemisphere
tasks._

------
throw2016
The story if true is discomforting, the mind ponders, and it does not
completely add up.

We know the 'facts' but we also don't. This is exactly the kind of story that
needs fact checking, but to get that you need people on the ground, who are
experienced and confirmation will take time which the attention span of the
news cycle will not allow.

The worst is turning it into some kind of circus. Hope that now with the
global attention the Indian authorities will immediately retrieve her from the
current facilities with people clearly not trained for this, and get her the
kind of specialized care and sensitivity she needs.

------
popol12
How ethical is it to force her to leave the monkeys to become a "normal" human
?

~~~
EduardoBautista
How ethical is it to leave her and then be abused by the monkeys.

~~~
popol12
Monkeys defended her, who said they abused her? Now she's abused by humans,
great.

------
achow
‘Mowgli girl’ found in January, cop says was clothed, no monkeys.

"There were no monkeys. She was not naked, and she wasn’t using her hands to
walk. I don’t know how these stories are being spread.

[http://indianexpress.com/article/india/mowgli-girl-found-
in-...](http://indianexpress.com/article/india/mowgli-girl-found-in-january-
cop-says-was-clothed-no-monkeys-4605739/)

------
smdz
The first expression I had was: What rights do we humans have to take her back
from her family(monkeys in this case) and her home (the forest)? Just because
she is our kind, should we impose our culture, our values, our ways (and our
governments) on her?

But then - this feels more like a creative story. From the videos it looks
like she might have been in the forest only for some time and needs rehab, but
I am no expert here.

~~~
hobarrera
Yeah, right. I mean, this is pretty much like taking a child from a family
just because the family is a different race/culture.

Unless you can guarantee that the child will adapt and have a better life
(better != longer), I think it's immoral to take her from her original
surroundings.

------
zaroth
These types of junk-news stories seem to make their rounds on the Internet for
several weeks before finally evaporating into the ether.

What's interesting is that in the past they would seem to manage to stay off
the HN front page.

Now it seems like I see these stories start circulating on Outbrain or the
other click bait networks and I think, well, that'll be on HN in a week or so!

These stories are usually large part fake news, or reality tweaked or skewed
with some angle to make it almost irresistible to read about. I personally
have no use for these types of stories on HN but certainly understand they are
created with a very compelling hook to want to share them.

------
slitaz
I feel it is a badly-written article.

If the girl managed to survive for so many years, she should have been left
with the trouppe of primates and get observed. This sudden change will
probably be worse than any other less brutal change in the environment.

~~~
TomMarius
She would likely die the moment she entered puberty.

~~~
twobyfour
Why on earth would you think that?

~~~
TomMarius
Because animals in general (both male and female) start acting very violently
when there's a child that starts secreting pheromones and looking like an
adult. For monkeys in particular it's the beginning of fights between females
that determine their future social status.

~~~
twobyfour
But the idea that monkeys would react to human pheromones is a bit of a jump.
Especially considering the degree to which humans don't react to monkey
pheromones.

~~~
TomMarius
It's a huge less bit of a jump than the idea they wouldn't react at all.
Monkeys are animals while humans are intelligent, and more importantly, most
of their senses are much worse. You don't smell the monkey, but that doesn't
change anything about the monkey's ability to smell you - we're talking about
monkeys reacting violently to humans, not the other way around.

~~~
twobyfour
That they'll notice a difference, sure. That they'll interpret that difference
as "adult female"... far more speculative.

------
abrkn
An observation that adds nothing to the story/discussion: DK Singh. Donkey
Kong.

------
mythrwy
It's finally happened.

Washington Post has completed the transition into a full blown supermarket
tabloid.

------
kazinator
> _Numerous stories of feral children ..._

"Feral children?" How amusing; is that an actual phrase?

It evokes a domesticated species of rug-rat, bred in the wild.

~~~
jwilk
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child)

------
bingomad123
It is common in India for family members to put their autistic/badly born kids
into a cage and display them in circus. I remember a family showing three of
their kids in a circus as "animals" just because the babies were autistic and
had tail like features.

------
aaron695
No one else here disturbed that a intellectually handicapped girl who was
abandoned by the system has been turned into a dancing monkey for HN's
amusement.

Surely the discussion here should be more about what a horrific system exists
in parts of India that handicapped people are turned into stories.

Do I really need to spell it out it's an abandoned handicapped girl found near
monkeys????

The doctor says when she was brought in she was near starving (video)? Were
the monkeys looking after her or not?

This is a common fairy tale, seriously people, what is wrong with you that you
can't see the real story here. It's about poverty, people not dealing with
mental illness and broken systems???

The fact doctors even allowed her to be filmed for your amusement shows they
are not very well trained.

~~~
exolymph
Did you not read the comments? Plenty of people are discussing the issues you
mentioned.

~~~
andai
Right, and they are only able to do so as a result of the media sensation the
girl has been turned into.

