The Man Raised by Wolves

What of the man raised as a boy by wolves? There was a natural misunderstanding between the boy and his pack-or family-while growing up. The only understanding was of protecting and hunting to consume and live together. The boy did not understand human language, for he was raised by the animals since a month after his birth. He did not understand the language of the wolf, rather, it was on another plane of understanding with few, very few, similarities to that of a human. He understood his senses-as he possessed all of them-as do wolves.

            The boy was taken care of by the motherly alpha female of the wolf pack. She was one that had only two pups so a third was little more hassle, and the only problem was the human child aging slower than her pups and so stayed dependent on her longer. She started having feelings similar to that of frustration when it came to raising this animal she had little knowledge of, one she had to-at times-protect from the larger-fiercer-males of the pack looking to make a meal of the helpless infant. But being fierce herself, she was always able to fend them off. The infant had to suckle from the teats of the motherly wolf for nearly a year until it started to take part in eating scraps brought to it by the wolf, while still having to protect the babe. The baby would wrestle and play with the other pups of the pack and, at around this time, started to discover senses, feelings, and certain understandings developed through nature though not through language. The meanings of and the understanding of these discoveries were not-completely-understood, as there was no understandable language to connect the images with a language or with interactions amongst the family in the boy’s memory. And so his world was incomplete, but he was alive. He communicated with his pack in ways forgotten to mankind but still existed deep in animal understanding hidden in some channel of the brain.

The boy was not stupid and could see differences in front of him. For instance, he noticed he had less hair throughout his body than his family, they could also contort their bodies in ways he could not. They had sharp fangs and paws, a large snout, hearing far better than his, sight too that was sharper than his. The boy could grasp and hold, walk upright or crawl on hands feet and knees. All these differences of the body that-again-he could not understand. The noticeable differences being body parts, the understanding of what a body consists of was possible, though he did not understand the reason for a difference nor why he had no tail and what it was for. When he mistakenly lost a kill for the pack by being too loud, he was treated even worse than he normally was. This he could understand. Food for the family and himself was easy to understand. It was mutual survival.

The “boy’s mother” possessed a mate, and he was a brilliant hunter. Because of this, the pack felt he had the right to be the first to partake in consuming the kill. He never took more than what he needed and left plenty for the family.

This is perhaps what stayed in the boy’s mind when he was found at the age of eleven by a group of herders protecting their property. The boy recognized the men, but only somewhat, they possessed this skin he had never seen before. Communicated in ways through more than barking or howling. He was curious with these creatures and so when the boy’s pack fled, he stayed to study. The men would be-understandably-completely shocked by this boy sniffing the air stark naked and studying the men from a distance as one would an object just out of reach in water that is too hazardous to wade through. The men had eventually been able to trap the boy and his days running with his pack were over.

Slowly, he learned all he could about his life and the world he had been disconnected from for more than ten years of his life. Language he eventually picked up. Society and the history of his world became evident and the boy consumed much knowledge. The famous boy, since he was raised by wolves, had been a public spectacle-with many tests run as he was taught-and studied-by some of mankind’s greatest minds. Even when it was determined he could live on his own in society-independently-he was followed and studied to view his reactions to the world he no longer wished to live in, a society that was cold and more unfair than his pack-his family.

The boy-man now-would walk upright and alone-unaccustomed to both-on a street-also something new and odd-and ponder the world. He marveled at the achievements of mankind, but questioned the reasoning behind most of it: like any wise philosopher or hermit-as he had become a regular Philomath. And one time while walking-and being followed as he was still being studied-he came across a man. This man was homeless, helpless, and appeared to be as alone as the man raised by wolves. By this time the man had a name: Grey. Grey went up to the homeless man perplexed to the reason why a man would be alone on such a cold night, Grey remembered cold nights snuggling up to his family for warmth. Grey was wearing clothes-not quite used to underwear-and noticed this man’s clothes being worn, torn, and dirty. After a long conversation with the man-that was never thought of much nor discussed about in the studying of Grey-Grey had found that his species, his world was less forgiving, less understanding, and more willing to let a man or infant die and not share the glory and beauty that was life. He knew there were some of his family that wished to eat him when he was younger, he had scars to remember how close they were, but he understood the animal’s reasoning: anything to benefit the pack-which was of a different species of the infant.

And so the man raised by wolves could not understand the benefit of letting a single lonely human die at the hands of his own family.

Justin Vaisnor

-For the nature of humanity is to impel men to agree with one another, and its very existence lies simply in the explicit realization of a community of conscious life. –Hegel