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