Johannes Seluner

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Johannes Seluner (also Seluner ) (* around 1828 ; † October 20, 1898 in Nesslau ) was a foundling in Toggenburg in Switzerland .

Johannes Seluner (1828–1898)
Johannes Seluner

Life

On September 9, 1844 was on the Seluner Alp in the area Churfirsten in Toggenburg from pastoralists Niklas Baumgartner almost naked, "deaf and dumb" Boy found. Since this belonged to Alt St. Johann , he was handed over to the authority of the place and assigned to the poor institution of the village. An examining doctor estimated the boy's age to be 15 to 16 years. Investigations by the police, including through a public profile, were unsuccessful. In it, the boy with black hair, a size of "4 shoes and 7 inches", that is around 155 cm, with "foolish features" and a "foolish gait with a hanging upper body" was described. The public tender made a major contribution to the popularity of the «Seluner», but remained unsuccessful and was subsequently discontinued.

For administrative reasons, the boy was given a name in August 1845: He was named after the patron saint of the village (Johannes) and the place where it was found (Seluner Alp). The costs incurred by the municipality of Alt St. Johann to maintain the foundling were borne by the canton of St. Gallen . From 1850, the "homeless" was given citizenship due to the new provisions on civil rights in the Federal Constitution of the Swiss Confederation and Nesslau was designated as his home municipality. In 1854 he was transferred to the poor house in Nesslau, which from then on had to bear his maintenance costs as his home parish. On January 20, 1898, Johannes Seluner was baptized according to the Catholic rite and entered in the Neu St. Johann baptismal register. On October 20, 1898, Johannes Seluner died after a short illness and was buried on October 23, 1898 in the cemetery in Neu St. Johann with great sympathy from the population.

reception

At the instigation of Emil Bächler , but above all the doctor Ernst Gottlieb Finkbeiner from Zuzwil SG , the anthropologist, racial hygienist and director of the Anthropological Institute of the University of Zurich Otto Schlaginhaufen was responsible for an exhumation of Johannes Seluner's skeleton on November 19, 1926, which by has been approved by the authorities. The "Riddle of the Seluner", which became known during and after his life beyond the borders of the Toggenburg, was to be solved. Against the background of eugenic considerations of this time, a connection between the mental and physical limitation (suspected cretinism ) of the person affected and characteristics of Neanderthals or non-European peoples should be demonstrated. The investigations only showed age-related signs of degeneration of the skeleton. The skeleton was at the Zurich Anthropological Institute until at least 1990.

As Rea Brändle shows in her book, Johannes Seluner was probably already during the time of his life, but also in the context of numerous necrologists , the victim of unverified attributions that embellish his sparse biography with numerous additional elements. These relate to his possible origin and the circumstances in which he was found, as well as to his alleged behavior as a “ wild man ”, “ wolf child ” and “idiot”. It has also been invented and also not proven by any facts, for example, that Seluner ran into a trap by dairymen while stealing milk and was thus discovered, just as unproven as his alleged aristocratic origin, the constant tearing of his clothes, the supposed animal-like behavior and his alleged, physical strength comparable to that of a bull. It is also reported that before he was found in 1844, he spent some time in the Wildenmannlisloch and was one of the «Wild Men» who lived there. The alleged eyewitnesses' lust for tales and the retelling of not authenticated biographical elements can be found in numerous documents that are still considered serious today, such as the related essays by Emil Bächler and the entry on Johannes Seluner in the St. Gallen story published in 2003 on behalf of the canton .

Several documents on Johannes Seluner's life, such as the «profile», which was used to search for relatives, as well as the only surviving photograph from 1885 can be found in the Toggenburg Museum of the Lichtensteig community .

literature

  • Rea Brändle : Johannes Seluner. Boulder. A research . Limmat-Verlag, Zurich 1990, ISBN 3-85791-162-X . (out of print)
  • Rea Brändle : Johannes Seluner. Findling: A research . Chronos-Verlag 2016. Extended new edition ISBN 978-3-0340-1340-6
  • Maja Fehlmann-von der Mühll : 's wild Mannli von Selun: Folklore and research: a kind of colonization of the Alps? In: Swiss Archives for Folklore = Archives suisses des traditions populaires. Volume 80 (1984)
  • Emil Bächler : The Seluner. In: The Toggenburg. 8th year, no.5. Gais, 1933.
  • Catherine Leutzinger-Piccand : The true story of the Seluner . In: St. Galler Geschichte 2002. Volume 1: Early to High Middle Ages. St. Gallen, 2003.
  • Otto Schlaginhaufen : The skeleton of Johannes Seluner . Zollikofer, 1933.
  • Hieronymus Brunner : Johannes Seluner. In: Schweizer Illustrierte , Vol. 7, 1903, pp. 23–24. (e-periodica )

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Seluner, Johannes
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Seluner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Foundling
DATE OF BIRTH around 1828
DATE OF DEATH October 20, 1898
Place of death Nesslau