Wild Boy of Burundi

Wild Boy of Burundi is the name of an alleged wolf child and at the same time the title of a book by Harlan Lane published in 1978 , for which the "wolf boy" was named.

The case

In 1976 an article in the Johannesburg Times reported that a boy in Burundi was allegedly raised by monkeys. This assumption was made because the boy did not show normal human behavior and was therefore considered a so-called "wild child". He is said to have only made monkey-like sounds and only moved on all fours. The said article speculated that the boy's parents were victims of the 1972 genocide in Burundi, leaving the boy orphaned in the wilderness. The boy was named John after John the Baptist , after whom an orphanage was named, in which he was housed.

The book

The author and psychologist Harlan Lane was seen as an expert in the field of "wolf children" because shortly before, in 1976, he had already published the book The Wild Child of Aveyron about the wolf boy Victor von Aveyron from France. This is said to have lived wild until he was finally captured in 1800 at the age of twelve. When Lane heard of the Burundi boy’s case, he contacted a psychiatrist friend, Richard Pillard , and together they traveled to Burundi to investigate the case.

The book alternates between travel memories from both Lane and Pillard and novel-like scientific research. A large part of the book is made up of descriptions of travel preparations, with all the organizational and cultural difficulties that you would expect in Burundi, as well as descriptions of press conferences and appearances on talk shows . As the plot turns to the actual case, it quickly becomes clear that it was just a hoax . Contrary to what the original article suggested, the boy was not a wolf child; he was presumably autistic . Likewise, he was not raised by monkeys, but grew up as an orphan in various homes and with foster families.

literature

• Harlan Lane: The Wild Boy of Burundi: A study of an outcast child . Random House, 1976