This is both an opportunity for anthropological study and a sad story of a young girl lost too soon and found too late.
A woman who emerged from the jungles of Cambodia a week ago, burbling, grunting and walking bent over, is still giving up none of her secrets, even to the family that has taken her in as their presumed long-lost daughter.
Dubbed a “jungle woman” by residents of this remote district in the northeastern province of Rattanakiri, she is claimed by a local family to be 27-year-old Rochom P’ngieng, who went missing at the age of eight when herding buffalo in 1988.
But unable to speak any words the villagers can understand, the woman cannot solve any of the mystery that surrounds her disappearance for nearly two decades.
Would it have been kinder to just leave her in the jungle, or do you think she’ll get used to living like people?
I think we should all reflect on the Star Trek: Deep Space 9 episode Time’s Orphan.
Chief O’brian’s daughter fell though time and when they got her back she had already spent 15 years in the wilderness causing her to be around 21 years old. They attempted to bring her back into their lives but she ended up injuring a Klingon and was going to be placed in a mental hospital. Chief decided to send her back though the time window where she belonged.
Burbling, grunting, walking bent over and unable to form legible sentences? She sounds like many of my students. Strange, that she was able to survive in that place. Strangely convenient, that she is incapable of explaining that.
Sad events like this are not with out precedence. Indeed there are books published with like accounts, “Encounters with Wild Children”.
http://bostonreview.net/BR31.4/saxe.html
She is 19, and should be allowed to come and go as she pleases.
She should not be exposed to the hubristic ambition of people or scientists seeking some type of personal fame at her expense.
Hopefully they don’t sell her off to a circus for public display. No doubt some documentary will be made of her for the public entertainment.
3,
Great link.
Would it be in bad taste to ask her how Tarzan is doing?
The girl is neither blond nor white, no wonder they couldn’t find her 😉
The fate of “wild” children that are forced into captivity is usually dire. They typically never recover in that environment, and soon die. The only modern or historical examples of recovery that I can think of involve feral children emerging and becoming part of society in some part of their own accord. She should be let to do as she wishes.
That said, it is profoundly disturbing that babes in arms seem to find more mercy amongst the beasts of the field than amongst human beings. How many of these stories have we heard over the past decade?
As edwinrogers alluded to I’ve got my doubts as to whether this is even true. There just isn’t a lot of wilderness anymore.
Here name is LAURA people show some respec! and shes going to be my new girlfriend as soon as i ditch the old one and get Lauras number. OW thats soo HOT a truly wild woman!
When I saw the picture of her == no sores, trimmed nails, etc. I had to strongly suspect this story is a fraud.
Of course I’m not sure what somebody SHOULD look like after two decades in the jungle but not like this:
http://tinyurl.com/2tlvja
A 19 year old virgin? THAT is the real story!
So, like, in Jumanji when the Robin Williams character finally came back…that couldn’t happen? 😉
She was lost at the age of 8 and wasn’t found for 19 years…. Let’s do the math everybody. That would make her 27 years old, not 19.
I f his little girl was lost at 8 yrs old This is A great miracle from God that she survived all these years, but she is still 8 yrs old in many ways and needs to be with her family and treated as such until she can be normal again. this is no laughing matter, if it was your child, brother or sister how would you feel?