REARED BY BABOONS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 19980, 4 July 1939, Page 5

REARED BY BABOONS

NEGRO BOY’S EXPERIENCE r “WALKED ON ALL FOURS” LONDON, June 20. The story of a negro boy who lived for 11 years with a troop of baboons, which carried him off when he was a baby, is contained in a report to Professor Ruggles Gates, the anthropologist, of the University of London, from Professor Dart, of Witwatersrand (South Africa) University. Professor Dart declares that many of the boy's stories have been proved true. When he was found at the age of 12 near Grahamstown he could make only guttural noises. He was subsequently taught English, and told his rescuers that his food consisted mainly of crickets, ostrich eggs, prickly pears, and wild honey. “1 walked on all fours and slept naked in the bush,” he said. "One day I was hunting food with the baboons when a policeman shot at us and captured me.” Professor Gates says That he has no reason to disbelieve the story.

"It ;s the first case of a human being brought up with any type of anthropoid, although there have been numerous similar instances with bears and wolves. Presumably, it was a case in which a mother baboon lost her own young, and adopted the negro baby through the maternal instinct.”