The Diary of the Wolf-Children of Midnapore (India)

by The Reverend J. A. L. Singh
Missionary S. P. G. Mission and the Rector
The Orphanage, Midnapore
Midnapore, India.

These are Singh's diaries, as also published in Wolf-Children and The Feral Man.

Personnel of the Midnapore Orphanage: The Wolf-Child Kamala at the feet of Rev. and Mrs. Singh

Chapter I

WE, on our missionary tours, went through the thickest portion of the jungle area of the Midnapore district and encroached upon the Morbhanj Raj territory in search of human habitations.

On one of these tours we came upon a village named Godamuri on the borderland between Midnapore and Morbhanj. We took shelter in a man's cowshed in the village. The man's name was Chunarem and he was Kora by race (one of the aboriginal tribes in India). At night the man came to us and reported in great fear about a man-ghost in the jungle close by. The Manush-Bagha (man-ghost) was like a man in his limbs with a hideous head of a ghost. On inquiry, he told me that it could be seen at dusk. The spot he cited was about seven miles from the village. He and his wife begged me to rid the place of it, as they were mortally frightened of it.

September 24, 1920

I got curious and wanted to see the ghost. We went out a little before dusk on Friday, September 24, 1920, but failed to see any sign of it. I thought it was all false, and did not care much. The second time the same story was repeated to me with great alarm and anxiety. They were so afraid that they wanted to abandon the place if nothing was done to remove the ghost from the area.

I thought of a plan and advised them accordingly. I pointed out to them a big tree in the vicinity, about one hundred yards or so from the place where the ghost was supposed to have lived. I asked them to prepare a shooting machan (a high platform from which one can shoot wild animals) in that tree, so that we could board the machan and secretly see the ghost when it came out from the den.

After coming back I borrowed a field glass from Mr. Rose of Khargpur (a railway colony) on October 3, 1920, Sunday, and started for the Morbhanj border on October 5, with Messrs. P. Rose, Henry Richards, Janu Tudu, and Karan Hansda, Janu Tudu being our pilot in the jungle.

October 8 and 9, 1920

We arrived at Godamuri on October 8 and stayed there with Chunarem. Early in the morning on the 9th we went out to see the machan and examined the haunts of the so-called ghost.

It was a white-ant mound as high as a two-storied building, rising from the ground in the shape of a Hindu temple. Round about, there were seven holes, afterwards found to be seven tunnels leading to the main hollow at the bottom of the mound. There was a bypath near the white-ant mound. The villagers used to pass by it, going into and out of the jungle for fuel, charcoal, and leaves, which they sold in the Hat (fair), after their work in the fields was over, and also after they had collected their harvest. It so happened that at times in the early morning, and sometimes at dusk, they came across these hideous-looking beings. They left that bypath altogether, through fear of molestation, and were living in a terrible fear, so much so that they were on the brink of leaving that area to go away to some other place. When they found us, they thought that by the help of our guns we could kill the ghost, and so put an end to all their fears.

October 9, 1920

The same Saturday, October 9, 1920, evening, long before dusk, at about 4:30 or 5:00 p.m., we stealthily boarded the machan and anxiously waited there for an hour or so. All of a sudden, a grown-up wolf came out from one of the holes, which was very smooth on account of their constant egress and ingress. This animal was followed by another one of the same size and kind. The second one was followed by a third, closely followed by two cubs one after the other. The holes did not permit two together.

Close after the cubs came the ghost — a hideous-looking being — hand, foot, and body like a human being; but the head was a big ball of something covering the shoulders and the upper portion of the bust, leaving only a sharp contour of the face visible, and it was human. Close at its heels there came another awful creature exactly like the first, but smaller in size. Their eyes were bright and piercing, unlike human eyes. I at once came to the conclusion that these were human beings.