Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-11-14
WILD MEN.
When Civilized Beings Have Become
Worse Than

worse Than SavageS.
With the progress if science a whole
race of men has disappeared. and the So
called wild men, In whose existence the
most learned firmly believed few decades
ago, and who still live in the imagination
| of many who are acquainted with recent
Investigations. The wild man was sup
posed to be peculiar creature, half man
| and half beast, forming the connecting
| link between the human species and the
ape. The belief In his existence is to be
! ascrlbed, without doubt, to erroneous OBJ
| servatlOns and reports of travellers.
Only four years ago a report came to the
Berl lin Anthropological Society from the
Aapuan Islands testifying to the existence
on one of the islands of a race of people
with ears six inches In length, and of
others with white skins and red hair who
lived naked upon trees, made noises like
those Of beasts and seemed devoid of
human characteristics According to the
other natives, these were the descendants
of Europeans wrecked upon the coast many
years before. The most celebrated of mod
ern wild men were the dwarfs and the
Bushmen of Africa. The former were sup
posed to dwell in the unexplored parts of
Abyssinia. They were described as being
four feet high, without weapons or any
/ kind Of governme.it or religion, climbing
trees like apes and living upon roots. ants
and snakes, which they ate raw Schwein-
! furth discovered later veritable race of
dwarfs in the Akkas, the interior of
Africa. His description of them has
been quite recently confirmed by Emin
| Pasha.
The Akkas live by hunting, in which
| they are very adroit and successful; they
sell their game to the agricultural tribes
about them. They are cannibals and very
cruel and treacherous, but the idea that they
form a connecting link between man and
ape is absurd. The same impossible gulf
, that separates the European and chimpan-
| zee stands between the latter and the low
est of the Akkas. Another variety of Wild
men was presented by the 'ape-men" of
Southern Asia. In 1924 it was stated in
all seriousness in the journal of the Asiatic
Society of Bengal that two of these crea-
lures, a male and a female, had been dis
covered among the laborers on coffee
plantation Afterward several travellers
claimed to have seen similar ape-like indi-
viduals, and finally it was announced that
the Sumatran forests were the home of two
distinct races, called 0rang Koobos and
Orang Cougar, both naked and covered
with hair, and the latter of thoroughly
ape-like appearance, with long arms, re-
ceding foreheads and protrudiug jaws.
Their chins were almost wanting and the
calves of the legs completely so. With
the growth of the Darwinian theory inter-
est in the ''ape man increased as he was
thought to be the missing link connect
ing man with the brute The statement of
the Papuans that their wild men were the
descendants of the Europeans suggests the
interesting querywhether.single individuals
can run wild" under certain circum-
stances and lose all human attributes.
Man is a social creature and it is well
known that separation from his fellows
eventually robs him of many of his facul-
tiac