Mowgli Existed! Find Out All About the Wolf-Raised Man After He Was Sold by His Family

There are many stories about people being raised by wild animals, but most of the time, they are pure fiction. How would you feel about Mowgli's "Jungle Book" story, right? Well, it looks like this character exists in real life!

It's about Marcos Rodríguez Pantoja, a Spaniard who spent most of his childhood in the mountains and was raised by a pack of wolves.

He preferred to stay in the wild rather than return home

Marcos Rodríguez Pantoja was born on June 7, 1946, in Añora, Spain. He emigrated with his parents to Madrid, where his mother passed away, giving birth to her fourth child. Marcos was only three years old at the time.

His father remarried another woman who used to abuse little Marcos.

In the early 1950s, when he was about 6 years old, his family sold him to a farmer in the Sierra Morena Mountains, but he died soon after. Unwilling to return to an abusive life, Marcos preferred to fend for himself in the wild, using the survival techniques he had learned from farming and studying animals.

According to him, from the age of 7 to 19, he was raised by a pack of wolves who protected him and sheltered him.

A new family

"One day I went into a cave and started playing with wolves that lived there and I fell asleep. Later, my mother brought them food and I woke up. She saw me and looked at me fiercely. and then he started tearing the meat.

After feeding her chicks, she threw me a piece of meat. I didn't want to touch her, because I thought she was going to attack me, but she was pushing the flesh towards me with her nose. I took it, ate it, and thought he was going to bite me, but he stuck out his tongue and started licking my face. After that, I understood that I was part of the family, "Marcos told the BBC.

Return to civilization

At the age of 19, Marcos was discovered by several Spanish Civil Guard soldiers patrolling the area. Authorities have struggled for many years to reintegrate him into society. Returning to civilization has not been easy for Marcos.

"I couldn't stand so much noise, so many cars and people going back and forth like ants. But at least the ants are all going in the same direction! People are going everywhere! It scared me even to cross. the street! "said Marcos.

According to Marcos, the return to civilization was the most frightening moment of his life.

"I didn't know where to go. I just wanted to go back to the mountains," he said.

He was sent to an orphanage where he learned to be human again

After returning to the bosom of civilization, Marcos was placed in an orphanage where the nuns taught him how to sit at a table and how to walk upright.

"They taught me to eat right and put a piece of wood on my back to help me walk straight because I was hunchbacked from walking on the mountain," he says. He also remembers being put in a wheelchair for a while because he couldn't walk after cutting off all his calluses.

"The world of people hurts me"

The years passed, but Marcos still couldn't live in the world of humans the same feeling of peace he had with the wolf family.

"I struggle with the human world. It's cold, often repulsive. It hurts me," Marcos said at one point.

One day, the man decided to return to the mountains, to the place he considered "home" for many years. But he was not a little surprised when he saw that the pack was rejecting him.

"It was normal, I already smelled like a man! We weren't brothers anymore … I didn't lose sight of them for a moment, but they ran away from me!", The man confessed.

People took advantage of his naivity

He worked on construction sites, in bars, nightclubs, and hotels and was robbed and exploited. Some people tried to help him but most considered him unsociable and he was largely shunned by society.

People regularly took advantage of Marcos' naivety, and he ended up living in miserable conditions in Malaga, until he met a retired police officer who invited him to live with him in Rante, a small village near Orense, in the northwestern region of Spain, Galicia.

Marcos, now 74, also lives in Rante, a village where everyone knows and treats him with respect and is surrounded by friends who love him and make his life more beautiful.