mattachine salutes

CORONET MAGAZINE for November 1955....

Seldom does a general circulation magazine publish as accutate, intelligent and understanding an article. as Ted Berkman's "THE THIRD SEX-GUILT OR SICKNESS" in that issue. Equally significant is another very fine article on bringing our "security risk" search within the bounds of reason and the American tradition, told to Tris Coffin by Harry Cain, former U.S. Senator from ' the State of Washington. It's called "I COULD NOT

REMAIN SILENT."

For these, Mattachine is proud to salute Coronetwith the recommendation that our readers make sure to read both articles.

The younger of the children, who was named 'Amala, died after eleven. months. But the older of the two girls, Kamala, survived for nine years at the orphanage. Under the loving care of human associates, especially Mrs. Singh, who, with such a waif had more than the usual duties of a mother, Kamala gradually began to develop her human faculties of mind and body which had lain dormant in her years with the wolves. By the time of her death the girl's wolf-like behavior had become remarkably less. Kamala had become responsive to human love and no longer rejected human companionship. She had begun to show human emotions, and had learned to smile but never laughed She had begun to imitate her human associates and had finally accepted clothing. She was housebroken and had learned to stand and walk erect, but always assumed the four-legged position when running. She had, learned to understand some things when spoken to and had a primitive vocabulary of her' own.

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In commenting upon the wollchildren, Dr. R. Ruggles Gates, authority on human heredity and envir-

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onment, University of London, wrote: "I have long held that we are justified in speaking of an embryology of the mind, i.e., during the age of infancy and childhood, just as we study the embryology of the body. The highly abnormal environment created by contact of the infants with wolves, instead of human beings, affected deeply their mental and physical development, each reacting on the other. They acquired à series of conditioned reflexes from imitation of the wolves, and at the same time the human aspects of their minds were completely in abeyance because of the absence of human models which could influence their mental and physical activities."

Dr. Arnold Gesell, Director of the Clinic of Child Development; Yale University, added: "We are not dealing with the utter incapacity of true amentia, but with the suppression and liberation of latent maturation. The career of Kamala, even though cut short, demonstrates anew the stamina of the human spirit and, the operation of developmental reserves which always ameliorate the adversities of abnormal fate."

The second part of the book by

mattachine REVIEW

Dr. Robert M. Zingg, while Associate psychologically-determined patterns of behavior. The clue is the conditioning process during the child's identification with those responsible for its rearing, namely the parents. This case shows the effects of human children reared during their most plastic years by non-human parent substitutes, and the consequent identification with wolves instead of hu-

Professor of Anthropology, University of Denver, is devoted to further examples of abandoned infants adopt ed and suckled by animals, of older children who wandered into the forest to survive by their own efforts unaided by human contact, and cases of extreme isolation of children shut away from human) association by cruel or insane parents.

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It is one thing to observe human behavior and the symptoms of abnormal states. It is another thing to apply one's self toward adjustment and self-improvement in accordance with one's condition. It is still another matter to search beneath surface appearances to underlying root causes. And it is a step further to think in terms of the possible guicance of child development to provide for the complete expression of positive potentialities and the fullest possible life for each human being. The new depth psychology which takes into account the intangible but powerfully existent unconscious realm of mind, is gradually supplanting surface considerations. It reaches foundations by going beyond effects to causes. And this is what is needed in a divided world society destined to change or perish.

While the data on the wolf-children in no way invalidates the importance of possible constitutional factors, it does attest most emphatically to the power of the conditioning process in shaping human behavior. Like a delicately sensitive plate the unconscious records the impact of multifarious impressions accumulating during a lifetime. Especially im.portant are the impressions made in /the formative years of childhood. The story of Amala and Kamala furnishes a challenging clue to understanding post-natal mental and physical development, and more particularly

mans.

The book should be of special interest to thinking homosexuals who are interested in the "why" of their nature and behavior. That the child identifies with parent-figures becomés undeniable. That human young have identified so completely with substitute wolf-parents strikes a note of significant correlation for the student of psychosexuality. The boy who is over-mothered and under-fathered and the girl who is over-fathered and under-mothered usually identifies with the parent of the opposite sex. These are but two of the numerous different factors and combinations of factors in the parentchild relationship which can tip the scales away from normal identification. How the child identifies with either or both its parents is paramount in the formation of psychic patterns of masculinity and feminity and thereby conditions the later choice of love objects, be that choice heterosexual or homosexual, or both in the varied ratios of bisexuality. The child's emotional relationship with parent-figures and the love or lack of love he witnesses between his parents determines his security or insecurity. And it is these relationships which largely determine whether his emotions in adulthood will be fully released for him to love and accept love perma-, nently, or whether because of an unhappy parent relationship his love will be unconsciously blocked by

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