Tuesday, May the 5th, 2015

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Borneo

When considering Borneo, it is extremely important to differentiate between the Wild Man of Borneo and the Wild Men of Borneo. The first thing to grasp is that the Wild Man of Borneo was not one of the Wild Men of Borneo. Obviously, he was a Wild Man, and thus if one lumps together, indiscriminately, all the Wild Men of Borneo, then one is forced to concede that the Wild Man of Borneo was, in the round, one among the Wild Men of Borneo. But in another respect, and one that is crucial, as we shall see, the Wild Man of Borneo was not, by any stretch of the imagination, one of the Wild Men of Borneo.

A second point. of utmost importance, is to bear in mind that neither the Wild Man of Borneo nor the Wild Men of Borneo had any connection whatsoever, apart from the nominative, with Borneo. All three—for there was but one Wild Man of Borneo, obviously, and, less obviously, two Wild Men of Borneo—were citizens of the United States of America. The Wild Man of Borneo was originally German and arrived in the United States as a teenager, while the Wild Men of Borneo were natives, the one born in New York and the other in Ohio.

To be absolutely clear, I ought to confess that in the foregoing I have ridden chronologically kim-kam, putting the Wild Man of Borneo before the Wild Men of Borneo. In truth the Wild Men of Borneo (born in 1825 and 1827) precede the Wild Man of Borneo (born in 1862).

We can perhaps better distinguish the Wild Men of Borneo from the Wild Man of Borneo by lodging their given names in our heads. The Wild Men of Borneo were Hiram W. Davis and his younger brother Barney Davis. The Wild Man of Borneo was Leonard Borchardt.

Without wishing to complicate things further, it is well worth noting that the latter, the Wild Man of Borneo, was commonly known as Oofty-Goofty. He acquired this sobriquet from his habit, when covered in tar and horsehair and locked in a cage and fed raw meat, of uttering a fierce cry of “Oofty-Goofty!”. Neither of the Wild Men of Borneo is ever recorded as having used these words, if words is what they are. The Wild Men of Borneo were noted rather for their prodigious feats of strength, wrestling skills, and what used to be called mental imbecility.

Having digested all of the above, we should be able with confidence to tell the Wild Man of Borneo from the Wild Men of Borneo. Equally helpful, if not more so, is the knowledge that, next time we disembark from a boat, its sails billowing in the southeast Asian wind, upon the shores of Borneo, should we then encounter any wild men, though they may be indubitably wild men of Borneo, given their wildness and location, they will be neither the Wild Man of Borneo nor the Wild Men of Borneo, with all three of whom we are now serviceably familiar.

It would be interesting to know if either the Wild Man of Borneo, or the Wild Men of Borneo, had a familiar, in the sense of a grimalkin or witch's familiar. I do not think any of them did, but I would not wish to pronounce upon this definitively without learning more, much, much more, about both the Wild Man of Borneo and the Wild Men of Borneo.