Media-spurned Jungle Girl sings in strange tongue

By Sam Rith and Cat Barton
Phnom Penh Post, Issue 16 / 06, March 23 - April 5, 2007

The naked, emaciated woman captured in a Ratanakkiri jungle on January 13 and believed to be Rochom P'nhieng, a member of the Phnong tribe who vanished in 1989, has ended months of silence in an unexpected way, her presumed father, Sal Lou, told the Post on March 19.

"Last night P'nhieng sang a few songs in a Vietnamese ethnic minority language," he said. "She sang in P'hna language, which belongs to a Vietnamese ethnic minority who live only in Vietnam."

Lou, who speaks Vietnamese but not P'hna, said P'nhieng's singing had made him reconsider how his daughter had spent her time outside of society.

"Now I can say that during the time my daughter was away from me she stayed with P'hna ethnic minority on the Vietnam side of the border," he said.

But the implications of P'nhieng's foreign linguistic knowledge may not be properly investigated. Since the press corps' interest in P'nhieng waned, the Lou family have been left alone by media and medics alike, Lou said.

"I recorded what she sang [but] nowadays no one comes to visit or do any observations over my daughter any more," he said.

The lack of medical observation is setting back P'nhieng's recovery, said Professor Ka Sunbaunat, Dean of Psychiatry at the University of Health Sciences in Phnom Penh.

"She needs to be observed by a psychologist or a psychiatrist," he said. "During eighteen years in the jungle she would have experienced a lot of trauma. There is also the problem of starvation. We have to observe to understand what problems she has and be able to help her in an appropriate way. Without observation we cannot help her."

P'nhieng could be experiencing culture shock following her re-entry into society, so observation is essential if her real psychological, social or cognitive problems are to be identified, Sunbaunat said.

Sunbaunat recommended that P'nhieng be returned to the jungle to start building an understanding of her habits and behavior while living outside of society.

"At the moment, I have no idea why she might be speaking in P'hna," he said. "These kind of questions are why we should take her back to the jungle and observe her."

P'nhieng's motor skills seem sufficient, but her linguistic abilities have confused many in the sleepy hamlet of Phsom, O'Yadao district, Ratanakkiri.

"She uses a few mixed up words of P'hna, Krung, Chhrea, and Jarai [Cambodian and Vietnamese minority languages]," said Mao Sann, O'Yadao district police chief. "It is very difficult to tell if she speaks any real language."

Although P'nhieng still cannot talk to the family that has adopted her - they speak the minority language of P'hnong - she sometimes seems to understand what they say to her, said Lou.

"She can draw pictures," he said. "Sometimes she speaks in Chhrea and P'hna and laughs alone."

Lou reported P'nhieng had such bursts of semi-incomprehensible chatter immediately after she was first captured. The family still believes she is speaking to invisible jungle spirits.

Pen Bonnar, Adhoc coordinator in Ratanakkiri, said it was hard to tell whether P'nhieng had been alone or with others during her time outside of society, as he had minimal information from her family.

"My team visited P'nhieng on March 21 but said that she had not changed much since they last saw her two months ago," he said. "She still lives like a jungle woman and she still cannot speak."

Spanish psychologist evaluates Cambodia's 'jungle woman'

Rochom P'ngieng, is watched by locals at her rural home Saturday, Jan. 20, 2007, in Oyadao, Cambodia. Rochom P'ngieng went missing in 1988, at the age of eight, while herding buffaloes near her family's home. Some villagers believe she has been living wild in the jungle ever since. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Sunday, March 11, 2007
Ker Munthit
The Associated Press

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - A Spanish psychologist met with Cambodia's "jungle woman" on Tuesday, hoping to unravel some of the mystery surrounding the woman who emerged from the forest, naked and unable to speak, after possibly 18 years in the wild.

Hector Rifa, a doctor of psychology from Spain's University of Oviedo, said his priority was to ensure the woman was receiving proper treatment for whatever traumatic experience she has undergone.

But it is also possible he may find clues to the woman's true identity - whether she is indeed a local girl who disappeared in 1988, as claimed by the family in northeastern Cambodia who has taken her in as their long-lost daughter.

Rifa said he plans to spend several days at the home of village policeman Sal Lou, who claims the woman is his daughter Rochom P'ngieng, who disappeared while tending water buffalo when she was eight.

Sal Lou's family, members of Cambodia's Pnong ethnic minority, say they are certain the woman is Rochom P'ngieng because of a childhood scar on her right arm.

With no other evidence supporting their claim, however, others have speculated that the woman may have a history of mental troubles and had simply become lost in the jungle much more recently.

In any case, her inability to communicate and evident attempts to escape from Sal Lou's family indicate she is in a difficult psychological situation.

Rifa has been working with indigenous people in Rattanakiri province over the past four years for the Spain-based group Psychology Without Borders.

In an interview earlier Tuesday, he told The Associated Press he thinks the woman's behaviour showed she was having difficulty adapting to normal life, as would be expected if she had been lost in the jungle for an extended period of time.

"It is not extraordinary . . . or anything coming from another world," he said, referring to concerns by superstitious villagers that the woman may be possessed by a jungle spirit.

"From the point of view of psychology, I suspect that this is like for us, if we have stayed one week in the forest and came back to the world, you are a little out of it. So if we have stayed 18 years out of the office or of the world, when we come back we need some time" to readjust, he said.

On Monday, two Cambodian human rights groups expressed concern that the woman may be suffering due to the spotlight cast on her since she emerged from the wild, and offered to provide medical and psychiatric treatment.

Curious villagers and journalists have flocked to see the woman, who was found Jan. 13 walking bent over rather than upright. She pats her stomach when hungry and uses animal-like grunts to communicate.

"The important thing is to try to help the family, if they don't know how to manage (her)," Rifa said.

Mao San, the Oyadao district police chief, said Tuesday the investigation into the woman's case has "hit a dead end" because she cannot communicate.

"Only when she starts speaking can we ask her where she might have been or whom she might have been with the whole time," he said, stressing the need to do DNA tests to confirm she is the child of Sal Lou.

Sal Lou has said he is willing to undergo DNA testing "to clear any doubts that she is my child."