[QUACK MEDICINE - "INDIAN"]. A Book of Dreams. Fleeting Images Of The Night

[New Haven]: Kickapoo Indian Medicine Co, 1911. Very good. 8vo (4" x 7"), 32 pp. (contents toned). Original pictorial wrappers, stapled as issued (vertical fold, some minor spotting to wrappers). CO-OPTING NATIVE AMERICANS FOR QUACK MEDICINE, THE KICKAPOO INDIAN MEDICINE COMPANY WAS FAMOUS FOR ITS TRAVELING MEDICINE SHOWS WHICH AGGRESSIVELY PROMOTED "INDIAN SAGWA," SUPPOSEDLY A BLOOD, LIVER, AND STOMACH REGULATOR. IT WAS IN FACT A COMBINATION OF GRAIN ALCOHOL, BEER, AND LAXATIVES. EPHEMERAL PIECES SUCH AS THIS ARE VALUABLE NOT ONLY TO HISTORIANS OF THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE, BUT TO THOSE WHO STUDY THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN COMMERCE, AND THE COMMERCIALIZATION OF NATIVE AMERICAN TRADITION.

The Kickapoo Indian Medicine Show featured company-sponsored powwows, horsemanship skills, and so forth. Kickapoo Indian Sagwa was the company’s best-selling product and was promoted as a genuine Native American remedy. The company was not owned by Native Americans, despite advertising claims to the contrary. Instead it was founded by two white men, Charles Bigelow and John Healy, who had no connection to the Kickapoo community whatsoever. They established the company in Connecticut in the late nineteenth century, fabricated the company’s history, and exaggerated the effectiveness of their products. These enterprising quacks even secured the endorsement of Buffalo Bill Cody, himself a traveling medicine show pioneer.

The text of the "Interpretation of Dreams" in the present pamphlet is arranged alphabetically, beginning with a dream of an Angel ("Good news; if speaking great luck is very near") to a dream about Yachting ("You will marry a clergyman"). But these divinations are merely a vehicle for the company's advertisements, including Kickapoo Worm Killer (very useful for children apparently), Sagwa, Salve, Suppositories, Oils, Cough Syrup, and Sage Hair Tonic, plus numerous testimonials (including one from Pawnee Bill). The latest testimonials are dated 1911.

Literature: Brooks McNamara, "The Indian Medicine Show" in: Educational Theatre Journal, Vol. 23, No. 4 (Dec., 1971), pp. 431-445. See also: American Institute of the History of Pharmacy, "Misappropriation of Native / Indigenous Imagery in Pharmaceutical Advertising," online.

Scarce: only two copies are traced in Worldcat (UVa and Univ. Rochester Medical). Ours appears to be the only copy currently on the market. (Inventory #: 4364)