WHERE "SEQUAH" DIED

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21733, 16 March 1936, Page 12

WHERE "SEQUAH" DIED

TWO CONFLICTING STORIES

SOUTHLAND REPORT DISPUTED

When and where “Sequah,” the world-famous medical man, died are two disputed questions. It has been reported from Balfour, a small town in Southland, that his death occurred there a week ago at the age of 70 after several years of quiet retirement; but now there has been produced in Christchurch a clipping from a London paper of 1934, announcing that he died at 93 in a little room in a Southampton house. “Sequah” from his birth was destined to be a mysterious man. Even his name is disputed. The Southland report says he was Charles Frederick Rowley, and the London report that he was'Hannaway Rowe, son of a naval surgeon and himself a qualified medical man. All over England he went gorgeously dressed as an Indian chief, the London newspaper says, riding in a gorgeous gilt carriage drawn by four cream ponies and followed by a brass band and a score nr so of young men dressed as cowboys. “Sequah” professed to cure people crippled by rheumatism, by means of an embrocation of his own preparation, and one of his great . “stunts” was to extract teeth, publicly, with a swiftness that was amazing. He must have drawn thousands, and it was said that he kept all of them as souvenirs. “Painless” Dentistry One of his friends, reported by the London paper, said of him: “He had a magnetic personality and his skill in showmanship and his fame drew big crowds in every town and village. He always carried with' him a big iron chest containing small silver—shillings and sixpences—and, as a preliminary, he would scatter these coins among the people who flocked, about him. “He was in fact a very skilful dentist and he drew teeth with remarkable rapidity. Nobody ever heard the patient groan or cry out. because during the operation his brass band blared away so noisily that it was impossible to hear anything, Then came the extolment of the virtues of his embrocation. He massaged people crippled with rheumatics,. and if they used crutches when they went to him he threw them away after his treatment and commanded the patients to walk down from the platform.

Stopped By Law

“He would often prescribe nourishing food for poor men and women who went to him, and when they said they could not afford to byy it he would dip his hand in the iron chest, pull out a handful of silver, and give it to Ahem. The end came when the excise authorities stepped in and ruled that the sale of his medicines was illegal. "After that ‘Sequah’* declined, and in his later years he started a herbalist business in Southampton. He did not do very well and he had practically no means at the finish. He was living m one little room by himself at his death,”

The London story does not mention a tour in other parts of the worl’d, spoken of in the story from Southland. The Southland report is that he was approached by two Americans at the height of his fame and asked to form a company and go to America. “Sequah” was explained as a word of North American origin, signifying a medicine man. 1 Conflicting Details It is easy to understand a confusion of the names, Rowe and Rowley, but the difference in the ages given in the two stories, 93 and 70, is difficult to account for. The London -paper published two photographs of him, one in his Indian dress, and it will be interesting if these and any photographs from Southland can be compared. The Southland report that “Sequah” visited New Zealand is said to be supported by many older people in the country. It is recalled that he was here about 35 years ago and made several tours of the Dominion. Incidents are reported of his “curing” of patients suffering rheumatism, in a similar manner to that described in the London reports. There are several points of remarkable similarity about the two stories, and they seem to discount any suggestion that there might have been two “Sequahs.”