Carol Runningbrook (22), a young member of the Pequot Indian tribe in Ledyard, Connecticut, claims that she has discovered a cure for female infertility. What is this wonder drug? How can the medical community make buckets of money off of Runningbrook's new procedure?

Well, they can't, really. Her cure was given to her in 1997 in a dream. A fish, which she had been seeing in dreams since she was a child, swam up to her and touched her belly. Instantly it swelled -- Carol was pregnant.

The Big One That Didn't Go Away - Runningbrook Swings A Magic Fish

When she awoke, she was not pregnant, but she had an idea to help her sister, Fawn. Fawn (26) and her husband Jake (49) had been trying unsuccessfully to conceive since the two were married in 1992. They had tried talking to tribal elders, and they had gone to conventional fertility clinics. Carol brought her sister deep into the forest, to the shore of a shallow creek.

"She stood at the shore line and a large trout swam right up to her, as if it wanted her to pluck it from the water," says Fawn, who did not know fully why Carol wanted to bring her into the woods. "She seemed possessed, in a trance, and she took the fish and she hit me with it, like those Christian televangelists." A month later Fawn was pregnant.

It took little time for word to spread around the area. Quickly, Carol and her "fertility fish" were tribal icons. People from other tribes, as well as curious onlookers and women for whom conventional fertility treatments have failed, started visiting Carol. She claims that she has received no financial reward for her treatments, asking for people to simply donate any moneys that would have gone to her to an environmental charity of their choice.

Frank Bear (37), who runs the tribal gambling establishment, has officially confronted her about this practice, claiming that it is taking people away from the tribal casino (a major source of revenue within the tribe). "The people coming to our reservation are not spending money here. Residents are going to Carol, and once again not spending money on tribal property. She has them giving their money away to non-native charities!" Bear says. He claims that in the two years since Runningbrook began her "treatments," tribal tourism is up but tribal revenue is down.

"I can't force people to spend money here," claims Runningbrook. "I can only do what I was put here to do. I want to see my tribe flourish, and I can only believe that what I am doing must help."

sources

The Hartford Review, April 9, 1998

Photo courtesy of River Mansfield, Pequot Tribe Newsletter.