The Actor Ichikawa Danjuro II as a Vendor of Moxa

The famous actor Ichikawa Danjuro II is shown in his role as a Japanese folklore hero disguised as a fast-talking salesman in the 1718 play The Medicine Peddler (Uiro Uri), adapted from a traditional tale. He carries a yellow box of moxa (small cones of the powdered herb, mugwort, to be burned on the body for therapy).

Ichikawa Danjuro II himself apparently benefitted from a moxa treatment, when a sore throat almost prevented him from performing the previous year. In gratitude, Danjuro worked the product into his next play. Thus the moxa-vendor disguise not only updates the play, but converts it into a vehicle for the celebrity endorsement of a cure-all tonic, its positive effects demonstrated by the vigor and oral abilities of the actor-salesman who had to perform tongue twisters and puns. Danjuro’s emblem is visible on the box of moxa, a form of celebrity branding that kabuki actors were known to have done for products, including toothpaste.