Dicus, G[arner] P[arker] [and Dicus, Bernice].

Dedicated to the American Indian [Caption Title].

San Diego, California: self-published, 1965. 27½” x 19½”. Map adhesive mounted on thick plywood. Good plus: scattered light stains, several of which are moderate.

This is an amazing pictorial/narrative map of North and South America devoted to its Indigenous peoples. It's the work of Garner Parker Dicus, and likely that of his wife, Bernice, as well. We find nothing in secondary sources about either, but contemporary newspaper accounts shed some light. We first find them in a 1956 California paper where it stated that the couple were historians from Covina, California and that “the Dicuses make a series of maps pertaining to the United States, North America history and a particular series of the California Missions.” We know they published several other maps in the 1950s including at least two related to Native Americans, and their historical map of California included Bernice's name as a contributor. One map, The U.S. Pleasures & Treasures Map for Travel Adventure, apparently included restaurants that the Dicuses had visited and approved of. That ultimately led to Garner working with a company called American Travel Times and bestowing the “G.P. Dicus Award” on worthy eateries.

This map holds a rough outline of North and South American and is peppered with approximately 50 small drawings and lots of text related to Native peoples in the areas. It shows the locations of at least 34 tribes and stated that “this map shows long periods of antiquity and condenses ancient periods of time that are generally accepted by the authorities.” There's a long discussion of Mexico's pre-classic period, much on Quetzalcoatl, and discussions of migrations of the first peoples to North America. It's not possible to take it all in at once, and every time we look at this map we see something we hadn't noticed before.

All Dicus maps are quite rare, and this one appears to be unrecorded. Good +. Item #9062

Price: $2,500.00