In recent posts we’ve seen the intellectual and cultural impact of various Swamis in America. Spiritual figures like Swami Ram and Swami Abhedananda traveled and lectured extensively, drawing adherents and pushing back on distortions propagated about India and the “Hindoo”
But as we have also seen, the figure of the Swami also became something of a villain in American culture, a trickster magician out to cheat innocent Americans (women in particular) of their money. Enter Swami Kohlrabi!
Published in the San Francisco Call in 1913, the comic strip below features one “Swami Kohlrabi,” an unscrupulous American professor who dresses up like a “Swami” to trick clients out of their money: 
“Can the chub music and get busy— you ain’t even started to black up yet!”
“Cut out there English, Pete. You’re supposed to jabber nothing but Hindoo”
“For myself I dare not for gold, but those would know must learn to sacrifice. Five thousand dollars please.”
Swami Kohlrabi is caught by Hawkshaw the Detective: “you’ve been swindling women with this fake Swami game long enough!”
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