Cover -- Thanks and Acknowledgements -- Table of Contents -- 1. Introduction -- Part I: Of Age and Elders -- 2. The Cultural Imagining of Old Age -- 2.1. The "Roleless Role": Gerontology as a Response to Social Change -- 2.2. Managing Old Age: Biological Aging, Ageism, Ableism -- 2.3. Difference Across Time: Studying Old Age Throughout History -- 2.4. Difference Across Cultures: Gerontology and Cultural Anthropology -- 2.5. Age and the Cultural Imaginary: Age Studies as Cultural Studies -- 3. Indian Identity and Tribal Elders -- 3.1. Tradition-Directed Society and Modernity -- 3.2. Tradition-Directed Identity in Modernity -- 3.3. Imagined Communities and Post-Indians -- 3.4. Sages of the New Age -- 3.5. Contemporary Approaches Towards American Indian Identity -- 3.6. Old Age and Indian Identity -- Part II: Traditional Stories -- 4. Traditional Oral Narratives and their Complications -- 4.1. Traditional Stories between Folklore and Literature -- 4.2. Key Issues in Native Stories -- 4.3. The Figure of the "Sage" -- 4.4. Excursus: Oral Literature as a Basis for Written Literature -- 5. Old Age in Traditional Stories -- 5.1. Supernatural Characters: Old Creators, Tricksters and Deities -- 5.2. Old People and the Order of Things -- 5.3. Old People and the End of the World -- 5.4. Old People, Partnership and Sexuality -- 5.5. Lonely Old People -- 5.6. Findings and Analysis -- 6. Traditional Stories in Transformation -- 6.1. Reinventing the Oral Tradition on Paper: Barbara Duncan's Living Stories of the Cherokee (1998) -- 6.2. Leslie Marmon Silko's Storyteller (1981) -- 6.3. Retirement as Abandonment: Velma Wallis' Two Old Women (1993) -- Part III: Modern Literature -- 7. Trickster Permutations: Saged Heroes and Resilient Elders -- 7.1. Tricksters New and Old.

7.2. Louise Erdrich: Nanapush in Tracks (1988), The Last Report on the Miracle at Little No Horse (2001) and Four Souls (2004) -- 7.3. James Welch: Yellow Calf in Winter in the Blood (1974) -- 7.4. The Paradigm of Modernity: James Welch's "In My Lifetime" (1971) as Read Vis-à-Vis Winter in the Blood -- 7.5. Sherman Alexie: Big Mom in Reservation Blues (1995) -- 8. Aging Relations: Place and Belonging -- 8.1. James Welch: "Grandfather at the Rest Home" (1971) -- 8.2. James Welch: Grandmother in Winter in the Blood (1974) -- 8.3. Janet Campbell Hale: "Claire" (1999) -- 8.4. Sherman Alexie: "One Good Man" (2000) -- 8.5. James Welch, The Death of Jim Loney (1979) -- 8.6. Intersections of Old Age and Gender: Chrystos' Old Women -- 9. Old Age as Loss: Cultural vs. Individual Memory of the Old -- 9.1. N. Scott Momaday: "Plainview 2" (1976) and House Made of Dawn (1966) -- 9.2. Sherman Alexie: "Dear John Wayne" (2000) -- 9.3. Sherman Alexie's Grandmothers -- 9.4. Chrystos: "They're Always Telling Me I'm Too Angry" (1995) -- 9.5. Luci Tapahonso: "A Discreet Conversation" (1987) -- Part IV: Old Age, Sages and Tradition -- 10. Haunted by Tradition -- 10.1. Simon Ortiz: "Long House Valley Poem" (1992) -- 10.2. The Spectrality of the Old -- 10.3. A Golden Age of Old Age? -- 10.4. Sages Instead of Politicians -- References -- Index.