The Indians of the northwestern plains always laughed at the tales about Old-man, heard around the lodge fire in the wintertime after sunset. For a powerful character, he was comically flawed. Old-man made the world but sometimes forgot the names of things. Victim and victimizer, he seemed closer to common experience than the awesome god Manitou. Frank B. Linderman thought Old-man was, under different names, a god for many Indian communities.These stories-collected from Chippewa and Cree elders and first published in 1920-are full of wonder at the way things are. Why children lose their teeth, why eyesight fails with age, why dogs howl at night, why some animals wear camouflage-these and other mysteries, large and small, are made vividly sensible.

The Indians of the northwestern plains always laughed at the tales about Old-man, heard around the lodge fire in the wintertime after sunset. For a powerful character, he was comically flawed. Old-man made the world but sometimes forgot the names of things. Victim and victimizer, he seemed closer to common experience than the awesome god Manitou. Frank B. Linderman thought Old-man was, under different names, a god for many Indian communities. ø These stories?collected from Chippewa and Cree elders and first published in 1920?are full of wonder at the way things are. Why children lose their teeth, why eyesight fails with age, why dogs howl at night, why some animals wear camouflage?these and other mysteries, large and small, are made vividly sensible.

Retells twenty-two "why stories" of the Blackfeet, Chippewa, and Cree tribes, including tales of the creation and of the willful and wily doings of the creator, Old-man.

As she goes about her work with the villagers, slum dwellers and the common men and women of India, Sudha Murty—writer, social worker and teacher—listens to them and records what they have to say. Their accounts of the struggles and hardships which they have at times overcome, and at other times been overwhelmed by, are put together in this book. There are stories about people’s generosity—and selfishness—in times of natural disasters like the tsunami; women struggling to speak out in a world that refuses to listen to them; and tales of young professionals trying to find their feet as they climb up the corporate ladder. Told simply and directly from the heart, The Old Man and His God is a collection of snapshots of the varied facets of human nature and a mirror to the souls of the people of India.

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Excerpt from Indian Old-Man Stories: More Sparks From War Eagle's Lodge-Fire It is a mistake to declare that the sun is the god of the Indian, or that Old-man and the sun are one and the same character. Nothing can be farther from the truth. The god is Manitou, and He is All Everything Nature; while the sun is reverenced by all tribes that I know only as the greatest manifestation of the deity, whose; name is seldom mentioned. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.