“Indigenous Religious Traditions” — Colorado College

The other day I visited my grandmother at her nursing home in Denver. The lobby of the building was filled with senior citizens, as one would expect in assisted living. Most of the people were in wheel chairs or using walkers and many were sleeping where they sat. As I walked through the building in search of my grandmother, I began to feel a little depressed. The overwhelming presence of people approaching their death gave the building a sad energy, and I felt sorry for each person I passed. But the longer I thought about it, the less I could understand why I felt such grief. I thought about our experience at Pine Ridge and how I viewed the elders there compared to the elders I encountered in this instance. I saw the elders at Pine Ridge as wise and full of knowledge, but I saw the people living with my grandmother as senile and fragile.  My differing experiences at Pine Ridge and at the nursing home inspired me to take a deeper look at how elders are perceived in Native American culture versus mainstream American society.

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