INDIAN OLD MAN STORIES - MORE SPARKS FROM WAR EAGLE'S LODGE-FIRE by LINDERMAN, FRANK B - 1920

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1920., 1920. First edition. First edition, first printing. 8vo. Signed by Charles M. Russell and Frank B. Linderman on the front free fly leaf. Bound in full red cloth with an inset color illustration by Charles M. Russell on the front cover, xx [4],160 pp., color frontispiece (C. M. Russell drawing similar to book's front cover design), foreword by Frank B. Linderman, illustrated with color plates and with pen and ink drawings throughout the text by Charles M. Russell. Notorious for being a title found in worn condition, this is a near fine, clean copy. Extremely rare as a signed copy. Housed in a cloth clamshell case with leather spine label and titles stamped in gilt. For a powerful character, Old-Man was comically flawed. Though he made the world, he sometimes forgot the names of things. Victim and victimizer, he seemed closer to common experience than the awesome god Manitou. These collected stories from Chippewa and Cree elders 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.