Abstract
Among the Tuareg of Niger, West Africa, much local cultural imagery identifies aging with increasing devotion to prayer and greater participation in rites of passage. It contrasts these activities to evening musical festivals classified by many as anti-Islamic and which are identified with youth. These ritual and festival frames and their age tropes reveal struggles, as well as interdependencies, among older persons and their children in marriage and household concerns, as well as in wider upheavals in Tuareg society. The Tuareg data offer insights into cultural constructions of aging and disputes over them. They also suggest refinements of anthropological theories on performance, ritual, and festival processes in relation to life transitions.
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