Gerontocracy and the Advice of Elders

Abstract

Anthropologists and ethnologists, who generalized this institution as a rule of government of native peoples, studied the power exercised by the old through the council of elders, as a system of indigenous government. Elders in this system are seen as possessed with wisdom, prestige, power and leadership; traits of high social status that homogenized for the aged population, making believe that reaching advanced age was entering a gerontocracy paradise. This paper discusses the intergenerational struggle for power and the changes of social and political organization of Indian peoples, and how the organization of Government, with a negative balance for the elderly population has been modified. Today are remnants of what one day was the council of elders, and their functions have been relegated to ritual matters, where does not put at risk political and economic decision-making in the community.