The stories in Old Indian Days focus mainly on Sioux bands of the Upper Midwest in prereservation times, when contact with whites was minimal. Charles A. Eastman, a mixed-blood Sioux who earned renown as the author of nearly a dozen books, was on home ground in writing about the traditional life of his people, their customs, warm family relations, reverence for animals, and struggle for survival. Originally published in 1907, Old Indian Days alludes to historical figures like Little Crow and Tamahay and to an event that Eastman experienced as a small boy, the 1862 Sioux Uprising in Minnesota.