The Ute relationships to the lands of West Central Colorado: An ethnographic overview prepared for the U.S. Forest Service by the Office of Community Services, Fort Lewis College, Durango, Colorado (this prints out as 38 pages)

This report was prepared for the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, and Gunnison National Forests, revised as of August 2004, by the Office of Community Services, Fort Lewis College (Sam Burns, Research Director), through a Cooperative Agreement with the National Park Service, Midwest Archeological Center, Lincoln, Nebraska, Agreement No. CA6000A9003 Modification No. 008.

Foreword

The Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, and Gunnison National Forests  (GMUG) are in the process of revising their Land and Resource Management Plan (a.k.a. “Forest Plan”), which, among the primary goals of attaining a healthy forest, addresses the desires of forest user groups regarding future management direction.  According to the government-to-government relationship between American Indian tribes and the federal government, the tribes whose ancestors inhabited the forestlands also were contacted to provide input into the Forest Plan (in this case, the Ute tribes).

Funding for forest planning provided through Region 2 of the USFS (Rocky Mountain Region-Denver, Colorado) created an opportunity to compile the present ethnography, which, in addition to some personal interviews, synthesized existing ethnographic information for forest plan data analysis.  This work is not considered an exhaustive ethnography, but a helpful guide to planners addressing management of Traditional Cultural Properties, certain landscapes, and other cultural and natural resources of possible interest to the Utes.

We have had the support and guidance of Sally Crum and Leigh Ann Hunt, both of whom provide cultural resource and heritage protection services and assistance to the GMUG.   Their support has been invaluable.

The financial support to complete the data collection and analysis for this effort, provided by the USDA Forest Service, was contractually facilitated by Ralph Hartley at the U.S. Park Service, Midwest Archaeological Center, Lincoln Nebraska.

Additional expressions of appreciation to professional historians and ethnologists have been made in section one of Part II of this report.  To everyone who has given guidance and made comments on the draft report, go our deep appreciation for your interest and guidance.

Special thanks are given to Dr. James Goss, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, Texas Tech University, who has spent his career among the Ute People, and agreed to be interviewed for this study. Dr. Goss came to work with the Southern Ute Tribe as a graduate student, studying with Professor Omer Stewart, of the University of Colorado, as a part of the Tri-Ethnic Study.  Having a background in linguistics, he learned the Ute language and gathered many traditions from the elders.  Dr. Goss has recently donated his entire personal library and professional papers to the Southern Ute Cultural Center in Ignacio, Colorado

Additionally, we wish to acknowledge Betsy Chapoose, Director of the Cultural Rights and Protection Department of the Northern Ute Tribe, Fort Duchesne, Utah, who provided many insights about Ute relationships with their traditional lands, and for making arrangements for us to speak with Clifford Duncan and Helen Wash.   Clifford Duncan is an elder with the Northern Ute Tribe, who spoke at length about the Colorado mountain landscapes of the Uncompahgre and White River Bands.  Helen Wash is gathering information about the use of herbal and medicinal plants by Utes in order to preserve the knowledge of these practices, and shared her work with us.

Sally Crum also spoke with Mr. Howard Richards, Tribal Chairman of the Southern Utes in Ignacio, CO on September 24, 2003.  Sally recorded these notes from her visit:

He stated that the GMUG was definitely the homeland of the Southern Utes and that the cultural resources of the area were very important to them.  He particularly mentioned the Grand Mesa as being a “spiritual tie” in the hearts of many elders of the Weenuch band (Ute Mt. Utes).  While traveling near Delta for the Council Tree Pow Wow one year, Howard noticed them pointing out the window at Grand Mesa and saying how much they wanted to visit it.

While time did not permit first-hand discussions with the Southern Utes and the Ute Mountain Utes, we recognize that they, along with the Northern Utes, have traditional family and cultural ties with West Central Colorado, as indicated by Sally Crum’s notes and the commentaries provided by Dr. Goss.

My sincerest thanks go to Liesl Dees, a dedicated historical researcher, who completed the vast majority of the archival, library, and museum research for this project, and prepared Part II of this report.  For her the project became a true “labor of love” as she worked far beyond the original scope of the tasks she was asked to complete.  Without her professional commitment, this study could not have been successful, nor have achieved the degree of excellence that her work brought to it.

Lastly, I would like to thank members of the Office of Community Services staff at Fort Lewis College, Marcella Mosher and Tim Richard, who provided on-going collegial support and administrative assistance.

To one and all, thanks for your guidance, support, and encouragement.  We have enjoyed the opportunity to make available this record of the Ute’s relationship to the land of West-Central Colorado.

Sam Burns, Ph.D., Research Director
Office of Community Services, Fort Lewis College
Durango, Colorado 81301
970-247-7193
Burns_S@fortlewis.edu 
August 2004

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Preface

Taken from a paper by Dr. James Goss: 

In the beginning there was only water.
Water Grandmother floated in her basket
In the midst of the waters.
She thought and created the land from her own body
As Spider creates her web, or as a woman creates her basket.
She thought, and sang, and stretched the land.
She circled in the sunwise direction, and
Bit by bit, she added to the land.
When the land was so large that she could no longer see the waters,
She sent Sinawavi to see if it was large enough.
Sinawavi ran from center to edge,
Again and again,
Checking and rechecking.
Finally, Sinawavi returned, all out of breath,
Shouting, "It fits!" "It fits!" 

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This is a fragment of the origin myth of the Nuutsiyu (The Ute People). It serves as a master key to understanding Ute perspectives on their lands, their trails, their neighbors, and their place in creation and history. In Ute traditional belief Water Grandmother is Mother Earth and created this earth for her children to come. Sinawavi is her helpmate, created to become the steward of Her body. He made the trails from the mountain center of the earth to the edges where the earth meets the Sea that Surrounds us. He measured the earth so that it had the proper dimensions for the people to come. The earth was created to "fit" the pattern that Mother Earth thought into being. Only Sinawavi has the power to make the trails or measure the earth. No mere man can presume to make trails, to measure the earth, or to cut up Her flesh. To do so would be the direst sacrilege.

Ute Genesis continues:

Sinawavi was coming down a ridge from Niavikaavi, "The sacred highest snowy mountain at the center of the earth", and he saw Water Grandmother making a basket beside the Sacred Lake, "Her source of all the waters"' As Sinawavi arrives She is finishing the lid for the basket and sealing it with pinyon pitch. She said, "Take this down the trail to the edge of Avapaa "The Great Water that Surrounds us”. “But, be careful not to open it until you are beside the Great Water".

Sinawavi dutifully follows the instructions of the Creator Goddess. He puts the basket on his back and starts running down the trail to the edge of the Great Water. But, the trail is rough and rocky and as he bounds along the lid of the basket flies off and without Him noticing the contents start jumping out. All down the trail they jump out.

Water Grandmother is angered by Sinawavi's foolishness and rolls the waters of the Sacred Lake into the trail. The angry waters tear up the lands along the trail and slash the trail into deep canyons. Sinawavi sees the waters coming and runs and bounds faster and faster and more of the contents jump out. The contents are, of course, people.

Finally, Sinawavi gets to the edge of the Great Water, and jumps aside as the angry waters flow on into The Sea that Surrounds us. He takes the basket off his back and realizes his transgression. He turns the basket upside down and the smallest brownest people come out that were left in the bottom of the basket. Sinawavi calls them the Kwichanuuwi or the "Excrement People " and tells them that they will live there at the mouth of the river that now flows down the trail. He tells them how to live and what they will eat.

Now he sadly goes back up along the river over the rough canyon country that has been created by his transgression. The smooth trail that he had originally created is now at the bottom of the river. So he has to blaze a more arduous route back to the Sacred Lake and the Snowy Mountain of the Center. Along the way he meets the people that have jumped out of the basket. These bewildered newly created creatures are waiting along the river literally not knowing which way to turn.

Sinawavi shoulders his responsibility and gives each group along the way a name and tells them where they are to live, how they will live, and what they are to eat. He said goodbye to the Yuma people at the mouth of the river, whom he called the Kwichanuuwi. He moved on up the river and named the Aitsiyu, "The Turtle People ", the Mojave. Then he named the Muukwitsiyu, "The Spider People", "The Weavers", the Hopi. Then he named the Paagawiitsiyu, "The Dragonfly People" "The Slim People", The Navajos. Then he named the Paanukwitsiyu, "The River People" the Paiutes who lived along the rivers. Then he named the Paayukwitsiyu, "The Lake People ", the Paiutes who lived at the lakes. Then he got back to the first little people that had jumped out of the basket up at the head of the trail near the Sacred Lake and he said that they were small and their weren't very many of them but they were strong. He said that they were fortunate to live in these beautiful mountains and that they would have lots of game to eat. He also said that they would always live in these mountains and be the closest to the Sacred Lake and the most Sacred mountains of their Grandmother Earth. And they would be called the Nuutsiyu, "The Mountain People”. Uwisura urupiga "That is the way it was a long time ago."

This is the way (of course, in my free translation) that the story was told to me by Antonio Buck, Jr., elder of the Southern Ute Tribe in 1961. (Entire text above is taken from Goss, 2003b)

Part I:  Ute Ethnographic Themes: A Beginning Synthesis/ Prepared for the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, and Gunnison National Forests, revised as of August 2004, by the Office of Community Services, Fort Lewis College, Sam Burns, Ph.D., Principal Investigator, through a Cooperative Agreement with the National Park Service, Midwest Archeological Center, Lincoln, Nebraska, Agreement No. CA6000A9003 Modification No. 008. 
 

A Beginning Synthesis:

Around those places where they pounded the jerky up there [in the mountains], because they gathered currants and other berries, well out in meadows where there are some of these pounding stones, you find surrounding these stones a lot of the berry bushes growing there.  Nice red currants in August that you can pick and eat right there, where they have been replanted by the people in the process of pounding pemmican.  It’s just so obvious that this is where they were pounding their pemmican …  but there are only a few flint flakes around to indicate that they have been there.  It’s only rarely that you find a complete point or anything.   Their butcher knives were just utility flakes, struck off a stone and used there and thrown away when it got dull.  So they did not leave much. (James Goss, 2003)

For hundreds of years, the Ute people, who called themselves Nuutsiyu (this is the spelling provided by Jim Goss), moved about much of Colorado in small groups.  Moving rather continuously over vast landscapes, it is not too surprising that there are few physical traces of their inhabitation. And yet ironically, it is this fundamental relationship with the land that is most telling or most revealing about their cultural ways.

The story told here about the Ute, or the Nuche, or the Nuutsiyu, will portray an entire society whose very essence was vitally linked with the natural materials and conditions of the land they inhabited.  In this fundamental sense, the Ute were, up until European contact, a “land-based culture,” a tribal society that cannot be understood without knowing about their attachments to their mountain environment.

I found out that the Utes considered themselves to be the mountain people to begin with, and different groups of the Utes traditionally had their associations with particular mountains… The major Ute bands along the Front Range [of Colorado] centered on Pike’s Peak.  Why would Pike’s Peak be a central point? It’s a fourteen thousand foot mountain that sticks out furthest into the plains.  It’s the one that the sun hits first…the rising sun hits first…They called Pike’s Peak Tavi-watch.  Tavi means sun, and watch means mountain.  So the Ute name for Pike’s Peak is Sun Mountain…And Taviwatchsiyu, with the siyu on the end is plural for people. So the Taviwatchsiyu are the Sun Mountain People, quite straightforwardly. …

The Utes sort of view the universe as if they were standing on a high place looking south, and the sun comes up over here on the left and goes overhead and goes down on the right.  It goes in a clockwise direction.  So from a Ute point of view, the sun goes clockwise around the earth…so this is the sun wise direction. (James Goss, 2003)

Take this sense of association with the mountainous landscape as the central, literal and essential story of the Utes.  It provides a picture of a people who were tied in every social and cultural respect to the landscapes they inhabited. Upon this most comprehensive or holistic worldview of the Utes, is based their cultural inseparability from the mountain landscape of Colorado. 

From this point, the story unfolds as one might lay out a map of social interaction over an enormously large landscape.  We see a people who move about the valleys and mountains of West Central Colorado, (from north of the Colorado River south over the Grand Mesa to the Uncompahgre and Gunnison River Valleys), in a highly mobile way, not staying in one place much of the year, except in winter camps in the lower country. During the spring, summer, and fall months they are moving in and around the high mountains.  They would stop and spend time in specific types of vegetation for cultural and spiritual purposes.

Deep down at bedrock of the culture, the movement of an entire society is founded on a unique set of beliefs, values, and practices that must unfold through the natural and annual cycles of the land itself.

The Bear Dance is actually propitiating the spirits of the mountains to allow them to move up into the higher country.  Traditionally they held that in the pinion and oak ecological zone.  In fact traditionally you had to have oak in that transitional zone, which I guess is about six or seven thousand feet. You’re moving up from the low country in the foothills, into the pinion and juniper zone, and that’s where they held the Bear Dance.  They had to be in that zone to have the oak that they used for the enclosure.

And there was a sacred relationship between Grizzly Bear and the oak tree.  They were said to be pairs. There’s Ute traditions about seeing the Grizzly Bear dancing with oak trees, and Bear having a special relation...scratching himself on oak trees… So the Bear Dance has to be in that zone… 

And propitiation of the Grizzly Bear gives permission for them to move up into the higher mountain… They consider the first spring thunder to be the voice of Grizzly Bear.  And that’s calling them to come to the Bear Dance. So generally that was at the vernal equinox, that is the first of spring, about the 20^th of March…And it was only after they did that ceremony that they had the sacred permission to move up in the mountains.   So they wouldn’t be up in the mountains in the wintertime. In fact they had a sacred mandate to be in the lower country. …

But notice this is also a conservation pattern.  That is, you don’t over exploit a particular part of your environment, especially at the wrong time of the year.  Maybe the mountains need to rest in the winter. (Goss, 2003)

The Nuutsiyu moved around and through the mountains in small groups of 10 or 15 family members hunting and gathering food.   Indeed, this high degree of mobility fit the availability of animals, berries, and other flora in the landscapes.  Permanent settlement was not appropriate, was not even possible, given a set of life ways based on hunting and foraging over a rather massive landscape.  This included all of Colorado and parts of New Mexico and Utah, for a society of approximately 10,000 people.

Moving on foot, until the acquisition of horses from the Spanish, the Utes did not build up a significant material culture.  Shelter was very temporary, using brush huts made out of cedar branches and pine bark, known as wickiups.  Food was prepared and stored in fiber baskets.  Can there be any wonder then that there is so little evidence of Ute occupation, except for some sparsely scattered lithic materials, stone circles, pounding stones, cooking hearths, and pictographs?

Moving around in the mountains to gather food from naturally growing and existing flora and fauna also seems to have dictated that the groups would be small.  Goss believes that the size of these groups might well be estimated from the number of kinship terms (mother, father sister, brother, uncle, aunt, etc) that can be found in the Ute language, which he notes is about 20. (Goss, October 2003)  Goss also believes that the movement of the small groups was not socially disorganized, but that the small, extended family groups were in touch with each other, and they could be communicated with if the need arose between the times of ceremonial gatherings.

The almost continual movement of the Utes over the landscape of Western Colorado created numerous trails and trial systems.  While we might think of identifying critical or highly used trails, most likely there were trails everywhere that a person or group could physically walk. Although visible evidence of some Ute trails remains today, as is indicated and catalogued in Part II of this report, we should recognize that modern roads and highways in some cases have covered many trails. 

Of course there’s a network all over these mountains and forests of Ute trails.  Most of the trails in the national forests today are right on top of Ute trails.  And most of the passes through the mountains in Colorado are… well the Utes of course moving their families, took the paths of least resistance.  Of course, Cochetopa Pass out of the San Luis Valley and over into the Gunnison was one of the lower passes, and that was one of the major passes that was used for people moving around.  (Goss, 2003)

In their continuing movement in and around the mountains, the Utes gave names to many   places. While a beginning effort has been made to inventory some of these names, a much greater effort should be made to bring out the ecological knowledge of the Nuche.  This knowledge, often embedded in the Ute language, would most likely tell us much more about the land-based cultural senses that tied them to the specific mountains of West-Central Colorado.

One of the strongest likelihoods is that the “central” mountains, the hunting and transportation trails, the accessible passes, and all the important or sacred places were tied into a broad landscape ecology that was integrated with both cultural values and seasonal subsistence.

They had a diversified economy of meat, pinion, and lots of other roots and berries.   So they had a very balanced diet just off of nature.  They were able to maintain themselves as their ancestors did for thousands years by big game hunting and then exploiting these plant resources. So the unique thing about the Utes is that they had such a rich environment…this mountain environment with its diversity, and the abundance of game back in those days.  They didn’t have to farm.  Why settle down and farm when you can get enough off the natural landscape.

Movement was a basic value.  That is, you could say they had a sacred mandate, passed on to them by tradition from deity, that they were supposed to do this.  They were supposed to have these ceremonies at different times of the year in different environments:  That is, their Bear Dance in the pinyon, and juniper, and oak woodlands.  Their summer ceremonies, which evolved into the Sun Dance, in the high mountain meadows, where they hunted.  And that would have been at the summer solstice, at the first of summer.  And then in the fall, they were supposed to be down out of the mountains by the beginning of fall, the 21^st or so of September.  And then they had their fall pinyon harvest, and they weren’t supposed to go up in the mountains again until spring.  But after the pinion harvest, they were supposed to be in their winter camp.

And that was a pattern that wasn’t just economic, but it was sacred.  It had a sacred mandate to do it.  Now what happens to people if you take them off of this landscape that they feel that the creator has given them, and given them a responsibility for, and you don’t allow them to do that any more? (Goss, 2003.)

The importance of Goss’ question, “what happens to a people when you take them off of this landscape that they feel the creator has given them…?”, becomes apparent when we observe the historical increase in contact with European and American settlement, which occurred slowly beginning in the early 1600’s, but rapidly expanded in the century between 1770 to1881.  This century began with Spanish exploration of routes to California, and ended with the arrival of large-scale mining in the San Juan Mountains of Southwest Colorado.  

The earliest contact with the Utes came from the south through the Spanish colonial settlements in the northern Rio Grande Valley, stretching from present-day Santa Fe, New Mexico up into the San Luis Valley of Colorado.  This initial contact evolved into regular trading, primarily in the vicinity of Abiquiu along the Chama River in northwestern New Mexico.  Later, the door opened for increased travel and eventual settlement by Spanish colonists, north up through the Chama River Valley into Southwest Colorado towards present-day Ignacio and Durango. (See the account by Frances Leon Quintana, 1974.)

About 1830, a trading post was established by Antoine Robidoux near present-day Delta, Colorado.  While this settlement led to some trading and social interaction between traders and settlers, the major impacts of the incursions of western exploration and settlement occurred in the 1860-1880 period.  During this time, even though treaties were signed with the Utes in 1863, and 1868 to affirm substantial portions of Western Colorado as Ute territory, a strong surge of settlement, based on mining, ranching, timbering, and railroading, directly intruded into the lands and the mobility upon which the culture and life ways of the Utes depended.

As Indian agencies were established at Los Pinos west of Saguache (and later in the Uncompahgre Valley near Montrose, Colorado), and along the White River, the basic nature of the Ute culture was forcibly changed.   With governmental supervision being required, and rations and other supplies being distributed through the agencies, a highly mobile society moved coercively toward a more sedentary and localized pattern of daily life. 

Informal groups and extended family units that had for centuries moved around enormous mountain landscapes, congregating during various seasons and ceremonial gatherings, now became structured and categorized into “formal” bands with specifically chosen “leaders” needed by the expanding United States government as spokesmen. For the first time in centuries, the Nuutsiyu became the Uncompahgre, the White River, and eventually the Northern Utes. (Throughout this report, we use Nuche or Nuutsiyu, or band names to underscore the variation in how they viewed themselves and in how they were socially identified by persons and organizations outside the culture.   See more about this in Section Three of Part II.)    From being tied culturally, ecologically and vitally to specific, centralizing mountain landscapes, they came to be identified by the Indian Agencies with which they were associated.

While this shift led to countless cultural effects stemming from the gradual dissolution of long-standing ecological bonds with the land, it also led to an ultimate tragedy in 1879.  The Meeker incident (described under Removal on page 33 below), culminated in the forced removal in 1881 of the Northern Ute Bands from Colorado.

Because the removal of the Ute people from West-Central was so far westward, to an entirely separate and different landscape in the Uintah Basin of Northeastern Utah, it could not be expected that much of their living cultural ecology could possibly be maintained.
 

The Story Today:

And yet, when you speak with representatives of these groups today, located now at the Northern Ute Confederated Tribes at Fort Duchesne, Utah, you can recognize clear reflections of the Nuutsiyu traditional story. Clifford Duncan, a traditional elder of the former Colorado Utes, over the period of more than an hour, mentioned many important understandings, among them the following:

Sacred sites:  As far as sacred sites, I don’t think there were places like for everyone to use and call sacred. I think those were narrowed down to the family or single units.  Like if you find a stone circle, sometimes we refer to them as a vision quest site, it may be that it was only one person that did that. And they used that site. Most of the spiritual power and healing was conducted in a way by a single person alone, having that authority to do certain things.  It was not like a group.  It was not an organized structure that they came out of.

 About the bands:  There should have been like “all Utes, rather than “band Utes,” or “family Utes.”  It may not have been that… like we have Uncompahgres.  I think that may have been invented by the Europeans or the Federal government to keep track of us. So they said okay, we’ll have Mouache here.  So they gave them allotments or whatever, put them on reservation, gave them a number. You know, you have ID numbers. “ You belong to this band. So you can’t come over here.”  I think they invented that.  I think they (the Utes) were everywhere.

The Bear Dance: But the Bear Dance has been solid with the Utes for centuries… I have been to Apache Crown Dances.  And how they do those dances, they have that song…and if you close your eyes and listen to it, and put yourself like you would be in a Bear Dance, you would think that they were singing a Bear Dance song…Uh,uh, yuh, yu heh..(Clifford begins to sing)  It’s exactly the same sound.  And the women dance and go back and forth, exactly how they do the Bear Dance here.  So the question in my mind is, who got what from who?  I don’t think there was like one culture being completely in a vacuum to hold itself together.  I think it’s been going on for years, and years, and years…centuries, thousands of years.  So there is nothing that we could say was actually started from us.

Taking care of the land: I think Indians people looked up to the earth as being like its own… Indians are more of a caretaker.  So like if you take care of a piece of land, you know, you’re not doing it for yourself, because you didn’t own it.  It’s owned by God, and if God instructs you to burn a certain area, you burn it so that it will have a better crop.  So the practice of ecology was done in a way that it all benefited everybody. People think they burned that place just for the hell of it. (Duncan, 2003)
 

Looking Forward:  

In discussing the lands of the GMUG National Forests, and what should be done to involve the Utes with them by the public land agencies in the future, Clifford Duncan seemed to be thinking from a multi-cultural perspective, or about using a mutual or collaborative approach.  In his mind, so much has changed since the days when the Utes lived in Colorado:

We have crossed many bridges already.  And the last bridge is this:  that we are in same house, wearing the same clothes, talking the same language.  We can’t go back over the bridge.  That’s gone. But we can look back.

 But then let’s talk about something that we’re trying to save today, that’s going to make it to that next bridge.  If we don’t, we going to destroy that too.  So we’re both going to be walking separate paths to that same bridge.  Cause when that bridge collapses, we’re both going to lose. (Duncan, 2003)

 In some degree, perhaps more than we can fully comprehend, Clifford’s words might be prophetic:

We have crossed many bridges already.
The last bridge is this:
we are in same house,
wearing the same clothes,
talking the same language. 

We can’t go back over the bridge.
That’s gone.
But we can look back.

But then let’s talk about something that we’re trying to save today,
that’s going to make it to that next bridge.
If we don’t, we going to destroy that too. 

So we’re both going to be walking separate paths
to that same bridge.
Cause when that bridge collapses,
we’re both going to lose.

The Uncompahgre and White River Utes who occupied west-central Colorado from the Grand Mesa South to the San Juan Mountains have not lived in Colorado for well over one hundred years.  And yet there is a desire to maintain contacts with these lands, to re-instill in their youth a sense of belonging to the areas now occupied by the GMUG National Forests.   As forest management planning moves forward, and as resource management continues, a number of perspectives and initiatives could bring beneficial results to the Ute People, as well as the forest lands. (See the Contemporary Perspectives section eleven in Part II of this report also.)

·        Cultural resource management from a Ute, or more generally from an Indian perspective, is comprehensive or more integrated than assessing a single site, which is the typical heritage protection approach of public land management.  Archeological sites are not looked at separately from the physical setting in which they are located.  Air and water quality are important.  Important sacred sites such as stone circles, cairns, or vision quests locations have contextual attributes such as a line of sight to the horizon or to high points within surrounding mountains.  A ceremonial site was traditionally chosen because it had a vista, or possessed certain plants and animals that were necessary for the healing that was to take place.

·        Rapport needs to be established with tribal people on a continuous basis.  Attempts to merely gain isolated input on a specific project, such as a prescribed burn, are not very helpful or beneficial in the long run. An ongoing relationship needs to be established with tribal members so that when comment is needed on a particular project action, there is trust, and a broader basis of knowledge and involvement with the public lands, the staff, and the tribe to draw on.

·        While government-to-government consultation needs to continue, an effort should be made to broaden the base of community involvement.  This may mean developing more tribal people who have a sense of belonging with regard to the traditional lands.   This means getting more youth involved and hosting field trips for tribal elders.

·        Government-to-government briefings should be held with Tribal Council once or twice a year to provide a strategic overview about what is happening and what is coming up.

·        In-service training for forest staff has been offered in the past, particularly at Gunnison.  This could be continued with teaching about tribal history for any US Forest Service field staff.  However, mention was made that managers are not involved enough in field trips and other conversations; that is, only the archaeologists or cultural resources staff tend to participate in direct tribal communications.  Then, when decisions are made or strategic planning processes are at stake, relationships with managers have not been developed adequately.  This leads to less than optimal trust and rapport, which are viewed as necessary by the Utes to act collaboratively and authentically in order to protect cultural resources.     

·        There is the belief that Utes should not have to identify individually each and every important site that should be protected. Rather they should assist by describing the types of resources, sites, and environmental contexts and conditions that are important. In this manner, the field staff would be better prepared to recognize them when they are out on the ground, and take appropriate action.

·        There should be a realization that cultural awareness gaps have occurred among Ute people because of a loss of contact with the land.  This has resulted in part from some tribal members being sent away to boarding schools, and therefore not being able to learn the oral traditions that are passed down through families.  Greater levels of participation by all the generations of Utes with the forestlands would mitigate this gap to some degree, and this needs to become a goal of a relationship building effort between the GMUG and the Northern Ute Tribe.

… You really need to involve the tribes that you are working with, not just because you have a “prescribed burn” and you want to have some input as to what they are going to do to the cultural resources in that area.  I think you need to have that rapport and build that rapport so that you’ve got that input every day….

There’s more to protection than is put on paper.  There’s a lot of humanistic qualities about the aesthetics of an area, for example, the line of sight when you are talking about cairns.  (Chapoose, 2003.)

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 Also I think it is our responsibility to educate the Forest Service on our history of their area.  I really think a lot of people are ignorant about that. If you went to Colorado, some people would be surprised that there’s a Ute Tribe in Utah that was moved out of Colorado…I keep saying, “ a sense of ownership,” which is an Anglo term, but it’s the sense of belonging within that area.  Then they can understand why that is quite important to instill that in our kids. And to be able to have our older people go back over there look at areas that maybe their folks talked to them about.  (Chapoose, 2003.)

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 We took a group of elder ladies over there. And that had to be the best week I have ever had in this job for a long time.  Everything was so fresh to them.  We stopped at these scarred trees.  They’d get out and they all start talking at the same time. You’d get back in the van and they’d still be talking.  And we stopped at one kind of outlook area, and they got out and went over to the edge, and they looked.  And ahh, you know their faces just all lit up.  It was really quite a sight.  And they all started talking in Ute again about, “I remember when and all of that….”  It was really fantastic.  Those opportunities too are part of that rapport building and being able to have that sense of belonging, so that we can feel like we should talk to the Forest and say, “Yea, we want these areas protected.” (Chapoose, 2003.)

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In some degree, let us hope that this ethnographic and historical overview will be one step towards a more mutual and collaborative agreement, and on-going process between the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, and Gunnison Forests and the Nuutsiyu/Utes, who lived within these mountain landscapes for centuries up until 1881.  Such an agreement might in part confirm the values, beliefs, and expressed here:

“Yea, we want these areas protected.”
 “Cause when that bridge collapses,
we’re both going to lose.”

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Part II: Ute Ethnographic Research: Grand Mesa, Uuncompahgre, and Gunnison (GMUG) National Forests; Prepared for the Office of Community Services, December 2003, by Liesl Dees, Historical Researcher, 710 W. 27^th, Farmington, NM 87401, 505-327-4918, email deesmyrs@sisna.com

Section One: Introduction
 

Acknowledgements

The limited scope of this project has necessitated a heavy reliance on advice of archaeologists, historians, and other scholars researching the Ute people and also on secondary source materials.  Many useful suggestions and clarifications have come from Mike Metcalf of Metcalf Archaeological Consultants in Eagle; Jon Horn, Jack Pfertsh, and Rachel Smith Gebauer of Alpine Archaeological Consultants, Inc. in Montrose; Steve Baker of Centuries Research, Inc. in Montrose; Judy Prosser Armstrong and John Lindstrom of the Museum of Western Colorado in Grand Junction; Jim Goss; Julie Coleman and Ed Horton of the Bureau of Land Management; Andy Gulliford of Fort Lewis College’s Center of Southwest Studies; Peter Decker; Marene Baker of the National Archives and Records Administration, Rocky Mountain Region in Denver; and Liz Walker of Englewood, Colorado.  Jon Horn, Andrew Gulliford, and Peter Decker also read over a draft document and contributed numerous clarifications and additions.  Many, many thanks go to all of these people mentioned above for sharing their time and knowledge.

Sources:

Three secondary sources have proved particularly useful: Ute Indian Arts & Culture (William Wroth, ed., 2000); Ethnography of the Northern Utes (Anne M. Smith, 1974), and the “Ute” section in Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 11: Great Basin (Donald Callaway, Joel Janetski, and Omer C. Stewart, 1986).  Focusing on the Ute bands in the vicinity of the land now the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, and Gunnison National Forests (referred to as “GMUG”), has necessitated attention to attribution of cultural traits, looking for those affiliated with bands identified as Grand River, White River, Tabeguache, Sabuagana, and Uncompahgre.  Sources often refer to Eastern and Western Utes, roughly corresponding to Utes in Colorado and Utah.  Other sources distinguish Northern and Southern Utes, generally referring to the bands that are now on the Uintah-Ouray Reservation as Northern Utes, including the Uncompahgre and White River bands.  Anne Smith’s research, although not published until 1974, drew from fieldwork in the 1930s on the Uintah-Ouray Reservation when some informants remembered life in Colorado before 1881.  Throughout her text, Smith provided extremely useful clarifications by noting the band affiliation of her informants. 

In this document, relying on secondary sources certainly presents more room for error.  No doubt, some details of cultural traits await further scholarship and clarification.  Additionally, painting a broad picture of Ute usage of the land now the GMUG may at times give the erroneous impression of a static culture, with traits relating to all Utes at all times.  Obviously, even traditional cultures experience change, most notably in the case of the Ute, with the horse.  Innumerable smaller changes have occurred as well, though, in ways that may never be fully understood.

This project has involved some primary source materials.  Maps have been searched at the Denver Public Library, Colorado Historical Society, National Archives and Records Administration in Denver, Fort Lewis College’s Center of Southwest Studies, and, through correspondence, the National Archives Cartographic section in College Park, Maryland.  Omer C. Stewart’s Ethnohistorical Bibliography of the Ute Indians of Colorado provided numerous leads for information.  Additional manuscript materials at the Denver Public Library, Colorado Historical Society, and National Archives in Denver have been given brief attention to ascertain relevance.  A few materials deserve specific mention.   The Denver Public Library and the Colorado Historical Society both have materials pertaining to James Thompson, special Indian Agent based in Denver, and his brother-in-law, Edward McCook, a territorial governor of Colorado.  Liz Walker has been researching Thompson, as he wrote numerous articles about his travels and experiences with the Ute.  Most of his journeys took him to areas farther east.  Liz Walker plans to publish material on Thompson, which will provide insight on the mobility and Ute relationships with the land.  Additionally, the Colorado Historical Society has extensive resources on Nathan Meeker and his murder at the White River Agency and its aftermath.  The Colorado Historical Society also has a curious microfilm roll entitled “Bibliography of the Utes” which provides numerous newspaper articles and information from 1930s interviews concerning Utes returning to northern Colorado.

At Jon Horn’s suggestion, brief examination was made of Indian Agent records microfilmed by the National Archives.  The National Archives publication American Indians: A Select Catalog of National Archives Microfilm Publications is an invaluable tool for finding appropriate microfilm out of thousands of rolls available.  Specifically, Series M234, Letters Received by the Office of Indian Affairs, 1824 – 1881 (962 rolls), includes letters written by agents.  The Colorado Superintendency, covering the years 1861-1880, is found in rolls 197 to 214.  These records are rich with details about daily life; understanding the information, though, requires solid understanding of the people and events involved.  In order to understand these and other records pertaining to particular agencies, this document includes a listing of Ute agencies and their agents, as records are organized by agent name within the year.   Both Jon Horn and Steve Baker have put these microfilm records to use in supplementing archaeological and historical records.

A second group of microfilm records searched was National Archives Series M619, Letters Received by the Office of the Adjutant General, Rolls 513 to 517 (Papers relating to the Ute Indian uprising of 1879 at the White River Agency, CO, and the subsequent military operations and reprisals, 1879-1883). These were specifically searched for map and other location information pertaining to Ute routes with their captives following the killing at the White River Agency in 1879.

In addition to finding both of these sets of microfilm records at the National Archives in Denver, these and many other relevant National Archives microfilm reels are available at the Center of Southwest Studies.  The Center has numerous Ute related resources, which have been identified as a group on their web site at http://swcenter.fortlewis.edu/finding_aids/inventory/UteColls.htm

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Section Two: Ecological Movement

James Goss, interviewed for this study, describes the mountain-centered circuit as being tied through social and spiritual ceremonies to various vegetation-types and elevations through the seasons of the year.

Movement was a basic value.  That is, you could say they had a sacred mandate, passed on to them by tradition from deity, that they were supposed to do this.  They were supposed to have these ceremonies at different times of the year in different environments:  That is, their Bear Dance in the pinyon and juniper, and oak woodlands.  Their summer ceremonies, which evolved into the Sun Dance, in the high mountain meadows, were where they hunted.  And that would have been at the summer solstice, at the first of summer.  And then in the fall, they were supposed to be down out of the mountains by the beginning of fall, the 21^st or so of September.  And then they had their fall pinion harvest, and they weren’t supposed to go up in the mountains again until spring.  But after the pinion harvest, they were supposed to be in their winter camp.

And that was a pattern that wasn’t just economic, but it was a sacred.  It had a sacred mandate to do it. (Goss, 2003)

This model of movement, which incorporates both ecological, subsistence, and spiritual themes, has considerable explanatory value for how the Nuche related to the land.  While perhaps it could be furthered by additional ethnographic and archaeological research, it can serve as a good starting point.  As a basic model for a social and cultural ecology of the Utes, it also seems to be confirmed by ethnographic accounts gathered by Goss over the years, and by other accounts of lifestyle and subsistence patterns that are heavily dependent on seasonal use of flora and fauna.  Its primary theme of a clock-wise circular route around a central mountain by groups of families, also appears to fit with the minimal impacts by the Utes on the landscape.

In 1977 Kenneth Petersen tested Goss’s model in the precise area of this study, that is, in the areas previously inhabited by the Tabehuache and Elk Mountain Ute, or on the Uncompahgre Plateau and the Grand Mesa.  Here is Petersen’s abstract of his findings:

Historic accounts of camp location, elevation, and season for two mounted western Colorado Ute groups observed periodically from 1776 to 1868 provides additional support for James Goss’ model of Ute world view. This ecological model posits a mountain cosmos in which the realm of man is midway up and considered The Center Earth, and all directions are either up or down from it. Support for Goss “fixing center of the earth” on a mountain can be found in the ethnographic accounts of Major Powell and other Ute Indian Agents. Tabehuache and Elk Mountain Utes of western Colorado fixed their centers on the Uncompahgre Plateau and Elk Mountains-Grand Mesa respectively. Both Ute groups shared the same name as their mountain homes. Their mounted subsistence pattern was anchored to their mountain centers and fits Powell’s “grand circuit.” A plot of camp locations in relation to the pinyon and juniper woodland illustrate this mountain exploitive pattern. Ute camp locations are based primarily on the observations of (1) Father Escalante in August-September 1776, (2) three surveys in 1853 for the Central Railroad Route to the Pacific that crossed western Colorado from east to west on essentially the same route in June-July, September, and December-January 1854, and (3) the west-to-east trips of Captain Marcy in December 1857 and Colonel Loring in August 1858 over the same Central Railroad Route. These data document a mountain-centered grand circuit, cross-utilization of resource areas, the wintering at lower elevations, the utilization of resources from all mountain elevations, the exploitation of buffalo, and the participation in a summer rendezvous for these two Ute groups. (Petersen, 1977)

In the latter part of Petersen’s text there are several salient points about the relationships of Ute to the mountain landscapes of west-central Colorado.  He notes that there was a pattern of movement consisting of: 

·        “a mountain-centered grand circuit;”

·        “cross-utilization of resource areas:”

·        “the wintering at lower elevations;”

·        “the utilization of resources from all mountain elevations;”

·        “the exploitation of the buffalo;”\

·        “and the participation in summer rendezvous.”

These ecological patterns establish the fundamental relationships of the Nuche with the mountains of Colorado over many, many centuries.  They foretell many other lifestyle patterns of subsistence.  And they also establish the historical background for why the removal of the Uncompahgre and White River Bands in 1881was such a severe cultural dislocation. (The use of Elk Mountain, and Tabehuache by Petersen could cause some confusion, as the names Grand River, White River, and Uncompahgre are also used by various authors.  See explanation below under bad names.)

Peter Decker, a historian who is just completing a book (Forthcoming, March 2004.) on the Meeker tragedy entitled, The Utes Must Go, has underscored the severity of the removal from Colorado:

The Americans forcibly broke the Ute connection to their land.  Doing so caused great havoc, since the land provided them not only with their sustenance, but also served as the basis for their culture (religion, ceremonies and to some extent, their language).  Their land was their being. 

The taking of Ute land (and hence their culture) essentially broke a balance established over centuries, a balance, by the way, we are only now beginning to reconstruct and learn. (Slightly edited personal comments received from Peter Decker, 2003.) 

The essential basis of this balance of which Decker speaks, was an annual movement over the mountain landscapes of Colorado. In this age-old practice, the Utes possessed a land-based, cultural mobility, tied to ceremonial events fixed within natural ecological zones, that was essential to their well being and life ways.  At its depth, the Ute culture was based upon a traditional ecology of movement.

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Section Three: Ute Bands and Their Locations

Utes have identified themselves as “Nuche” –the mountain people– and they often identified groups of people by ecological terms.  When Spanish explorers, the American government, anthropologists, and others interested in the Utes began identifying groups of Ute people, they created a complex web of names, rather than categories necessarily used by Ute people themselves (Goss 2000:35-36).  For those interested in the Ute today, there are many layers of Ute names, Spanish names, place names, names used in treaties, and variant names given to anthropologists by Utes, coupled with numerous spellings for all of these names (Callaway et al. 1986:338-340; 365-367).   There are two inherent problems in names of Ute bands: layers of names, and the fluidity of Ute social structure.

Names given by Spanish explorers in the 1700s and later English speaking travelers reflect numerous ways of referring to groups of Utes: a favorite type of food (Yampa band or the Fish Utes); geographic area (Grand River Utes, Elk Mountain Utes); or lifeway characteristic (Muache, “cedar bark people”) (Callaway 1986:365; Goss 2000:34-35; Simmons 2000:16).   Utes also identified with particular leaders, and groups of Utes are sometimes identified by the leader’s name.  John Wesley Powell, for example, wrote  

It is the case among all the Ute with whom I have become acquainted, that a number of tribes [bands] recognize a common head.  White River Ute, as they are known to the Indian Department, being those tribes which receive their annuities at the White River Agency, were, when I knew them in the winter of 1868 and 69, divided into three tribes [sub-bands].  One tribe recognized Co-lo-row as their chief, another recognized Tsok-wi-outs, and the third Douglass (Fowler and Fowler 1971:50).  

Additionally, anthropologists characterize Ute residence patterns as matrilocal, that is, young men moved into the family camp of a new bride.  Generally, young men married outside of their own group, described by anthropologists as local group exogamy.  Add to this the mobility of the Utes after they acquired horses from the Spanish, and the result was an extremely fluid group structure, with band membership largely dependent on where an individual resided at a particular time (Goss 2000:34-35; Callaway et al. 1986:338; Baker 1990:IV-1). 

Thus, talking about bands presents problems, but it is impossible to understand historic events and cultural interaction without understanding terms used for the people who were in a given place at a given time.  Perhaps the future will offer better ways of thinking about Ute groups and better terms for talking and writing about groups of Utes.  James Goss has written 

[T]he historians and the anthropologists haven’t had the inside view before.  They’ve been trying to reconstruct it from little bits of evidence, and from political designations that only occurred, for example, when Indian agents tried to classify people to put them on reservations and things like that.  They weren’t using the categories that the people used themselves.  I guess the point is that the story of these people isn’t written.  It’s not a written and closed book.  We’re just starting to get a more realistic view of it (Goss 2000:36).

Not knowing the names that these groups gave themselves, historical records and anthropological literature at least provide a starting point for Ute band names.   Occasionally, the historic record provides some type of explicit information.  For example, Velez de Escalante’s journal from 1776 noted that the Rio de las Paraliticas, or Paralysis River, likely Disappointment Creek, separated the “Yutas Tabehuaches from the Muhuaches, the latter living to the south, and the others to the north” (Bolton 1950:32, 144; Warner 1995:21).  

Anthropologists generally group Utes who occupied the area that is now the GMUG into several bands.  The Tabeguache (also spelled Taveewach, Taviwach, Tabehuachis) are generally associated with the southern part of the GMUG.  In 1776, Escalante described ascending “an extensive mesa which is like a piece off La Sierra de los Tabehuachis,” thought to be the Uncompahgre Plateau (Warner 1995:24; 149).  Anthropologists contend that the Tabeguache traditional area included the Gunnison River, Elk Mountains, and the Uncompahgre River, extending eastward through the Rockies’ South Park (Callaway et al. 1986:339).  As mentioned above, Escalante placed the southern end of their territory at Disappointment Creek.   A band known as the Grand River Utes may have used the area that is now the Grand Mesa National Forest.  This group is also identified as the Parianuches (Parianuc, Pahdteeahnooch, Parasanuch, or “elk people”) (Callaway et al. 1986:339, 365; Simmons 2000:20-21). 

When the United States federal government established agencies to give annuities to the Ute according to treaty terms, bands became identified with particular agencies and were referred to by agency locations.  Thus, Ute who received rations at the agency located on the Uncompahgre River, including the Tabeguache, were known as the Uncompahgre band.  Those who frequented the agency in the White River area, which included both the Grand River and Yampa bands, were known as the White River bands (Callaway et al. 1986:339).   

The White River and Uncompahgre bands were both removed from their land in Colorado in the aftermath of conflict with federal troops at Milk River and killing of White River agency workers, including Agent Nathan Meeker, in 1879.  The White River Utes, who were involved in the killing, were moved to the Uintah Reservation in Utah.  The Uncompahgre Utes, who played no part in the killing, were forced to sell their Colorado land and move to a new reservation named for their leader Ouray, just south of the Uintah Reservation.  These two reservations were later consolidated, and its occupants are collectively known as Northern Utes (Callaway et al. 1986:339).  Two other Ute reservations exist today:  the Southern Ute, which historically included Muache and Capote bands, and Ute Mountain, descendants of the Weenuch band. (Weenuch is the correct spelling for the more typical Weimunuche, according to James Goss.) These three bands historically occupied southwestern Colorado or southeastern Utah (Crum 1996:152-153; Callaway et al. 1986:339). 

One additional group warrants further mention.  In 1776, Escalante recorded the Sabuagana Utes farther north, close to the area that is now Grand Mesa National Forest (Bolton 1950:154-155; Warner 1995:31-36).   The identity of the Sabuagana Utes is not clear in secondary literature; some researchers connect them with the Tabeguache and later Uncompahgre Utes; others with the Parusanuch and later White River Utes (Callaway et al. 1986:366; Simmons 2000:20-21).  Steve Baker of Centuries Research, Inc. in Montrose contends that the Uncompahgre band can be primarily identified with the Sabuaganas and was a political consolidation of the Sabuagana and Tabeguache bands.  Baker plans to publish research in the upcoming year that will provide more information on the Sabuaganas and perhaps will clarify some of the historical terminology of groups connected to the GMUG (Baker 1991:III-4, III-14; personal communication between Liesl Dees and Steve Baker, 26 Aug 2003).

Secondary source maps, included in this report, illustrate what anthropologists and historians consider the extent of these groups, particularly maps from Virginia Simmons’ The Ute Indians of Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico and from the “Ute” article by Donald Callaway, Joel Janetski, and Omer C. Stewart in Volume 11 of Handbook of North American Indians.

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Section Four: Ute Place Names

Early explorers and surveyors in western Colorado often left writings which remind contemporary readers that these men did not come upon a nameless landscape.  The Utes naturally had names to refer to the rivers, passes, and other geographical features of their world.  In addition to accounts from the 18^th and 19^th centuries, recent histories occasionally provide translations of Ute place names.  The following list is but a small start to provide some Ute names for their landscape.

Primary sources for this listing include the following: the journal from the 1776 Dominguez-Escalante Expedition, translated in Herbert E. Bolton’s Pageant in the Wilderness (1950) and The Dominguez-Escalante Journal, edited by Ted J. Warner (1995); Colonel William Wing Loring’s journal from an 1858 expedition, reprinted in the Colorado Magazine (1946); the Ninth Annual Report of the Hayden Survey (1877); and Gwinn Harris Heap’s journal from his 1853 expedition, reprinted as Central Route to the Pacific, edited by LeRoy R. Hafen (1957).  All of the reprints include editorial footnotes that identify places from the journals with mid-20^th century locations, and these have been used for contemporary identification. Secondary sources include Muriel Marshall’s Uncompahgre, published in 1998.  Additionally, Julia Bennett, a Fort Lewis College student in 1999, undertook a senior seminar paper to record and map Muache and Capote Ute place names, building upon archival research with interviews of elders.

This listing provides the Ute name for a geographic feature, following the spelling used in the source; the geographic location; the translation provided by both archival and contemporary sources; and the sources.  Any additional information from each source is provided as well, as this information can be invaluable for interpreting maps or information from other sources.  This information certainly warrants further discussion with Ute speakers.

Place Names on the GMUG

Canyons:

Unaweep (Unaweep Canyon).  Ute for “dividing of waters” (Marshall 1998:18).

Mountains:

Pareamoot.  Ute for Elk Mountains.  This was identified by the editor as Grand Mesa, likely on the basis of rivers and other surrounding geography described (Heap 1957:148).

Rivers:

Ancapagari (Uncompahgre River).  Escalante recorded this as “Red Lake,” stating that the Utes gave it this name “because they say that near its source there is a spring of red-colored water, hot and ill tasting” (Warner 1995:29).   Hayden translated the name simply as “red-water spring” (Hayden 1877:41). 

Avonkaria or Nah-un-kar-ea (Colorado River).  The first spelling, given by Heap, and the second, given by John Gunnison in 1853, were translated by both men as the Blue River (Heap 1957:154, 203).

Cerenoquinti (Kahnah Creek).  Heap stated that this was a Ute name but did not give a translation (Heap 1957:203).

Nawaquasitch (Little Cimarron and Cimarron Creeks).  According to Gwinn Harris Heap, this Ute word referred to the two forks of the river and translated to Sheeptail Creek.  The Spanish called the creeks, respectively, Los Riitos Quartos (Twin Creeks) and the Cola del Carnero (Sheep-tail Creek).  Gunnison reportedly labeled this river the Cebolla (Heap 1957:147).

Savoya (Big Blue or Pine Creek).  It is not clear if this is a Ute word or a Spanish name.  Edward Beale mentions this river in 1853 as west of the Lake Fork and east of the Cimarron, which does not correspond to the river with the most similar pronunciation, the Cebolla (Heap 1957:187).

Tomichi.  Escalante stated that the Utes’ river of the Tomichi was called by the Spanish Rio de San Xavier.  He did not give a translation for the Ute name, but modern editors identify this as the Gunnison (Warner 1995:31).

Eagle Tail Creek: Colonel Loring gave this name for Razor Creek.  He met a large group of Tabeguache in the area, but it is not clear whether or not this was a Ute name or a name given by the Loring party or other explorers (Hafen 1946:70).

Smoking Earth River.  English translation of Ute name for White River (Personal communication between Andrew Gulliford and Liesl Dees, 4 Dec 2003, from Andrew Gulliford’s document “Ute Atlas Project,” Mar 2002).     

Other Geographic Features:

Coochatope (Cochetopa Pass) Ute for “buffalo gate” (Heap 1957).

Tab-eh-watch.  Ute for “People who live on the warm side of the mountain” (Bennett 1999:15), or, when referring the Tabeguache Creek, “place where snows melt first” (Marshall 1998:60-61).  The same name, “Tabawatche,” was used to refer to the creek now known as Cebolla Creek by Colonel William Wing Loring in 1858.  F.V. Hayden referred to the same river as “White Earth River” (Hafen 1946:68)

 

Place Names near the GMUG:

Coochumpah (Taylor Canyon).  Ute for “River of buffaloes.”  According to Gwinn Harris Heap, the Spanish called the river Rio de los Cibolos, which had the same translation.  This stream reportedly “issues from Coochatope Pass and joins the Sahwatch” thus running eastward from the Continental Divide; this location indicates that the pass Heap identified as Coochetopa Pass lay to the north of the current designation (Heap 1957).

Nabuncari (Campell Mountain).  Escalante gave this as the Ute name but did not provide a translation.  Escalante’s expedition named their campsite at this location San Silvestre (Warner 1995:43).  This is slightly south of the Grand Mesa National Forest.

sagwa-ci (Saguache).  Ute for “green place.”  A spring apparently transformed dry terrain into an oasis, and the town of Saguache developed in this location (Bennett 1999:12).

you-wav.  Ute for the plains east of their home (Bennett 1999:12).

See the last reference in the next section, which presents Ute names given to places along the “Old Spanish Trail” in a story told by a tribal elder of the Southern Ute Tribe.   This account is especially helpful with regard to Ute names for rivers.

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Section Five: Ute Trail Usage and Locations

[Utes] were good ecologists.  If you stop and think about it, they were excellent ecologists because it wasn’t just academic to them, it was important to their survival to know the environment (Goss 2000:34).

Ute usage of land was informed by an intimate knowledge of the area.  They did not leave a large built environment.  As a highly mobile group, their major impact on the land was a legacy of trails on the landscape they used, oftentimes deeply written into the land.  Near Delta, a farmer recalled the Uncompahgre to Elk Mountain trail across California Mesa well worn into the earth.  After plowing and growing crops for 70 years, the trail was still evident in the pattern of stunted corn clearly visible each summer (Marshall 1998:48). 

In writing about the nomadic Utes, John Wesley Powell wrote: 

It is curious to notice with what tenacity an Indian clings to a trail; a path which has been followed by his forefathers is sacred to him, and though in the constant and rapid erosion of the gulches and sides of the hills and mountains these trails have become very difficult yet he never abandons them when they can by any possibility be followed, even though a shorter and better road is very perceptible (Fowler and Fowler 1971:39).

Powell distinguished between “lodge pole trails,” used for moving camps, and hunting trails, with the former having a much larger impact on the landscape.  He also commented that routes for travel were one of the most important subjects discussed in councils, and neighboring groups would consult on proposed routes to avoid conflict (Fowler and Fowler 1971:39)

Today, many trails have undoubtedly become the basis for roads.  Others are visible in the landscape.  Others appear in the historic record through maps or verbal descriptions. The map section of this document provides written and, more importantly, visual evidence of trails in the vicinity of the GMUG.  Additionally, a few scattered trails in the GMUG area have been found.

One of the well-known trails in the area was a Ute trail used by the Spanish, known as the northern branch of the Spanish Trail.  Jon Horn described the trail as follows: 

[It] came over Cochetopa Pass, stayed on the high ground above the Gunnison River and dropped into the Uncompahgre Valley in the Montrose vicinity, then headed north through the Uncompahgre Valley (on the west side of the river over California Mesa near Delta), crossed to the east side of the Gunnison River near Roubideau Creek (at the Escalante Wildlife area) 1 mile north of Ft. Uncompahgre, and continued northward to Grand Junction, where it crossed the Colorado and turned west into Utah.  The route was an important thoroughfare for annual Mexican trade caravans between New Mexico and California, was the primary route used by trappers to access the Uintah country to the north in Utah, was a primary reason for the location of Ft. Uncompahgre – Roubideau could actually bring freight by wagon over the route, and served as a prominent travel route for the Ute in their long distance forays for horses and slaves, connecting both to Bent’s Fort on the eastern plains and the settlements in New Mexico (Personal communication between Jon Horn and Liesl Dees, 19 Nov 2003).

Along the Southern boundary of the Colorado Ute territory runs what has become know as the Old Spanish Trail.   This trail connected the Spanish colonial settlements in and around Santa Fe, New Mexico with their distant province in California.  (Considering that the route over Cochetopa Pass was also known as the Spanish Trail, the route described below might be better known as the southern branch.) Traversing generally east to west just south of the San Juan Mountains, this trail was used by the Utes as an extensive trade route to the east and south, reaching towards Conejos Colorado, and Taos, Abiquiu and Santa Fe New Mexico.

As Jim Goss points out in his paper on the “Ute Indian Perspectives on the Old Spanish Trail,”  “The Utes have known the way from the Continental divide in Colorado and New Mexico to California since their creation.” (Goss, 2003 b)  Goss illustrates this understanding by a story told to him by Antonio Buck Jr., a direct descendant of Buckskin Charlie, a traditional chief of the Southern Utes.  Antonio Buck Jr. was an elder in 1962 when Goss spent two years gathering stories and learning the Ute language.

Forty-one years ago, Antonio Buck Jr. told me much about the way the Utes view the Old Spanish Trail. It ran right by his house on the Southern Ute Reservation. My field notes for August 29, 1962 bring this back to life:

We just came back from a visit to Conejos in the San Luis Valley, yesterday. The dogs were barking and Tony asked me what they were barking at. I told him I didn't see anything but a "dust devil " coming down the road. He said that it was an " Unupichi ", a bad spirit, and that the dogs can see them. (Corrections have not been made in this text because they are Goss’ original field notes.)

Then he wanted to tell this story. He said it was a true story.

A long time ago, there was an old Kukwechnuchi "Spanish-speaking Ute " living over at Conejos about 1870, or maybe before. He was an old man living with the Mexican people. They were taking care of him. He used to guide those people when they used to travel through this way on this trail. They traveled all the way back over to Green River and Whiterocks, and all the way on to California.

This old man was sitting down on a handmade wooden bed. He knows all this country from Conejos to Green River and he knows every name. The Ute lndians all come to him to find out about the trail. This old man was very happy to see them when they came in. He told them to sit down and that they were his friends. So while they were sitting down, the old man repeated the names of places in this western country that they were going to be traveling through.

He said Conejos. Right here, this place, this river the Utes call Tavuchipa or Tavuchivanukwiti, "Cottontail Rabbit River " The Mugwatsiyu Utes used to catch cottontail rabbits and have a feast here when they had the Bear Dance in the spring. When the Mexicans settled here they called it Conejos.

From here the trail goes up the river and across the pass Totupinukwiti, "the San Juan River. " Then to Pagosa nuuwachichi that's Pagosa (water-gushing-out-boiling). Then the trail goes by Tuwinichichi or Tupiwiniri, "Chimney Rock (standing-up-rock). The Mexicans call it Piedra Parada. Then comes Pievanukwiti "Piedra River. Then you see Kaachigarichichi "Ignacio Peak ". Then you go across Ariupanaa, "Spring Creek", that comes down from Wiiagarichichi "the H. D. Mountains" (Oak- Mountains).

Then you come to Pinuu or Pinuuvanukwiti, "Pine River”. There used to be a lot of big pine trees along here. They are all cut down now. We call lgnacio Pinuu. Sometimes people call us Utes that live in Ignacio, Pinuunuutchiyu. "Pine-River-Utes". We call the San Juan Mountains Pinuunuk-wikkaipaa, "the Pine River Mountains ". Next the trail crosses Tirinpanukwiichichi "the Florida River " (bare-plain-creek). It runs into the Animas River further down. Then, below Durango, the trail crosses Sagwavanukwiti "Blue River" That crossing is dangerous. A lot o f people have been lost in that river. The Mexicans call it Rio Animas. We call Durango, Turankwu.

Then the trail goes on past Agwapanukwichichi, "Basin Creek " (a-lot-of-dry-wood-on-a-hill-creek). Then past Paartavanukwiti "La Plata River ". We never call it Panakarivanukwiti. Then the trail goes on over by those old Aztec ruins that we call Wiimukwiganipi "Mesa Verde Ruins”  (old-Hopi-houses). The Mancos River we call Wiimukwiganivanukwiti (old-Hopi-houses-river).

Then the trail goes by Togoyaki, a good place to live with sweet water, and cattails. Now they call it "Toyak"(spelled"Towaoc"now on maps, headquarters of the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation). There you go past Wisikaaivichi "Little Yucca Mountain ". They call it Ute Mountain or Sleeping Ute Mountain today. That is where the Wiinuutsiyu have their Sundance, up on the side of that mountain.

Then past Pachanakwakariior "Blue Mountain ". Then past Pariagarrichichi "Elk Mountains". Then past Sueyagariaa "Aspen Side Mountains ". The Mexicans call them La Sal. Then to Sinawapuu, Sinawavanukwiti, or Yukwupuvanukwiti, "Coyote's Trail ", "Coyote's River ". The Mexicans call that Rio Colorau or Rio Colorado. The Momoni (Mormons) call the crossing Moab. Then to Piavanukwiti or Avwapanukwiti, "Mother River" or "Big River". The Mexicans call it Rio Verd" or Rio Verde. The Marikatsiyu (Americans) call it Green River. The Crows call it Siidskidi Agai or "Prairie Chicken River".

Then that old man was all tired out, and he fell over and went to sleep and the people went out. That is the way he always did. He told about all those places. He knew all those names from Alamosa all over this way past Green River. That is the end of that story.

The other intriguing aspect that this story confirms is how Ute names for places became intermingled with Spanish names as the latter began to enter into traditional lands of the Nuche. (For more information on the Old Spanish Trail, see the “Draft National Historic Trail Feasibility Study and Environmental Assessment,” United States Department of Interior, National Park Service, July 2000.)

As part of a project assessing archaeological sites in the Uncompahgre Plateau area Alpine Archaeological Consultants, Inc. in Montrose has searched for Indian trail information in Government Land Office records, USGS 1:24,000 topographic quad maps, and state archaeological site records.  They have found three Indian trails inside the Uncompahgre National Forest: the Forty-Seven Creek Trail (on USGS topographic quads Nucla, Windy Point, and Starvation Point, Colorado); Horsefly Creek Trail (on USGS topographic quads Horsefly Creek and Government Springs; identified from GLO records); and Indian Creek Trail (on USGS topographic quad Calamity Mesa; identified from GLO records) (Personal communication between Rachel Smith Gebauer, Alpine Archaeological Consultants, Inc. and Liesl Dees, 17 Jul, 6 Oct 2003).

Related to the Forty-Seven Creek Trail, a trail marked “Indian Trail” appears on the 1935 Uncompahgre National Forest Map near 47 Creek and Tabeguache Creek (See the map section of this report).  Muriel Marshall describes trails in this area in Uncompahgre.  One trail led from a wintering area, up Tabeguache Canyon and Forty-Seven Creek to a large cave on Round Mountain’s northeast flank.  Utes ran their horses on a nearby racetrack on Round Mountain (Marshall 1998:48). 

Marshall also describes a trail now obscured in part by the 25 Mesa Road leading from the Uncompahgre Plateau to Delta.  She writes that the trail branched at the mountain’s foot, with an eastern fork leading to the Elk Mountains, crossing the Gunnison River “at a ford deep in Black Canyon by access of the Ute Trail sag in the steep granite rim,” with portions of the trail still visible.  The other branch continued to Delta, again obscured by the road, to the Gunnison River ford below Delta, and then continued north to Grand Mesa hunting grounds, with a racetrack along the way in the mesa’s lower slopes (Marshall 1998:132).

An important, intact Ute trail exists north of the GMUG on the White River Plateau.  Andrew Gulliford has written: 

Finding intact Indian trails in the United States at the end of the twentieth century is a major historical discovery, but thanks to dedicated volunteers, archaeologists, and Ute Indian spiritual leaders, one of the last pristine Indian trails left in America has been located.  Fifty-seven miles long, the Ute Trail across the Flat Tops Mountains has remained largely untouched because of its remote location on the White River Plateau between the Colorado and the White Rivers. . . .

The Ute, who traveled in family bands with older relatives and small children, followed the landscape and terrain contours in a way that four-wheel drive vehicles cannot.  Walking the trail today represents a unique wilderness experience because the trail widens to almost three miles and then funnels down to narrow thirty-yard passageways between ecotones, where open meadows and small aspen groves give way to thick, dark spruce.  Unlike many trails within federally designated National Wilderness areas, the Ute Trail is not an overused, deeply rutted bridle path. . .

A key component of finding and identifying the Ute Trail is to think about Indian usage of the forest, for it was excellent summer range for small bands of Ute families who came to the Flat Tops from the south, moving up the Roaring Fork River Valley and from Utah to the west from the Uintah and Piceance Creek basins.  These close-knit family bands came to hunt, fish, gather berries and seeds, collect eagle feathers, and worship among the tall stands of Engelmann spruce and high mountain meadows.  Ute use of the forest was part of an age-old rhythmic cycle that began about the middle of May and ended around the first of November or when early snows began to close off the high country.  The Ute used the lush mountain meadows in the summer and then descended in the winter from 10,000 feet to the warmer basin and plateau country, some 5,000 feet in elevation (Gulliford 2000:125-127).

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Section Six: Ute Lifeways

It is worth noting that the anthropological literature generally describes Ute material culture after many years of contact with Spanish and American cultures.  For Ute people, this contact not only led to direct changes from European culture, but also, through their use of horses, additional contact with other Native American groups.  The layers of borrowing and adaptation make cultural attribution difficult, and archaeologists are challenged to identify distinct pre-contact Ute material culture (Personal communication between Jon Horn and Liesl Dees, 19 Nov 2003; see also Fowler 2000:89-90). 

Social Structure and Family Units

Ute social structure impacted their land use, as their mobile groups were generally relatively small.  Ute groups organized themselves around family units, with one household occupying a teepee.  Multiple family groups who shared common territories often grouped together in small parties of five to 10 teepees to search for food.  Larger groupings were dependent on food availability, and these groups numbered up to 20 teepees, or households, which might include around 100 people, perhaps forming communal activities on a large scale like trading, defense, or raiding. (Smith 1974:123-124; Reed and Metcalf 1999:161).   When winter came, several of the small summertime traveling groups might settle together in warmer climates, and, food permitting, winter groups might consist of 40 or more teepees (Smith 1974:123-124).   

The small groups were held together by respect for a headman who had demonstrated success in hunting, oversight of the camp’s travels, and communication  (Callaway et al. 1986:353; Smith 1974:125).  Young couples generally lived with the woman’s family, but they might live with the man’s family if their assistance was needed, demonstrating the fluid nature of group dynamics (Smith 1974:123).  

Food and Subsistence

Ute mobility was intrinsically tied to food.  Ute families moved over large expanses of land, covering over several hundred square miles, to gather and hunt (Fowler 2000:91).  Key sites for hunting, gathering, and fishing had no private ownership, but access was communal.  Visitors might be expected to request use of an area’s resources, but there was little formality involved (Callaway et al. 1986:340).  Anthropologists have estimated that for the Uncompahgre band, roughly 15 percent of their diet came from fishing, 35 percent from gathering, and 50 percent from hunting (Callaway et al. 1986:341).  Recent archaeological evidence has indicated, though, that Colorado Ute may have had an even heavier reliance on hunting for their food (Greubel 2002:1-11).  Reflecting the richness of potential food sources, Colorado Utes generally had a larger variety of food taboos than their neighbors in Utah (Callaway et al. 1986:342).

There is some limited evidence of agricultural pursuits among the Ute in Colorado prior to the 1880s (Callaway 1986:343).  One of the reports written for the Hayden Survey in the 1870s noted  

On the east side of the hogbacks and nearly opposite the dry pass . . . a single family of White River Utes has made its home, having occupied for many years the same sheltered nook.  The family consists of some ten or fifteen members, and the settlement is known at the agency as the “Old Squaw’s Camp,” from the energetic old Indian woman who seems to be its leading spirit.  There is most excellent hunting in the immediate vicinity of the camp, and from the location the winter weather experienced must be mild.  This family cultivates a small patch of ground, and possesses a herd of 60 or 75 head of cattle and an equally large herd of ponies.  Although these people are still housed in the traditional tepee or wickeup they seem to have virtually withdrawn of their own accord from the nomadic life pursued by most of the tribe (Hayden 1878:352).

Plants

Nuts:  Large, nutritious pine nuts were a prized food source, although not reliable, as pinyon trees (Pinus edulis) generally produce a good crop every few years.  These were generally gathered in the fall after a freeze when the cones’ bracts opened.  Women in extended family gathering camps worked with long, straight harvesting poles and filled large conical baskets.  Processing included roasting or parching, shelling, winnowing, and grinding (Fowler 2000:91-92; Smith 1974:66).  Acorns generally came from scrub oak (Quercus gambelii) and were reportedly eaten by Uncompahgre Utes either raw or roasted (Fowler 2000:92).

Small seeds: Anthropologists have assumed that Colorado Utes, having access to more meat resources, generally used fewer seeds, as their collection and preparation was labor intensive.  Little is known about specific seed usage among the Colorado Ute, but a few species have been identified: Indian ricegrass (Oryzopsis hymenoides), amaranth (Amaranthus retroflexus, A. powellii), sunflowers (Helianthus annus, perhaps others), “grass” seeds (likely including Elymus spp., Agrophyron spp., Sporobolus sp.), and globe mallow (Spaeralcea, sp.).  Seeds ripened from early spring into late fall.  Women collected seeds in conical baskets or skin containers and ground them into flour for mushes or for thickening meat stews, storing the ground seed in buckskin sacks (Fowler 2000:93; Smith 1974:65).

Berries:  Colorado Utes had a number of readily available berries, including chokecherries (Prunus melanocarpa), elderberries (Sambucus racemosa), buffalo berries (Shepahrdia canadensis), service berries (Amelanchier spp.), rose hips (Rosa woodsii), currants (Ribes spp.), grapes (Vitus arizonica), and strawberries (Fragaria spp.) (Fowler 2000:93).  Other berries known to be used by Utes throughout Colorado and Utah included silver buffaloberry (Shepherdia argentea), juniper berries (Juniperus scopulorum), red raspberries (Rubus strigosus), and wild plums (Prunus americana) (Callaway et al. 1986:338).  Women made special berry-picking baskets, and they ate berries raw in the summer, sun-dried them for later use, particularly as cakes, or added them to mushes and stews (Fowler 2000:93; Smith 1974:65; Callaway et al. 1986:338).

Roots: Ute women usually dug roots with pointed digging sticks.  Roots eaten included sego lily (Calochortus spp.), Indian carrot (Perideridia spp.), onions (Allium spp.), fritillary (Fritillaria pudica, F. atropurpuria), yampa (Perideridia gairdneri), biscuit root (Cymopterus spp.), Indian potato (Orogema linearifolia), brake fern (Pteridium acquilinum), wild potato (Solanum jamesii), wokas or yellow pond lily (Nuphar polysepalum), and snow lily (Erythronium grandiforum).  Roots were generally dug from spring to fall and either eaten raw, dried for stews, or ground into flour for mushes (Fowler 2000:94; Callaway et al. 1986:338; Smith 1974:64-65).

Other: Ute also ate cacti, including the edible fruits of both prickly pears (Opuntia spp.) and yuccas (Yucca spp.) and yucca flowers (Fowler 2000:94; Callaway 1986:343).  In the 1930s, Anne Smith’s informants provided Ute names for several greens (/ka?a=ti; slash in “i,” and /kwusa-ti, with “w” elevated and “i” slashed).  From quaking aspens, Utes collected sap, usually in June, and it was eaten raw as a great delicacy (Smith 1974:65-66). Utes also used the inner cambium bark from Ponderosa pine as a food source.  Trees evidencing this use are referred to as culturally scarred trees, and their presence also helps to mark trails (Personal communication between Andrew Gulliford and Liesl Dees, 4 Dec 2003).

Animals

Large game animals eaten by the Colorado Ute included deer, elk, big-horn sheep, pronghorn, and bison.   Elk were found in the Rocky Mountains while bison roamed on the Plains to the east.  Large herds of pronghorn reportedly migrated in the fall from north to south, creating a southern movement of Utes as well.  Large game hunts included both individual stalking and various communal hunts and drives, sometimes using brush piles to drive animals over a cliff.  For Colorado Utes, formal hunt chiefs might lead communal hunts (Fowler 2000:94; Smith 1974:55; Callaway et al. 1986:341).  Small game included rabbits, ground squirrels, gophers, and badgers. Ute in Colorado also fished, and birds eaten included sage hens, mourning doves, and waterfowl. (Fowler 2000:93; Smith 1974:60; Callaway et al. 1986:341). 

Camps and Shelter

Seasonal abundance of a variety of food materials shaped the pattern of Ute camps.  Oftentimes potential food failure could be predicted a few months in advance, and alternative plans were made.  In following the seasonal round for food, Ute groups often returned to favorite camping areas, but not necessarily to the same specific sites.  Food was also cached at particular locations for later use, either in the area or by moving the cache (Fowler 2000:91).  Winter groups would choose a site with wood, water, and potential game, and small parties might leave for hunting, horse raiding, or trade (Smith 1974:123-124).   

Ute peoples utilized several types of shelters.  Conical and dome shaped brush shelters likely pre-dated skin-covered conical teepees, and both appear in historical accounts and photographs, sometimes side by side.  Brush houses likely provided a comfortable summer space, and particular brush structures served as sweat houses and menstrual huts (Fowler 2000:95-96).   Willow or cedar brush shelters or occasionally small teepees were used for birthing (Smith 1974:138).  Conical brush shelters, or wickiups, utilized poles, willows, and brush or bark (Smith 1974:35; Callaway et al. 1986:348).  Skin-covered teepees were used in both summer and winter.  In Colorado, six to 10 buffalo or elk hides were sewn together for a covering, and structures commonly stood up to 17 feet high (Callaway et al. 1986:348).  Inside the teepee, willows covered with a robe, preferably buffalo, provided bedding and buckskin bags filled with deer hair might be used as pillows (Smith 1974:40).  When camp was moved, poles were generally bundled together and fastened to the side of a horse.  Another horse usually carried the teepee cover (Smith 1974:42).  Archaeological evidence suggests that some conical houses were covered with canvas (Callaway et al. 1986:348). 

In the 1870s, some elite Utes lived in winter houses built of cedar posts and mud, referred to as “stockade cabins” (Baker 1991:IV-3-4).  The United States government, for example, built a 32 by 16 foot cabin for Ouray and Chipeta at the first Los Pinos Agency (Pfertsh 1996:25).  In visiting the Los Pinos Agency in 1874, photographer William Henry Jackson remarked on the nearby encampment of Utes, with around 70 lodges scattered over a square mile, around four or five miles from the Agency (Hafen and Hafen 1959:286).

Clothing

Many of the animals that provided food for the Colorado Utes also provided skin for clothing.  Colorado’s variable climate required flexible clothing.  Lighter skins, such as deer and antelope, provided summertime clothing, sometimes with shorter or sleeveless styles for women, and light skin robes.  Men’s clothing included breechclout, leggings, and shirt made of animal skin.  Men, and occasionally women, might remain shirtless in the summer, and children might remain naked.  In Colorado’s winters, animal hides provided life-saving warmth.  Heavy, tanned robes from bison or bear provided outerwear, and moccasins were often lined with bark or fur for winter use (Fowler 2000:96; Callaway 1986:345).   In addition to deer skins, mountain sheep hides, which are durable but thinner than deerskin, were used for dresses (Bates 2000:155).  Other hides used for clothing included antelope and elk (Fowler 2000:97).  Ute women tanned their hides using bones for removing flesh, a rawhide lined pit, animal brains, juniper, and much tedious labor.  Their buckskins were recognized throughout the west for their quality and were frequently traded to other tribes and to Spanish colonists.  Buckskin played an important role in the Ute economy and trade reached as far north as Meeker and as far south as Abiquiu (Smith 1974:80-82; personal communication between Andrew Gulliford and Liesl Dees, 4 Dec 2003).

Early photographs from the 1860s and 1870s show some Utes in cloth garments mixed with elegant, beaded fringed buckskin (Bates 2000:154).  Ute people have been described as some of the “most resplendently dressed native people in the West,” as they both developed their own style and also wore items from the traditions of their neighbors (Bates 2000:143).  One style that may be distinctive to the Ute people was a hair plait, with a row of beads, small silver conchos, or the two combined along the hair’s central part (Personal communication between Jon Horn and Liesl Dees, 19 Nov 2003).  By the time of photographic documentation, beginning in the 1860s, Ute people combined their traditional skins with Sioux dress yokes and Navajo silver concho belts and blankets (Bates 2000:143; personal communication between Peter Decker and Liesl Dees, 2 Dec 2003)

Tools and Utensils

Equipment for daily tasks included, among others, various baskets, horn spoons, wooden dishes and ladles, and other containers.  Some Ute baskets served particular functions—seed beaters, berry baskets, water jars, and a short-sided basket used as a resonator for the rasp, which provided accompaniment for the Bear Dance.  Other baskets served many purposes, such as trays, burden baskets, and bowls (Fowler 2000:97-101).  A Ute basket weaver would likely use shoots of willow (Salix sp.) or sumac (Rhus trilobata).  Gathering likely occurred in fall, winter, or early spring at carefully tended patches, pruned to the ground each year in order to ensure long, straight shoots for the following year (Bates 2000:144).  Baskets sometimes had handles made of buckskin or human, horse, or buffalo hair (Callaway 1986:346).

Horns from young male mountain sheep provided spoons and ladles, heated and shaped with a bone knife (Fowler 2000:98; Smith 1974:96).  Knots in juniper, pine, or cottonwood trees provided cups, ladles, bowls, and platters.  With relatively plentiful game, Colorado Utes often used skin bags for storage.  Painted parfleches often stored clothing; unpainted ones food.  A round rawhide bag with hot stones provided cooking equipment.  A “typical Colorado Ute family” might have “a painted parfleche and a buckskin bag for clothing, a buffalo hide parfleche for meat, two basket water jugs, a berry basket, parching tray, wood and horn cups and ladles, baskets (or pots) for boiling” (Smith 1974:96-97).

Fire

As Utes and Americans came into increased contact in Colorado in the 1860s and 1870s, fire usage was a contentious issue.  During a drought in 1879, a number of fires broke out throughout western Colorado.  Whites accused Utes of burning the land; Utes, in turn countered that careless miners and railroad tie cutters caused the fires.  In July 1879 the governor complained to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs that off-reservation Utes were destroying forests and game (Simmons 2000:183).  Letters at the time from army personnel and ranchers vindicated the Utes and instead attributed the fires to railroad workers (Emmitt 2000:96-101). The cry of “fire” was certainly used by whites to buttress their arguments that the Utes wasted natural resources and did not use the land responsibly.  Whites also may have used arson to further their case for Ute removal (Personal communication between Jon Horn and Liesl Dees, 19 Nov 2003).

Little specific information has been found on use of fire by Utes in central and northern Colorado.  According to anthropological research, Utes of varying bands used fire for the following purposes: increasing seed production, improving tobacco, game drives, and warfare (Condie and Raish 2002: Table 2).  Specifically, Ute Mountain Ute and Southern Ute were known to burn wild tobacco areas in order to encourage growth (Condie and Raish 2002:7).   These two groups also reportedly used fire to drive deer and elk and they drove rabbits out of thick brush with flame.  Southern Utes also used a circle of fire to drive cicadas, crickets, and grasshoppers (Condie and Raish 2000:8). 

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Section Seven: Historical Events related to the GMUG

“We do not want to sell a foot of our land—that is the opinion of all.”—Ouray (in Ellis 2000:75).

“. . . that seven hundred American pioneers should be prodded out of the country by American bayonets, in order that a small band of dirty nomads can idly roam over 20 million acres of hunting ground is an atrocity that no other Government on the face of the earth but our own would be guilty of committing.”—Denver Tribune, March 26, 1873 (in Ellis 2000:76).

For a land-based culture like the Utes, conflict over land meant far more than a physical place to live.  Conflict over land involved food, shelter, family structure, religion, identity—a way of life. Beginning with Spanish contact in the 1600s, Ute lifeways were drastically altered by contact with outsiders.  Increasingly, Ute lifeways came into conflict with outside cultures until events culminated in tragedy for both whites and the Utes.  Interaction between Utes and the Spanish and then the Americans set the context for events that occurred on the GMUG. 
 

Historical context:

Ute contact with the Spanish

As Spanish settlers created communities in New Mexico in the 1600s and 1700s, they interacted with the southern bands of Utes nearby.  To the north, the contact between the Spanish and the Tabeguache and Sabuagana bands included a few official Spanish expeditions, notably Juan Maria Antonia Rivera in 1765 and the Dominguez-Escalante expedition of 1776, as well as journeys south by these Ute bands.  By 1776, regular trade and captive ransom fairs occurred in Northern New Mexico at Abiquiu.  By 1791, these fairs occurred at Santa Clara Pueblo (Wroth 2000:59-62).  Spanish authorities banned unlicensed trade between the Utes and both Spaniards and Christianized Indians in order to limit trade in captives in exchange for horses, but this had little success (Jefferson et al. 1972:92; Simmons 2000:43).  An observer in 1794 wrote “the Sahuahuanes [Sabuaganas] usually come once a year in the month of October to the same place [Santa Clara Pueblo] and for the same purpose as the other Utes, and they remain in the province until the following May, when the melting of the snows in the mountains allows their return” (Wroth 2000:63). 

Around 1830, Antoine Robidoux established a trading post generally known as Fort Uncompahgre, located on the south bank of the Gunnison River about two miles below the confluence of the Gunnison and Uncompahgre Rivers.  Robidoux had given up life in Missouri for Santa Fe, taken Mexican citizenship, won a place on Santa Fe’s city council, and married the governor’s adopted daughter.  Robidoux benefited from both his American and Mexican connections.  The Mexican government gave him a license to trade in what would become western Colorado, while he avoided the Mexican authorities and brought in desirable goods, such as illegal liquor, from his American contacts (Reyher 1998:vii, 6-7, 15-17; personal communication between Jon Horn and Liesl Dees, 19 Nov 2003).  At Fort Uncompahgre, Robidoux offered numerous items for sale to the Utes in exchange for animal skins: knives, axes, copper cooking pots, fire steels, iron arrow heads, steel files, blankets, cloth, scissors, sewing needles, blanket material, bandanas, scarves, combs, mirrors, beads, brass tacks, surplus military uniforms, tobacco, tea, coffee, sugar, chocolate, illegal firearms, and illegal liquor (Reyher 1998:28-36).   It appears that the area’s fur trade in this time period depended upon Utes bringing furs and skins to traders rather than American trappers who combed the streams and forests.  Ute likely traded tanned deer hides and buffalo from the plains rather than specifically focusing on beaver (Personal communication between Jon Horn and Liesl Dees, 19 Nov 2003).  Fort Robidoux, far from the eyes of Spanish authorities, also provided a market for Utes to sell captives (Reyher 1998:40, 48).  In 1844, conflict between Mexican authorities and Ute warriors led to an attack on the Mexican employees at Ft. Uncompahgre, and the fort was reportedly left standing for a few years before being destroyed (Reyher 1998:62-66).

Ute contact with the Americans

When the United States acquired the southwest in 1848 after the Mexican-American War, Utes encountered a far more ambitious power.  Unlike many of their neighboring Plains Indians, the Utes of Western Colorado generally undertook a policy of peace with the United States government.  They repeatedly practiced diplomacy with the American government, rather than resorting to force (Gulliford 2000:xi) 

Utes signed their first treaty with the United States government in 1849 at Abiquiu (Ellis 2000:73-74; for more details on the treaties, see Section 10 of this document, “Ute Treaties with the United States Government”).  The government attempted to establish an agency at Taos in 1850; it soon closed but then re-opened (Jefferson et al. 1972:94).  In 1857, the Tabeguache attended a distribution of goods near Abiquiu (Wroth 2000:63).  In 1860, the Tabeguache were assigned to the Denver Agency, but they received distributions at a new agency at Conejos, established in 1860, south of present-day Alamosa.  The Tabeguache were reportedly increasingly on the move due to war with plains tribes (Jefferson et al. 1972:94; Simmons 2000:112).

In 1863, the Tabeguache and the United States government negotiated another treaty.   In exchange for land, Utes received payments, animals, and farm equipment (Ellis 2000:74; Simmons 2000:117-118).  An agent of the Office of Indian Affairs provided rough numbers of Ute bands in 1863, estimating around 450 to 500 Muache, 800 Capote, 2,000 “Wemenuche” (also described as “Pah Utes”), 4,000 Tabeguache, and 2,500 Grand River (“but this seems to be mere conjecture”; Grand River Utes were also identified as the Yampa band) (Nicolay 1863:268-269). 

The 1863 treaty failed to satisfy Utes, white settlers in Colorado territory, or the federal government.  Thus, in 1868 representatives from various bands journeyed to Washington, D.C. for another treaty.  The new treaty in 1868 established most of the western third of Colorado for Utes as the Consolidated Ute Reservation.  The United States agreed to keep all non-Utes off of the reservation, except government officials, to promote agriculture among the Utes, and to establish two agencies. The first agency was established on the White River, intended to serve the Grand River, and Yampa bands; the second, for the Tabeguache, Muache, Capote, and Weenuch, was designated for the Rio de los Pinos.  The government placed this second agency not on the Rio de los Pinos in present-day La Plata County but instead chose a previously unnamed creek northwest of Saguache (Ellis 2000:75; Kappler 1904:990). 

Despite the 1868 treaty, miners illegally moved into the area, particularly the Dolores Valley, the Lake Fork of the Gunnison, and Bakers Park, the area that became Silverton.  Once again, the United States government resumed negotiations, resulting in an 1873 agreement commonly known for its primary United States negotiator, Felix Brunot, as the Brunot Agreement.  This agreement led to considerable disagreement by Ute leaders, as they understood that only mining regions were sold and that miners were to leave each winter —they were selling the peaks, not the valleys.   Several observers confirmed that the treaty was misinterpreted to the Utes (Ellis 2000:76; personal communication between Andrew Gulliford and Liesl Dees, 4 Dec 2003).  In 1875, the Los Pinos Agency moved to the Uncompahgre valley north of Colona (Baker 1991:III-9).  Dispute continued over a four-mile strip of land north of Ouray, until this was ceded by the Utes in 1878 (Simmons 2000:150-151).

In addition to land ownership, Utes were impacted by the actuality of changes in the land and their territories and lifestyles.   Repeatedly, agents assigned by the United States to the Ute agencies remarked on the failure of annuities to arrive and the scarcity of game.  In 1865, Lafayette Head, the agent at Conejos, wrote

. . . they have been grossly neglected by the government, entering, as they did, into a treaty and relinquishing thereby a large portion of their most valuable lands, when they were to receive annuities, &c.; but not one dollar on the said promised annuities has yet been paid to them, although two years have since expired.  Notwithstanding all this, their faith is not shaken in the least towards the government; yet to a poor people, when the day to day game is becoming more scarce, it is becoming very trying and annoying to them  (Head 1865:362). 

By the 1870s, Ute culture was on a collision course with the expansionist American culture (Miller 1997:1).

 

Removal

By the late 1870s, the Grand River and Yampa bands received distributions at the White River Agency.  A new agent, Nathan C. Meeker, brought utopian ideas of civilization and agricultural self-sufficiency.  He had moved the agency from its previous location, ignoring the Utes previous use of the new site for their horses, and proceeded with plans to encourage Utes to farm.  Much of Meeker’s policy focused on reducing the Utes’ reliance on horses, moving the Utes away from their nomadic lifestyle by reducing their horse herds and thus focusing on agriculture.  As tensions grew, Meeker asked for assistance from the War Department.  Tensions exploded in two violent conflicts—a battle between Ute warriors and United States army troops at Milk Creek and the killing of agent Meeker and all other male employees at the agency, on September 29, 1879 (Miller 1997:1-10; personal communication between Jon Horn and Liesl Dees, 19 Nov 2003).   In the aftermath of the killing at the agency, three women were taken captive and held for over three weeks, spending part of this time on Grand Mesa (see information below).

This 1879 incident provided the final impetus for removing Utes in the north and central part of Colorado to Utah in 1881 and moving Utes in the southern part of Colorado on to smaller reservations.  Pressure for Ute removal had been building for years, and this abrupt event caused the pressures to boil over.  For their part in the killing, Utes associated with the White River Agency, which included the Yampa and Grand River Utes, were moved to the previously established Uintah Ute Reservation in Utah.  The Uintah Utes received no compensation for sharing their reservation.  Plans called for the band associated with the Los Pinos Agency, known by this time as the Uncompahgre band, to be moved to lands at the junction of the Colorado and Gunnison Rivers.  The treaty stipulated that if sufficient lands were not found in that location, the Uncompahgre band would be moved to “such other unoccupied agricultural lands as may be found in that vicinity and in the Territory of Utah.”  The five-member commission appointed by the U.S. government to determine the location of the Uncompahgre had stormy disagreements, marked by a fistfight and charges of bribery against commissioner Otto Mears.  In addition to declaring the Colorado land unfit and selecting land in Utah, Mears also paid Uncompahgre men two dollars each for their approval of this agreement.  The Uncompahgre Utes were given a reservation named for their recently deceased chief, Ouray, south of the Uintah Reservation in Utah.  Weenuch, Capote, and Muache bands in southern Colorado were moved onto a smaller reservation area (Ellis 2000:77-78; Simmons 2000:191-193; Kappler 1904:181; personal communication between Jon Horn and Liesl Dees, 19 Nov 2003).

Before moving the Uncompahgre band, in 1880 the United States government established a military fort four miles north of the Los Pinos Agency.  Initially called Cantonment on the Uncompahgre, it was renamed Ft. Crawford in 1886 (Simmons 2000:193-194).  The White River Utes were removed from Colorado in summer 1881 (Simmons 2000:195).  The Uncompahgre Utes were removed by armed troops at the beginning of September 1881 (Simmons 2000:196).  American settlers quickly occupied the land.  An early settler, Emma Cole, recalled “Mr. Cole and I and our seven-year-old son Frank came here in October [1881] to make our home.  Early as we were, however, the best land was already located [filed on]” (Marshall 1998:184).

Utes on the Utah Reservation

The Uintah Valley and Ouray Reservations were consolidated in 1886 as the Uintah and Ouray Ute Indian Reservation, and in Utah the federal agents were backed up by a military presence.  The army, though, failed to keep the Utes in their new home, and in the mid and late 1880s, Utes left the Utah reservation and returned to Colorado for hunting (Simmons 2000:204-205).  In the 1890s, game wardens and deputies in Colorado began to halt Utes’ big game hunt (Simmons 2000:206).

A number of stories exist of Utes returning farther north in Colorado (see, for example, Red Twilight: The Last Free Days of the Ute Indians, Val FitzPatrick, 2000).  In Uncompahgre, Muriel Marshall tells a colorful story from area resident J.D. Dillard in which Utes supposedly returned to the area:

Long after the Indians had been moved into Utah they returned each year to habitual hunting grounds on the plateau to kill and cure their winter supply of deer jerky.  Like some modern hunters they occasionally had trouble distinguishing between deer and fat steers down the rifle sights.

When this had happened a little too often to be put down to accident, the cowmen called a meeting in one of the plateau glades to straighten them out on the difference between the species.  The pow-wow (Dillard calls it a chin-grow) lasted all day, and at the end of it both sides retired to the bordering bushes to drop their pants and answer the call of nature.

The park became known far and wide by the day’s concluding activity.  But when Forest Service cartographers got around to mapping the plateau they felt obliged to change it from a four to a five-letter word, rechristening it Nasty Park (Marshall 1998:64).

As Utes returned to hunt for deer, they may have been continuing the pursuit of buckskin for trade (Personal communication between Andrew Gulliford and Liesl Dees, 4 Dec 2003).

 

           

Historical Events on the GMUG

The entire area of the GMUG was once Ute land, providing the basis for everyday life for hundreds of years.  Much of the history that occurred on this land came from everyday activities, and few recorded events which have made their way into written histories occurred here.  Neither of the two Los Pinos Agencies were located on the GMUG land.  No trading posts, forts, or treaty negotiations seem to have occurred here. 

One incident along the eastern side of the GMUG occurred in the mid 1850s.  In December 1854, a group of Muache Ute attacked a Christmas party at El Pueblo, killing a number of Mexicans.  Additional deaths and raiding led to pursuit by United States troops, with the Utes disappearing into the mountains near Cochetopa Pass (Crum 1996:146; Petit 1990:104-105; Simmons 2000:101-102).

Another event occurring on the GMUG was the captivity of three women and two children after the killing of Agent Meeker and other white men at the White River Agency.  Agent Meeker’s wife Arvilla and daughter Josie, Flora Ellen Price, and her two small children Johnnie and May were taken to Grand Mesa.  Historian Marshall Sprague gives the following description of the route taken by the Utes and the women.  The 1877 drainage map mentioned is included in the map section (Section Nine) of this report.

The route of the captive women followed trails marked on the 1877 drainage map of F. V. Hayden’s Tenth Annual Report of the U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories.  The route: White River Agency south along Grand Hogback to east fork, Piceance Creek, 20 Miles; Old Squaw Camp to Camp Number Two on Rifle Creek, 19 miles; Rifle Creek to Camp Number Three at Grand River and Parachute Creek, 25 miles; Parachute Creek to Douglas’s main Grand River-Roan Creek camp, 10 miles; Roan Creek to Plateau Creek via Wallace and Kimball Creeks (Escalante’s trail in 1776) 20 miles.  Total distance, 94 miles.  From Plateau Creek to Ouray’s farm was also 94 miles (Sprague 1980:339).

Charles Adams, previously an agent at the Los Pinos Agency, was sent by the federal government to secure the release of the women and children.  Adams met with the captives and captors at their small camp, on one of Plateau Creek’s tributaries (U.S. Congress 1880:1-6). ).  This camp is on private land and has apparently been recorded (Personal communication between Jon Horn and Liesl Dees, 19 Nov 2003).  A photograph of the site is included in The Last War Trail (Emmitt 2000:fifth photograph following page 182).  To reach the captives, Adams, his Ute companions Sapovanero and Shavano, and others in their party reportedly used a deer trail up Whitewater Creek to Grand Mesa’s top (Sprague 1980:254).  The women and children were taken south to Ouray’s home near the Uncompahgre River, arriving on October 24, 1879, while Adams and his party traveled farther north, returning to the Los Pinos Agency on October 29 (Sprague 1980:262-263).  

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Section Eight: United States Ute Indian Agencies

Understanding the administrative structure and personnel of United States Ute Indian agents is necessary to access federal records.  It is hoped that this detailed section on Ute Agencies will help future researchers efficiently work with the vast network of federal records.

After the United States acquired the Southwest from Mexico in 1848, Indian administration in the area that would become Colorado was divided among New Mexico, Utah, and Central Superintendencies.   The Conejos Agency, established in 1860, was assigned to the New Mexico Superintendency.  Along with territorial status in 1861 came the Colorado Superintendency.  From 1861 to 1876, the Territorial Governor served as the ex officio superintendent of Indian Affairs, with headquarters at Denver, except for a few months at Golden.  In 1861 and 1862, Harvey Vaile served as a subagent for the Utes, located at Breckenridge.  The Conejos Agency moved to become the Los Pinos Agency in 1868, and three more Ute agencies were subsequently created: White River, which was originally Middle Park, Denver Special, and Southern Ute.  In 1870, the Colorado Superintendency was discontinued, and Colorado agents reported directly to the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C.  The filing system, however, was not changed until 1881, and records can still be found under the Colorado heading until that time (Hill 1967:1-2).                                                                       

In the agent listings that follow, the date of appointment usually preceded the agent’s arrival at the agency, often by a few months.
 

Conejos-Los Pinos Agency

In 1860, the Conejos Agency was created for the Tabeguache Utes who lived to the north of the agency for Utes in New Mexico.  The treaty of March 2,1868 called for an agency along the Los Pinos River.  Thus, the Conejos Agency was moved to a previously un-named stream about 50 miles northwest of Saguache (Simmons 2000:135; Ellis 2000:75; see Pfertsh 1996:21 for various accounts of the agency’s location).  There, the agency was called the Los Pinos Agency, in fulfillment of treaty terms.  Records sometimes refer to the Los Pinos Agency as the Lower Agency or the Southern Ute Agency, not to be confused with the actual Southern Ute Agency established on the Rio de los Pinos in southern Colorado in 1877.  Before this, in 1875, the Los Pinos Agency moved from the site about 50 miles northwest of Saguache to the Uncompahgre Valley.  The Los Pinos name was retained, although it was also referred to as the Uncompahgre Agency.  In 1881, the band affiliated with this agency, then known as the Uncompahgre, were moved to a new reservation named for their late chief, Ouray, near the Uintah Reservation in Utah.  The Uintah and Ouray Agencies combined in 1886 as the Uintah and Ouray Agency (Hill 1967:2-3).

Conejos Agent:

Name: Lafayette Head                         Appointed:       June 27, 1860

Los Pinos Agents:

Middle Park-White River Agency

In 1862, the federal government created the Middle Park Agency for the Grand River and Uintah Ute.  Yampa Ute were also later affiliated with this agency.  This agency had no permanent headquarters until 1869.  Under the treaty of March 2, 1868, it was moved from the Middle Park area to a site on the White River, located on the Ute reservation under the 1868 treaty.  This agency then went by the name White River Agency, sometimes referred to as the Upper Agency.  In 1879 agent Nathan Meeker moved the agency to the Powell Park about 15 miles down the river from its previous location.  After Utes affiliated with this agency killed Meeker and other agency employees, the agency was left destroyed.  These Utes were then moved to Utah’s Uintah Reservation.  To avoid any potential confusion, it is worth mentioning that the Dakota territory also had a White River Agency, as this was a short-lived name for the Lower Brule Agency (Hill 1967:3).

Middle Park Agents:

White River Agents:

Denver Special Agency

After the discontinuation of the Colorado Superintendency in 1870, the Bureau of Indian Affairs created the Denver Special Agency for groups of roving Utes who often visited Denver.  In November 1874, the agency was discontinued, but it reestablished February 1875 and discontinued for good on December 31, 1875 (Hill 1967:3).

Denver Special Agent:

Name: James B. Thompson                            Appointed: January 17, 1871 
 

Other Agencies

As mentioned above, the Southern Ute Agency was created in 1877, located just north of the New Mexico border on the Rio de los Pinos in southern Colorado.  Capote, Weenuch, and Muache Ute who had previously gone to the Abiquiu and Cimarron Agencies in New Mexico reported to this agency, as well as a few Navajo.  This is completely separate from the Los Pinos Agency, which was sometimes known as the Southern Ute Agency.  When the other bands were removed in 1881, this was the only agency in Colorado (Hill 1967:3-4).  The Weenuch separated from the Capote and Muache in the 1890s over the issue of allotment, resulting in the Ute Mountain Reservation for the Weenuch and the Southern Ute Reservation for the Muache and Capote (Delaney 1989:73-74).

The Upper Arkansas Agency was established in 1855 for the Indians along the Arkansas River in what is now eastern Colorado and western Kansas.  This did not include Ute groups (Hill 1967:2). 

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Section Nine: Maps

Historic maps provide a small window into the differing land relationships between the land-based Ute culture and the expansionist American culture as they came into contact with one another.  Different place names, trails, camp locations, and reservations show the changing Ute relationship with the land and the United States federal government, as wagon roads, railroads, and towns moved nearby and then on to land previously reserved for the Utes.  It is impossible to say conclusively which roads and trails were made by Utes, based solely on map information.  Utes had used the landscape for centuries and their influence undeniably appears on map materials.  Map information undoubtedly yields more information to those familiar with the landscape and, as seemingly erroneous materials appear on some of these maps, should always be used in conjunction with other historical and ethnographic resources. 

Maps consulted include general historic published maps, one unpublished map, forest maps, and several published maps showing Utes in Colorado.  Ute related items found on the maps are briefly summarized here.  

General Historic Published Maps

1778    Map of Dominguez and Escalante Expedition.  Miera y Pacheco.  Published in Herbert E. Bolton, Pageant in the Wilderness: The Story of the Escalante Expedition to the Interior Basin, 1776 Including the Diary and Itinerary of Father Escalante Translated and Annotated.  Utah State Historical Society, Salt Lake City, 1950.  Although lacking the precision modern readers expect from a map, this drawing is filled with a wealth of geographic and ethnographic information.  Conical homes accompany the camps of the “Yutas Mogoachi,” “Yutas tabeguachis,” and “Yutas Zaguaganas.”  The”Yutas Mogoachi” appear between the Rio de San Lazaro  (Mancos River, Warner 1995:148) and the Rio de Nuestra Senora de los Dolores (Dolores River, Warner 1995:148).  The “Yutas tabeguachis” appear between the Rio de Nuestra Senora de los Dolores and the Rio de las paraliticas (Disappointment Creek; Warner 1995:148).  The “Sierra de la tabeguachis” appears between the Rio de San Pedro (San Miguel River, Warner 1995:148) the Rio de S. Xavier (Gunnison River, Warner 1995:149).  Farther south, the Rio Colorado divides into the Rio de Nabajoo and the Rio de los Zaguaganas, which farther north becomes the Rio de San Raphael (Colorado River, Warner 1995:148).  To the north of this river are the Yutas Zaguaganas.

1861    Map of Colorado Territory, compiled from Government Maps and Actual Surveys.  Francis M. Case, Denver City.  Denver Public Library, Western History/Genealogy Department.  This map shows the beginning of American understanding of the Ute lands.  The Elk Mountains cover a large area with a number of unnamed streams emptying into larger rivers. The Gunnison River is drawn as “Eagle Tail River”; other rivers include the San Miguel, Una-weeh, Un-com-pagre, Cebott, Lake Fork, Coc-che-to-pa Creek, and Pass Creek.

1870    Map of the United States and Territories.  Showing the extent of public surveys and other details, constructed from the plats and official sources of the General Land Office.  National Archives, Cartographic Section, RG75, Central Map File, Map 372.   Shows area north of White River “Claimed by Grand River Utes.”  Shows Tabequache Ute Reservation south of the Grand River, north of the Eagle Tail River (possibly the Gunnison).  There are two areas marked “Silver Mines” in this area.  Land east of the River San Miguel and Animas Park is marked “Ceded by Tabequache Utes 1863.”   A faint trail extends from near Fairplay across the GMUG area into the Animas Park area.  Other trails appear near the eastern edge of the GMUG.

1875    U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, F.V. Hayden in Charge.  Central Colorado.  Surveyed in 1874 and 1875.  Center of Southwest Studies, Fort Lewis College.  In addition to topographic lines, this map shows a dense network of trails which defy brief description.  Occasionally, a trail is named, such as “Navajo Trail” and “Trail to Parrott City,” which runs southwest from the Uncompahgre Agency.  The “Salt Lake Wagon Road” parallels the Grand (Colorado) and the Uncompahgre Rivers.  To the north of the Uncompahgre Agency are Ute Farms.  This map certainly warrants detailed study.

 1876        Territory of Colorado.  Department of the Interior, General Land Office.  J.A. Williamson, Commissioner.  C. Roesser, Principal Draughtsman, GLO.  Denver Public Library, Western History/Genealogy Department. This map shows the Ute Indian Reservation according to Treaty of March 2, 1868 and Executive Order 22 Nov 1875. The first Los Pinos Agency appears near Cochetopa Creek, with a nearby Indian village to the northeast.  Trails connect the Indian village and Agency, criss-crossing to connect over mountain passes and eastward to new towns.  A trail extends northward from the Indian Village to the Cochetopa River.  Trails also connect southward to communities in the area ceded by the Utes in 1873 by the Brunot Agreement.  It is difficult to determine the trails in this area, due to the topography drawn for mountainous terrain.  Another trail appears which leads from the first Los Pinos Agency westward to the Lake Fork, and another from the Gunnison River west and north, paralleling the Uncompahgre River and then north to the Grand (Colorado) River.  A trail also extends west from the Uncompahgre River, north of Ouray.  Additional trails cross the southern end of the reservation.

1877            Drainage Map of Colorado. Department of the Interior, U. S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories.  F.V. Hayden, U.S. Geologist in Charge, March 1877.   Published in F.V. Hayden, Tenth Annual Report of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey.  Washington, Government Printing Office. 1878.  This map shows the Ute Indian Reservation, the first Los Pinos Agency, the Uncompahgre (second Los Pinos) Agency, and to the north of this Agency, an Indian Village.  The Salt Lake wagon road extends from the Grand (Colorado) River south to Ouray, and additional roads connect towns south of Ouray and to the east of the reservation.  Numerous trails cross the area.  On the western side of the region, a trail extends from the area north of the Grand River south to the Uncompahgre Plateau, with a few branches.  Farther to the south, numerous trails cross the area between the Rio Dolores and the Rio San Miguel.  Another trail extends from the Uncompahgre Plateau to the Uncompahgre Agency, with additional branches to the south.  Trails surround Grand Mesa to the north, along Plateau Creek; to the east and west; and to the south along the Gunnison River, with some branches.  More trails exist farther to the east in the Elk Mountains.

c.1878            Johnson’s Colorado.  Denver Public Library, Western History/Genealogy Department.  1878 date given by library.  This date is likely incorrect, as the maps shows the “Old White River Agency,” and “Old Los Pinos Agency.”  It also shows the “Old Ute Agency” at Los Pinos and nearby Indian village.  On this map, roads and railroad tracks cross the area previously reserved for the Utes.

1879    State of Colorado.  Department of the Interior, General Land Office.  J.A. Williamson, Commissioner.  C. Roeser, Principal Draughtsman, GLO.  Denver Public Library, Western History/Genealogy Department.  This map shows the Ute Indian Reservation according to Treaty of March 2, 1868 and Executive Order 22 Nov 1875. Los Pinos Uncompahgre Agency appears along the Uncompahgre River, and the Cochetopa Ute Agency (first Los Pinos Agency) appears along the Los Pinos Creek, near Cochetopa Pass.  A road connects the towns of Gunnison and Lake City through the reservation.

1879    Cram’s Railroad and Township Map of Colorado.  G.F. Cram, Chicago.  Denver Public Library, Western History/Genealogy Department.  This map shows the Los Pinos Agency in Uncompahgre Park but it also shows an Agency farther north on the Uncompahgre River, presumably erroneously.  Near Cochetopa Creek, an “Old Agency” and another “Los Pinos” appear around eight miles apart.

1880    Nell’s New Topographical and Township Map of the State of Colorado.  Compiled from U.S. Government Surveys and other authentic Sources.  Washington, D.C. Denver Public Library, Western History/Genealogy Department.  This map shows the Confederated Ute Indian Reservation, “Old Ute Agcy”, Los Pinos Agency along the Uncompahgre River, and, to the north of the second Los Pinos Agency, “Ouray’s Re” (?), possibly residence.  A wagon road extends from the Grand River south to Ouray, and additional roads connect towns south of Ouray and to the east of the reservation.  Numerous trails cross the region.  On the western side of the map, a trail extends from the Grand  (Colorado) River, near the Utah line, south to the Rio Dolores.  Another trail extends from the area north of the Grand River south to the Uncompahgre Plateau, with a number of branches.  This trail eventually connects with the wagon road along the Uncompahgre River, south of the Los Pinos Agency.  Trails skirt both the east and west sides of both Battlement Mesa and Grand Mesa, again with a number of branches, with the eastern trail eventually moving south to run along the east bank of the Uncompahgre River. Other trails run through the mountains farther to the east.  A trail runs from “Roubideau’s Fort” eastward along the Gunnison; a trail goes from the confluence between the North Fork and the main branch of the Gunnison River, skirting around the Gunnison’s “Grand Canyon;” and another trail extends northward near the First Los Pinos Agency, labeled “Cochetopa Old Ute Agcy.”

Unpublished map

1872    “Map of Navajoe and Ute Reservations. “’A251’ [Colo.] 1872.”  National Archives Microfilm Publication M234, Letters Received by the Office of Indian Affairs, 1824 – 1881, roll 202, frame 0068.   The author of this map is unknown, but it appears with correspondence from Ute agents in 1872.  It shows Tabeguache Utes drawn with a circle around the first Los Pinos Agency, and Capote Utes circled north of Tierra Amarilla.   Baker’s Park is drawn in a box toward the center.  A trail leads from the Tabeguache circle into the mountains near Baker’s Park and from south of Tierra Amarilla north, with two trails in the area.  A trail continues westward into Utah, south of Baker’s Park.   A sketchy trail appears to the north of the Gunnison River.  Denver Utes appear in a circle at the eastern edge of the map.

Forest maps

The forest maps represent the earliest maps in the collection of the Denver Public Library. The Colorado Historical Society has similar maps, but these did not yield any additional information.  These maps show numerous trails and roads; as these were made over 40 years after the removal of the Utes from the GMUG, it is impossible to determine solely from maps which trails were made by the Utes and which by later settlers.  They may be useful in conjunction with an intimate knowledge of the area in determining trail locations.

1922    Grand Mesa National Forest.  Denver Public Library.

1927    Grand Mesa National Forest.   Denver Public Library.

1935            Uncompahgre National Forest.   Denver Public Library.  This map shows a trail labeled “Indian Trail,” found in T47N-48N, R100W-99W.

1938            Gunnison National Forest.   Denver Public Library.
 

Published Maps Showing Utes in Colorado

Ute band territories from “Ute,” by Donald Callaway, Joel Janetski, and Omer C. Stewart.  In Great Basin, edited by Warren L. D’Azevedo.   Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 11.  William G. Sturtevant, general editor.  Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1986, p. 337. 

 “Distribution of Ute Indian bands” from The Ute Indians of Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico by Virginia McConnell Simmons, University Press of Colorado, Boulder, 2000, p. 18. 

1868, 1873, 1895, and 1911 maps from The Ute Mountain Utes by Robert W. Delaney.  University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1989. 

 “Ute Reservations and Land Cessions” from Ute Indian Arts and Culture From Prehistory to the New Millennium, edited by William Wroth.  Taylor Museum of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Colorado Springs, 2000, p. 2.

 “Locations of Ute Agencies and Subagencies” from The Ute Indians of Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico by Virginia McConnell Simmons, University Press of Colorado, Boulder, 2000, p. 139.   

“Location map of historic Ute camps in western Colorado from 1776 to 1868” from “Tabehuache and Elk Mountain Utes: A Historical Test of an Ecological Model” by Kenneth Lee Peterson, Southwestern Lore, 43, no. 4 , 1977:5-21, p. 8.  Peterson mapped camp locations from Escalante’s 1776 journal, three 1853 Central Railroad surveys, and the 1857 and 1858 trips of Captain Marcy and Colonel Loring over the same route.

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Section Ten: Ute Treaties with the United States Government 

Treaties and Agreements:

The following ratified treaties and agreements had a direct impact on the Tabeguache, Grand River, Uncompahgre, and White River bands. 

Treaty of Dec. 30, 1849 at Abiquiu, New Mexico Territory (Kappler Vol. 2, 1904:585-587).

Treaty of October 7, 1863 at Conejos, Colorado Territory (Kappler Vol. 2, 1904:856-859).

Treaty of March 2, 1868 at Washington, D.C. (Kappler 1904:990-996). 

Agreement of September 13, 1873 at Los Pinos Agency, Colorado Territory (commonly known as the Brunot Agreement as Felix Brunot negotiated the agreement on behalf of the United States government; Deloria and DeMallie 1999:258-260). 

Agreement dated November 9, 1878; signed September 18, 1878 at White River Agency, Colorado and signed November 11, 1878 at Los Pinos Indian Agency, Colorado (note: this primarily concerns Muache, Capote, and Weenuch bands and their lands but was signed by Tabeguache, Yampa, Grand River, and Uintah bands; Deloria and DeMallie 1999:272-276). 

Agreement of Confederated Bands, March 6, 1880, at Washington, D.C. (Deloria and DeMallie 1999: 277-283; Kappler Vol. I 1904:180-186).

Description of Treaties and Agreements:

The Utes signed their first treaty with the United States government in 1849 at Abiquiu, just one year after the United States acquired the Southwest from Mexico.  In this “treaty of friendship,” the Utes acknowledged that they lived under the jurisdiction of the United States and expressed a desire to live in peace with the citizens of the United States (Ellis 2000:73-74).  The treaty showed the vision of the federal government for the Utes when it stated

And the said Utahs [Utes], further, bind themselves not to depart from their accustomed homes or localities unless specially permitted by an agent of the aforesaid Government [United States Government]; and so soon as their boundaries are distinctly defined, the said Utahs are further bound to confine themselves to said limits, under such rules as the said Government may prescribe, and to build up pueblos, or to settle in such other manner as will enable them most successfully to cultivate the soil, and pursue such other industrial pursuits as will best promote their happiness and prosperity: and they now deliberately and considerately, pledge their existence as a distinct tribe, to abstain, for all time to come, from all depredations; to cease the roving and rambling habits which have hitherto marked them as a people; to confine themselves strictly to the limits which may be assigned them; and to support themselves by their own industry, aided and directed as it may by the wisdom, justice, and humanity of the American people. . . . For, and in consideration of the faithful performance of all the stipulations contained in this treaty by the said Utahs, the Government of the United States will grant to said Indians such donations, presents, and implements, and adopt such other liberal and humane measures, as said Government may deem meet and proper (Kappler 1904:586).

Suffice it to say that this treaty certainly affected the lifestyle of the Utes but did not cause them to become sedentary.  Future treaties would deal more directly with the question of land.  Pressure from settlers led to the next treaty in 1863.  Only leaders of the Tabeguache band agreed to this treaty, which established a reservation north to the Colorado and Roaring Fork Rivers, south to take in watersheds of Gunnison and Uncompahgre Rivers and east to the continental divide.  The Tabeguache ceded to the government land that their band did not use, particularly the San Luis Valley used by the Capote Utes, who did not sign the treaty. This matter greatly injured the relationship between bands.   In exchange, Utes received payments, animals, and farm equipment (Ellis 2000:74; Simmons 2000:117-118; personal communication between Peter Decker and Liesl Dees, 2 Dec 2003). 

The 1863 treaty was unsatisfactory to both Utes and the United States, and the federal government never appropriated funds to implement the treaty.  Thus a new treaty in 1868 established most of the western third of Colorado for Utes as the Consolidated Ute Reservation.  Despite the treaty, miners moved into the Dolores Valley, the Lake Fork of the Gunnison, and Bakers Park, the area that became Silverton.  Negotiations resumed, resulting in 1873 in the Brunot Agreement.  Utes were clear on their willingness to sell mining lands, but the agreement removed both mining and non-mining lands from the reservation, resulting in disputes between the Utes and the government.  Several observers confirmed that the treaty was misinterpreted to the Utes (Ellis 2000:74-76; personal communication between Peter Decker and Liesl Dees, 2 Dec 2003). 

The next agreement with Ute peoples concerned land for the Capote, Muache, and Weenuch bands, but this time the federal government had the Yampa, Grand River, Uintah, and Tabeguache bands sign the agreement as well, in order to avoid future potential conflict (Deloria and DeMallie 1999:272). 

In the wake of the killing of Agent Meeker and other men at the White River Agency and battle with federal troops, a Ute delegation went to Washington, D.C. to negotiate the future of both the bands involved in the massacre and the other Colorado Utes, resulting in the Agreement of March 6, 1880. The Agreement began with the surrender of those involved in the killing and then stated that “The said chiefs and headmen of the confederated bands of Utes also agree and promise to use their best endeavors with their people to procure their consent to cede to the United States all the territory of the present Ute Reservation in Colorado, except as hereinafter provided for their settlement”  (Deloria and DeMallie 1999:277).  The Utes associated with the White River Agency, which included the Yampa and Grand River Utes, were moved to the previously established Uintah Ute Reservation in Utah.  According to the treaty, the Uncompahgre band would settle near the mouth of the Gunnison River along the Grand River, as long as sufficient agricultural land existed.  Government representatives thought the land insufficient, and this band thus moved to Utah.  In southern Colorado, Weenuch, Capote, and Muache bands in southern Colorado were moved onto a smaller reservation area (Ellis 2000:77-78).
 

Treaty Sources:

Ute treaty information comes from two main primary sources.  For years, scholars considered Charles Kappler’s seven volume Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties the definitive source for treaty information.  In 1999, Vine Deloria, Jr. and Raymond J. DeMallie published Documents of American Indian Diplomacy, which, unlike Kappler’s work, included both ratified and un-ratified material, clarified addenda, corrected clerical mistakes, and included other relevant materials (Deloria and DeMallie 1999:3).

Beginning in the early 1870s, the federal government referred to diplomatic documents with all Indian tribes as “agreements” rather than “treaties.”  This change in terminology has its roots in the stormy relationship between President Andrew Johnson and the United States Congress in the late 1860s.  In addition to general disputes with the President, Congress resented the power that the President had in committing the federal government to large appropriations over a long period through treaties.  The primary difference between “treaties” and “agreements” is that treaties required two-thirds vote of the Senate while “agreements” required a majority vote of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.  Frequently, Congress changed the terms of the agreements, without consulting with the Indians who had already signed the document, and they occasionally ratified the entire negotiation record, resulting in extremely messy statutes.  Despite different nomenclature, agreements are clearly official acts of the United States and binding like treaties (Deloria and DeMallie 1999:233-250; Ellis 2000:74). 

Deloria and DeMallie’s Documents of American Indian Diplomacy includes documents which Congress never ratified and agreements which were rejected by either Congress or by the Utes.   Although these provide an important window into the complex relationship between the Utes and the United States federal government, they did not impact land status, and are thus omitted.  Additionally, Documents of American Indian Diplomacy includes agreements with the Weenuch, Muache, and Capote bands, negotiated after Uncompahgre and White River bands were removed to Utah.  The first of these dates to November 13, 1888.  These did not impact the lands of the bands removed to Utah and thus are not included.

One other source concerning Ute treaties warrants mention.  George E. Fay compiled a manuscript entitled “Land Cessions in Utah and Colorado by the Ute Indians, 1861-1899” for the University of Northern Colorado’s Museum of Anthropology, published as a part of their Miscellaneous Series, number 13, July 1970.  He included primarily material from Kappler, but he did draw on a few additional sources.  All information relevant to the GMUG area has been found in other sources, but the manuscript provides a useful overview of Ute land cessions of various bands without having to wade through numerous volumes.  Both the Center of Southwest Studies and the Colorado Historical Society have copies of this manuscript.

Laws:

In additions to treaties and agreements, Congress passed numerous laws affecting the Utes, primarily concerning appropriation of funds, both before and after removal to Utah, and allotment of lands following removal.   These are included and indexed in Charles Kappler’s first volume, Laws and Treaties. 

Two relevant laws from this volume have been reproduced for this document.  Congress passed a law July 28, 1882, 22 Stat., 178, which declared the land in Colorado previously occupied by the Uncompahgre and White River Utes as public land (Kappler Vol. 1, 1904:205).  On March 1, 1883, Congress declared that the Secretary of the Interior could compensate the Utes per the 1880 agreement in stock rather than money, with the consent of the Utes, 22 Stat., 449 (Kappler Vol. 1, 1904:215-216).

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Section Eleven: Contemporary Perspectives for the Future

As the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, and Gunnison Forests move forward with a revision of their forest plans, which will guide resource management for the next decade, the historical and traditional occupation of most of the contiguous mountain lands by the Utes up until 1881 should be taken into account.  While it has been difficult for the Uncompahgre and White River  “Bands” (now a part of the Northern Ute) to maintain contact with their ancestral lands because of their displacement to the Uintah Reservation in Northeastern Utah, there is still a desire to do so.

While on-going communication with the Northern Utes is important, a particular perspective or ‘philosophy” about cultural sites and heritage resources also is needed.  Betsy Chapoose, the tribal director of the Cultural Right’s and Protection Department, described this orientation as recognizing the importance of “interrelationships” between sites, the surroundings, the plants, water and animals.

There is more to cultural resources than meets the eye. We are not just talking about the tangible evidence that’s been left. We are looking at areas that may have some type of aesthetic quality.  It may have areas that have high vistas that people utilized and maybe did ceremonies, but didn’t leave physical evidence there.  The air.  How did that play into the ceremonial sites?  The water.  Water quality.  How that plays into how people conduct some of their ceremonies or go about living in that way?  So I think in every element that is involved there’s some type of protection that needs to happen. 

And I think Native Americans, or Indian People as a whole, see the universe as a whole and not segmented.   That’s one thing that you need to look at the world, (while I realize there are political boundaries that we have to deal with), but I think you really need to look at it with that eye to say everything is related, and how does this affect that.  Because you have to realize that the people that were here before, they lived their religion.  ...Everyday was another part of that ceremony. Everyday their life was a ceremony.  And so when you look at the world in that way, and realize how interrelated it was, they couldn’t get food without giving some offering, waking up in the morning and greeting the sunrise and that type of thing.  

So if you look at it that way, the matter of protection is really quite vast. It’s really quite big, I think if you get people out there, and talk to people about what it is that’s happing across the board, I think you’re going to see that the Indian People really have the same types of protection issues that the Forest Service has.  You really need to involve the tribes that you are working with, not just because you have a “prescribed burn” and you want to have some input as to what they are going to do to the cultural resources in that area.  I think you need to have that rapport and build that rapport so that you’ve got that input every day.… 

There’s more to protection than is put on paper.  There’s a lot of humanistic qualities about the aesthetics of an area, for example, the line of sight when you are talking about cairns.  (Betsy Chapoose, 2003)  [Betsy gave an example of a consultation she and Clifford Duncan had completed on public land in Wyoming. There were four prominent points along the lines of sight from a cairn.  Clifford pointed out that if the lines of sight to the horizon were impaired, then the meaning of the cairn would be lost]  

Betsy goes on to describe another natural element in a more comprehensive or integrated approach to cultural resource protection: 

…Water is about life giving.  And that’s part of some of the ceremonials ways, is their water offering.  And if the water is not uncontaminated, they can’t use it, then it really affects the way they can conduct some of their ceremonies.  As well as plants.  Plants are essential to any ceremony.  If you go to any type of ceremony, they’re burning cedar or there is some type of plant material that’s there. And if you don’t have the water, even coming from the sky through the air, if that is not hospitable to the plants, then you loose that. 

In some areas, it may be that that area has certain types of culture resources, and I’m talking about tangible stuff like archeological resources, that may be there because of the plants that are there or the wildlife that’s in that area, because it has to be certain kind that comes from that area.  So that’s how things are very interrelated.  

I guess I would have to say that probably the highest on the list are procurement and ceremonial areas, and the aesthetics [of the areas].  It is like Clifford said one time, you can burn down all the old camps, but you can’t change the line of sight.  You can always come back to the place and frame whatever it is you are looking for there. I think that is another important point. (Chapoose, 2003)

When asked whether the Utes should work with the Forest Service to plan for specific sites, Betsy said: 

I am of the belief that I don’t think we should have to find those areas.  I think that we need to train the Forest Service people to recognize those areas because there are a number of people that work for the Forest Service that get into areas that I will never see.  I think it could take a person a lifetime.  If I had to go out here and go through that, I think it would be a lifetime achievement.   But I think it’s our job to enlighten the Forest Service personnel, especially field people, to what it is, that is to be able to say, “These are the types of things we are looking at. So if we have areas like that, then you may need to think twice about what type of activities that are going on in there.”  

Also I think it is our responsibility to educate the Forest Service on our history of their area.  I really think a lot of people are ignorant about that. If you went to Colorado, some people would be surprised that there’s a Ute Tribe in Utah that was moved out of Colorado. ... I keep saying a sense of ownership, which is an Anglo term, but the sense of belonging within that area.  Then they understand why that is quite important to instill that in our kids. And to be able to have our older people go back over there look at areas that maybe their folks talked to them about.  (Chapoose, 2003.)  

Betsy described with great excitement the trip that was arranged to the GMUG Forests for elders several years ago. 

We took a group of elder ladies over there. And that had to be the best week I have ever had in this job for a long time.  Everything was so fresh to them.  We stopped at these scarred trees.  They’d get out and they all start talking at the same time. You’d get back in the van and they’d still be talking.  And we stopped at one kind of outlook area, and they got out and went over to the edge, and they looked.  And ahh, you know their faces just all lit up.  It was really quite a sight.  And they all started talking in Ute again about, “I remember when and all of that….” It was really fantastic.   Those opportunities too are part of that rapport building and being able to have that sense of belonging, so that we can feel like we should talk to the Forest and say, “Yea, we want these areas protected.” (Chapoose, 2003.)

When she looks at the social generations, Betsy observes that while her grandmother was familiar with the traditional lands in Colorado, and with gathering plants and their healing properties, but something was lost in her mother’s generation.  That is because her mother was sent off to boarding school. 

“I don’t think that those opportunities were there for a lot of these kids that were moved out of homes. Another thing is that there is a cultural gap there because they really didn’t learn what it is that you are supposed to do when you are growing up and you are maturing.  A lot of these folks really don’t have that.  And what they have learned are things that maybe are very common knowledge that people say. … There is that gap with that boarding school era, that unfortunately a lot of these people were not exposed to it, and didn’t have that opportunity to have that knowledge handed down to them.”  (Chapoose, 2003.)  

Concern was expressed that while there is good interaction with cultural resource staff, there is a gap when it comes to building up relationships with managers.  With the managers, “there is a big gap.”  It is not adequate to merely go out with a few managers for four hours, and then expect that in depth understanding has been conveyed.   

Mention was also made of a previous in-service training at Gunnison some years ago.  The purpose of this was to instill the significance of cultural sites among some field staff, mostly among temporary, summer or fire staff.      

We went out to this area and there was a stone circle site. Well, we don’t walk into the circle.  We just don’t do that.  That’s really a no-no.  So while we there, and the whole group was there, there were people standing on the rocks, wobbling back and forth, and so I just walked over and told them, ‘ You know, this is very important to us.  And I would really appreciate it if you wouldn’t stand on the rocks, or if you wouldn’t walk through the circle.   And Cliff was there and he said, ‘Yes, because this is part of the ceremony,’ and just explained a little bit about that.  And you know, that’s sensitizing them to that, and you could see they were understanding that.  And I think those simple types of things, rather than just saying, ‘ Well, this is a stone circle!  Don’t bother it!  Go away!  That way you don’t get any sense of understanding.’ (Chapoose, 2003.)   

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Section Twelve: Questions for Further Research

Because of the limited scope of this overview, several areas of additional or future research presented themselves.  First, it should be emphasized that future research efforts could be incorporated into increasing Ute involvement in the GMUG areas.   It would make the research more “participatory” and collaborative, if a broader range of members of the Ute community were invited to become involved. 

·        Linkages could be made with an effort currently being made by the Northern Ute Cultural Rights and Protection Department to record native botanical plants and their traditional uses, and properties.  Betsy Chapoose would be the appropriate contact in this regard. 

·        Joint meetings could be held within the GMUG region between Ute and USFS staff, and others, to further discuss Ute names for important landscape features.  Someone should lead these seminars with the Ute ethno-linguistic skills of a person such as Dr. James Goss. 

·        Mention was made by Betsy Chapoose of approximately 20-25 ethnographic interviews that were conducted by Dr. Floyd O’Neil of the American West Center at the University of Utah.  These were collected as a part of a land claims research project.  While an initial contact with Dr. O’Neil was made during this ethnographic project, there was not adequate time to explore these recordings. 

·        At the University of Colorado Library, there is a collection of the papers of one of the early Ute ethnographers, Dr. Omer Stewart.  The archival listing notes there are 720 boxes of materials in the Stewart Collection.   Some efforts, in collaboration with Jim Goss, could be undertaken to determine if any of these records would be helpful to a reconnection of Ute culture with the GMUG lands. 

·        In the Southern Ute Cultural Museum in Ignacio there is a collection of Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE) records that contain some of the Ute ethnographic accounts of John Wesley Powell.  These files were recently contributed to the Southern Ute Tribe by Dr. Goss. While some use of the Powell diaries was made during this study, there are detailed language records, and a series of Ute stories that deserve further attention. (See BAE Manuscript no. 794a, “Ute and Paiute Legends,” 46 stories, 1873.) 

·        Peeled trees have mentioned in many reports about the Utes healing and subsistence practices.  A report by Jack R. Williams, entitle “Ute Culture Trees: Living History,” published in 2001, describes peeled or blazed trees in the Pike National Forest and the Great San Dunes National Park.  Some follow-up research on the GMUG Forests would appear to be warranted. 

·        Recently, archaeological fieldwork has been conducted with regard to the routing of the Mid-America Pipeline.  Further investigation of these reports could provide additional insights concerning the interrelationships of ethnographic and archaeological knowledge.  See a 2002 article by Rand A. Grebuel, entitled “A Closer Look At Eastern Ute Subsistence,” which enumerates some of the archaeological reports that could be examined. 

·        Long-standing learning, research, and professional interaction has occurred between the White River National Forest and representatives of various of the Ute Tribes to look at trails and campsites, and to discuss Ute traditions.  This sort of activity reportedly has strengthen forest-tribal relationships and led to a much greater understanding of Ute presence and activity on the forestlands of Colorado.  The GMUG, and the Ute Tribes, perhaps with the assistance of Dr. James Goss and Clifford Duncan, who have both been involved in those efforts, could discuss the development of a similar field research effort. 

·        Two related Ute ethnographic studies on public lands should be coordinated with:  One completed by John Brett University of Colorado-Denver for the Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP), entitled the Ute/Arapahoe Ethnography Project.  The second is currently underway with the RMNP, conducted by Sally McBeth, Northern Colorado University-Greely, will focus on oral histories and cultural interpretation.  (Communication with Sally McBeth, November 20, 2003.) 

·        While portions of the interviews with Dr. James Goss, Clifford Duncan, and Betsy Chapoose have been transcribed for this report, additional efforts might be made to fully transcribe and archive these accounts. (The tapes are currently in the possession of Sam Burns at Fort Lewis College.) 

From a more academic or scientific point of view, the following questions have been brought up during this study, often by researchers with whom we have communicated, but which have not been addressed by this research project:

-How did Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Utes travel through the GMUG area?  Did this change over time with, for example, the Brunot Agreement (1873)?  Did the Beaver Creek Massacre (1885)—an incident where ranchers killed a peaceful party of Utes—lead to any travel changes?  Did the resulting tensions lead to any change of routes or the way in which travel occurred? 

-How did Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Utes travel across the GMUG for religious purposes?  Did they attend Sun Dance ceremonies at the Uintah-Ouray Reservation?   

-After removal from the GMUG area, what kind of seasonal migration patterns persisted as Utes returned to the area? In Meeker in 1901, Utes caught by game wardens for hunting deer were acquitted for violation of game laws (Gulliford 2000:xx).  What kind of relationship did the whites and returning Utes have?  Were the farmers happy to have the Utes thin the deer?  Was post-removal hunting primarily for deerskin for economic trade? 

-What sacred sites exist on the GMUG?  Andrew Gulliford has developed the following typology for sacred sites:  religious sites associated with oral tradition and origin stories; trails and pilgrimage routes; traditional gathering areas for paint, brush, herbs; offering areas—altars and shrines; vision quest and other individual use sites; group ceremonial sites—sweat lodges, dances and sings; ancestral habitation sites; individual burials and massacre sites; observatories and calendar sites; ceremonial rock art sites, and culturally scarred trees (Personal communication between Andrew Gulliford and Liesl Dees, 4 Dec 2003, from Andrew Gulliford’s document, “Ute Sacred Place Typology,” Spring 2002) 

-As additional research is done on trails north and south of the GMUG, how did these trails create a network throughout the region?  Do trails on the GMUG connect with documented trails on the White River National Forest? 

-Jon Horn recalls seeing a number of years ago additional Ute trails on GLO maps around Grand Mesa’s base, from Kannah Creek’s vicinity above East Orchard Mesa toward the Colorado River at Palisade.  Additionally, a Ute trail may have been the basis for the Hogback Road that led into the Grand Valley from the Mesa area over Grand Mesa down Rapid Creek into the Palisade Watershed. 

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A final note

As we have undertaken this ethnographic and historical overview of the Utes, it became readily apparent that there was more to gather and understand about the Nuutsiyu, especially the members who lived for centuries in West-Central Colorado, than we had the capacity to accomplish.  Previous accounts of the Utes are quite diverse, undertaken from many historical and cultural perspectives, but this past work has clearly not been pulled together in any one location.  There are archival and written materials spread throughout the Rocky Mountain region and beyond. 

While several authors, Goss, Simmons, Callaway, Janetski, Stewart, and Wroth among them, have made extensive efforts to construct or tell significant portions of the Ute story, there is much yet to be discovered.   Since the U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management lands in Colorado occupy much of the traditional lands of the Ute People, it might be well to think ahead and together about cultural protection for these landscapes.  In so doing, the highest priority would be to involve the Utes themselves in a co-learning process about the mountains, the plants, the trails, the animals, and the sacred vistas, working collaboratively among the federal land managers throughout the region.

If this were to happen, it would be well to keep in mind a few final thoughts provided by Jim Goss in order to clearly keep the focus on the Ute People, the Nuutsiyu: (Following paragraphs have been slightly reformatted from the original text.)

The descendants of the Utes who once were free and sovereign in their sacred mountains of Colorado, Utah, and parts of New Mexico and Wyoming, now live on three small reservations: The Southern Ute Reservation of Colorado, the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation of Colorado, and the Uintah and Ouray Reservation of Utah.

They are still alive and well, and wonderful people. They are phenomenal survivors. They are still the Nuutsiyu People. They still have their traditional beliefs, and ceremonies, such as the Bear Dance and the Sundance, which keep them in tune with their stewardship responsibilities to their Sacred Land, their Sacred Mother. And, they are not going away.

Don't write the Utes off as "vanishing" Native Americans. There were probably 6,000 - 10,000 Utes before the European invasion. Their population was devastated by 1900, but today their birthrate is outstripping the national average.

There are over 7,000 enrolled tribal members on the three reservations. The population of the Southern Utes has grown from 400 to 1,500, more than tripled, in the 45 years that I have known them.

There are probably as many Utes today as there ever were, but they are essentially "invisible" because there are so many "Others" on their beautiful homeland.

You don't get to know them, or learn what they know, if you don't seek them out and prove yourself as a friend. (Taken from Goss, 2003b.)

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Works cited

Baker, Steven G.

1991        The Uncompahgre Valley Historic Ute Project, First Interim Report and Executive Summary.  Centuries Research, Inc., Montrose.

Bates, Craig

2000        “An Artistic Style Uniquely Their Own: Basketry, Parfleches and Beaded Clothing of the Ute People.”  In Ute Indian Arts and Culture from Prehistory to the New Millennium, edited by William Wroth, pp.143-178.  Taylor Museum of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Colorado Springs.

Bennett, Julia L.

1999        “We Know This Place: Mapping Relationships between Landscape and Language: A Study of Moache and Capote Ute Place Names.” SW496 Paper, Dr. Richard Ellis, Fort Lewis College.

Bolton, Herbert E.

1950        Pageant in the Wilderness: The Story of the Escalante Expedition to the Interior Basin, 1776 Including the Diary and Itinerary of Father Escalante Translated and Annotated.  Utah State Historical Society, Salt Lake City. 

Callaway, Donald, Joel Janetski, and Omer C. Stewart

1986        “Ute.” In Great Basin, edited by Warren L. D’Azevedo, pp. 336-367.   Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 11.  William G. Sturtevant, general editor.  Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 

Chapoose, Betsy

 2003    An Ethnographic Conversation held with Sam Burns, tape-recorded at Fort Duchesne, Utah November 6, 2003. 

Condie, Carol J. and Carol Raish

2002        “Indigenous and Traditional Use of Fire in Southwestern Grassland, Woodland, and Forest Ecosystems.”  Manuscript in possession of Sam Burns.  To be published in proceedings from symposium, Human Dimensions and National Fire Plan Research, Ninth International Symposium on Society and Resource Management, 2002 2-5 June, Bloomington, Indiana. 

Crum, Sally

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Delaney, Robert

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Deloria, Vine, Jr. and Raymond J. DeMallie

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Duncan, Clifford

2003   An Ethnographic Conversation held with Sam Burns, tape-recorded at Clifford’s home near Roosevelt, Utah, November 6, 2003. 

Ellis, Richard N.

2000        “The Ute Indians in Southern Colorado since 1850.”  In Ute Indian Arts and Culture from Prehistory to the New Millennium, edited by William Wroth, pp. 73-87.  Taylor Museum of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Colorado Springs.

Emmitt, Robert

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Fowler, Don D. and Catherine S. Fowler, editors

1971        Anthropology of the Numa: John Wesley Powell’s Manuscripts on the Numic Peoples of Western North America, 1868-1880.  Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology, No. 14.  Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C. 

Goss, James A.

2000        “Traditional Cosmology, Ecology and Language of the Ute Indians.”  In Ute Indian Arts and Culture from Prehistory to the New Millennium, edited by William Wroth, pp. 27-52.  Taylor Museum of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Colorado Springs.

2003    An Ethnographic Conversation held with Sam Burns, tape-recorded at Fort Lewis College, October 24, 2003, Durango, Colorado. 

2003b. “Ute Indian Perspectives on the Old Spanish Trail: Sinawavi Made The Trail,” Keynote Address at the Annual Conference of the Old Spanish Trail Association, Durango, Colorado, June 21, 2003. 

Greubel, Rand A.

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Gulliford, Andrew

2000      “Introduction.”  In The Last War Trail: The Utes and the Settlement of Colorado, Robert Emmitt.  University Press of Colorado, Boulder.

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Kappler, Charles J.

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1998        Uncompahgre.  Western Reflections, Inc., Ouray. 

Martorano, Marilyn

1981    Scarred Trees Ponderosa Pine Trees Reflecting Cultural Utilization of Bark, M.A. Thesis, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado. 

Miller, Mark E.

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2001        Old Spanish Trail: National Historic Trail Feasibility Study and Environmental Assessment, July. 

Nicolay, John G.

1863        Letter to William P. Dole, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 14 Aug 1863.  U.S. Congress.  House Executive Document 1182.  38^th Congress.  1^st sess., 1863-1864. Vol. 3. 

Peterson, Kenneth Lee 

1977        “Tabehuache and Elk Mountain Utes: A Historical Test of an Ecological Model.”  Southwestern Lore, 43(4):5-21. 

Petit, Jan

1990                  Utes: The Mountain People.  Rev. ed.  Johnson Books, Boulder. 

Pfertsh, Jack

1996        The Los Pinos Ute Agency Project.  Manuscript made available by Alpine Archaeological Consultants, Inc., Montrose. 

Powell, John Wesley

      1873    “Ute and Paiute Legends,” 46 stories, Bureau of American Ethnology Manuscript no. 794a, located in the Southern Ute Cultural Museum, Ignacio, Colorado. 

Quintana, Frances Leon

1974     Pobladores: Hispanic Americans of the Ute Frontier, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, Indiana. 

Reed, Alan D. and Michael D. Metcalf

1999      Colorado Prehistory: A Context for the Northern Colorado River Basin.  Colorado Council of Professional Archaeologists, Denver. 

Reyher, Ken

1998      Antoine Robidoux and Fort Uncompahgre: The Story of a Western Colorado Fur Trader.  Western Reflections Inc., Ouray. 

Simmons, Virginia McConnell

2000        The Ute Indians of Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico.  University Press of Colorado, Boulder. 

Smith, Anne M.

1974        Ethnography of the Northern Utes.  Papers in Anthropology No. 17.  Museum of New Mexico Press, Santa Fe. 

Sprague, Marshall

1980        Massacre: The Tragedy at White River.  Reprint.  University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln. 

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1880        House.  Committee on Indian Affairs.  Testimony in Relation to the Ute Indian Outbreak.  46^th Congress, 2^nd sess.  Mis. Doc. No. 38. 

Warner, Ted, editor

1995        The Dominguez-Escalante Journal: Their Expedition through Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico in 1776.  Translated by Fray Angelico Chavez.  University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.

Williams, Jack R.

2001    “Ute Culture Trees: Living History,” Pike Peak Research Station, Colorado Outdoor Education Center, Florissant, Colorado.  

Wroth, William

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This web page was prepared by Todd Ellison, C.A., on September 2, 2004 (not posted until August 28, 2007).

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Doing your own research:

This description of a portion of the information disseminated by the Fort Lewis College Center of Southwest Studies for the benefit of researchers.  Southwest special collections are housed at the Center of Southwest Studies on the campus of Fort Lewis College.  Researchers wanting more information about using this material at the Delaney Southwest Research Library at the Center may email the archivist at archives@fortlewis.edu or click here to use our E-mail Reference Request Form (or phone the archivist at 970/247-7126).  The Center does not have a budget for outgoing long-distance phone calls to answer reference requests, so please email if you wish to receive a response from the Center.  To request reproductions/copies, click here for instructions.

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