Being And Becoming Ute

Sondra Jones traces the metamorphosis of the Ute people from a society of small, interrelated bands of mobile hunter-gatherers to sovereign, dependent nations--modern tribes who run extensive business enterprises and government services. Weaving together the history of all Ute groups--in Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico--the narrative describes their traditional culture, including the many facets that have continued to define them as a people. Jones emphasizes how the Utes adapted over four centuries and details events, conflicts, trade, and social interactions with non-Utes and non-Indians. Being and Becoming Ute examines the effects of boarding--and public--school education; colonial wars and commerce with Hispanic and American settlers; modern world wars and other international conflicts; battles over federally instigated termination, tribal identity, and membership; and the development of economic enterprises and political power. The book also explores the concerns of the modern Ute world, including social and medical issues, transformed religion, and the fight to perpetuate Ute identity in the twenty-first century. Neither a portrait of a people frozen in a past time and place nor a tragedy in which vanishing Indians sank into oppressed oblivion, the history of the Ute people is dynamic and evolving. While it includes misfortune, injustice, and struggle, it reveals the adaptability and resilience of an American Indian people.

""Mud, Blood, and Ghosts" is a thoughtful, creative, and deeply researched story about the origins of Populism in America and its anti-immigrant and racist attitudes"--

An incisive history of early American archaeology—from reckless looting to professional science—and the field’s unfinished efforts to make amends today, told "with passion, indignation, and a dash of suspense" (New York Times). American archaeology was forever scarred by an 1893 business proposition between cowboy-turned-excavator Richard Wetherill and socialites-turned-antiquarians Fred and Talbot Hyde. Wetherill had stumbled upon Mesa Verde’s spectacular cliff dwellings and started selling artifacts, but with the Hydes’ money behind him, well—there’s no telling what they might discover. Thus begins the Hyde Exploring Expedition, a nine-year venture into Utah’s Grand Gulch and New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon that—coupled with other less-restrained looters—so devastates Indigenous cultural sites across the American Southwest that Congress passes first-of-their-kind regulations to stop the carnage. As the money dries up, tensions rise, and a once-profitable enterprise disintegrates, setting the stage for a tragic murder. Sins of the Shovel is a story of adventure and business gone wrong and how archaeologists today grapple with this complex heritage. Through the story of the Hyde Exploring Expedition, practicing archaeologist Rachel Morgan uncovers the uncomfortable links between commodity culture, contemporary ethics, and the broader political forces that perpetuate destructive behavior today. The result is an unsparing and even-handed assessment of American archaeology’s sins, past and present, and how the field is working toward atonement.

This book presents the rich panorama of Ute history, from the archaeological features of prehistoric Ute cultures to elements of present-day Ute culture.

These distinctive animal and human tales offer a rich source of Ute culture for anyone interested in the peoples of the Great Basin. The 102 stories are ribald, sometimes violent, yet delicately balanced and full of humor. In addition to Smith's transcriptions from Ute storytellers, Ute Tales contains photographs made in 1909 by Edward Sapir and in 1936 by Alden Hayes.

This comparative history of the Southern Ute and Mountain Ute peoples demonstrates how two culturally and historically related tribes, living side by side in southwestern Colorado, have taken very different paths in the modern era. Historian Richard K. Young makes a unique contribution to twentieth-century American Indian studies in his exploration of Colorado’s two remaining tribes’ divergent responses to federal Indian policies and changing economic and social conditions since passage of the Indian Reorganization Act in 1934. This book, which includes a review of the Utes’ precontact and nineteenth-century history, is based on primary research in U. S. and tribal documents, interviews with tribal members, and the few available secondary sources. By examining the Ute experience, Young highlights the dilemmas faced by all tribes with respect to economic development, energy and water resources, cultural identity and adaptation, spiritual life, tribal politics, and the struggle for tribal self-determination.

A history of the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam and social imbalances that resulted from it.