23 Facts About Ute Tribe

1.

Many Ute bands were culturally influenced by neighboring Native American tribes and Puebloans, whom they traded with regularly.

FactSnippet No. 2,546,333
2.

Origin of the word Ute Tribe is unknown; it is first attested as Yuta in Spanish documents.

FactSnippet No. 2,546,334
3.

Ute Tribe people are from the Southern subdivision of the Numic-speaking branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family, which are found almost entirely in the Western United States and Mexico.

FactSnippet No. 2,546,335
4.

The Ute Tribe occupied much of the present state of Colorado by the 1600s.

FactSnippet No. 2,546,336
5.

Some Ute Tribe bands stayed near their home domains, while others ranged further away seasonally.

FactSnippet No. 2,546,337
6.

Old Ute Tribe Pass Trail went eastward from Monument Creek to Garden of the Gods and Manitou Springs to the Rocky Mountains.

FactSnippet No. 2,546,338
7.

Ute Tribe appeared to have hunted and camped in an ancient Ancestral Puebloans and Fremont people campsite in near what is Arches National Park.

FactSnippet No. 2,546,339
8.

Occasionally members of Ute Tribe bands met up to trade, intermarry, and practice ceremonies, like the annual spring Bear Dance.

FactSnippet No. 2,546,340
9.

Until the Ute acquired horses, any conflict with other tribes was usually defensive.

FactSnippet No. 2,546,341
10.

Ute Tribe culture changed dramatically in ways that paralleled the Plains Indian cultures of the Great Plains.

FactSnippet No. 2,546,342
11.

Some Ute Tribe bands fought against the Spanish and Pueblos with the Jicarilla Apache and the Comanche.

FactSnippet No. 2,546,343
12.

The Ute Tribe were sometimes friendly but sometimes hostile to the Navajo.

FactSnippet No. 2,546,344
13.

Ute Tribe people traded with Europeans by the early 19th century including at encampments in the San Luis Valley, Wet Mountains, and the Upper Arkansas Valley and at the annual Rocky Mountain Rendezvous.

FactSnippet No. 2,546,345
14.

Wars with settlers began about the 1850s when Ute Tribe children were captured in New Mexico and Utah by Anglo-American traders and sold in New Mexico and California.

FactSnippet No. 2,546,346
15.

The Ute Tribe allied with the United States and Mexico in its war with the Navajo during the same period.

FactSnippet No. 2,546,347
16.

Southern Ute are the wealthiest of the tribes and claim financial assets approaching $2 billion.

FactSnippet No. 2,546,348
17.

The Ute Tribe operate KSUT, the major public radio station serving southwestern Colorado and the Four Corners.

FactSnippet No. 2,546,349
18.

All Ute reservations are involved in oil and gas leases and are members of the Council of Energy Resource Tribes.

FactSnippet No. 2,546,350
19.

The Southern Ute Tribe is financially successful, having a casino for revenue generation.

FactSnippet No. 2,546,351
20.

The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe generates revenues through gas and oil, mineral sales, casinos, stock raising, and a pottery industry.

FactSnippet No. 2,546,352
21.

Each spring the Ute Tribe hold their traditional Bear Dance, which was used to strengthen social ties and for courtship.

FactSnippet No. 2,546,353
22.

The Ute Tribe constructed special ceremonial rattles made from buffalo rawhide, which they filled with clear quartz crystals collected from the mountains of Colorado and Utah.

FactSnippet No. 2,546,354
23.

Ute Tribe pipes are thicker and use shorter pipestems than the Plains style, and more closely resemble the pipe styles of their Northern neighbors, the Shoshone.

FactSnippet No. 2,546,355