THE UTES - PART I
by Larry Meredith
The Ute Indians were the first residents of the Crystal River Valley and claimed the Crystal and lower Roaring Fork valleys until the early 1880s when they were expelled to reservations in southwest Colorado and Utah following the infamous Meeker Massacre.
The Utes had spent countless summers relishing a vast area of prime hunting and fishing grounds and many of them wintered at a camp between Rifle and Silt, along the Colorado River. They enjoyed what is now called Penny Hot Springs on the Crystal River and considered Yampah Hot Springs (at today’s Glenwood Springs) to be a sacred place of healing.
Majestic Mt. Sopris which guards the northern entrance to the narrow valley was hallowed by the Utes. In fact, Ute historians say the valley’s early inhabitants called the mountain “Wemagooah Kazuhchich” or “ancient mountain heart sits there.”
However, the Utes were not confined to this part of the central Colorado Rockies and their forebears can be traced far into the dim early history of this country. Their ancestors were hunter-gatherers who roamed the plainsand western plateau around 14,000 years ago.Intriguing and mystical evidence of the existence of those early people is plentiful, such as at the cliff dwellings in the Mesa Verde region. These settlements offer glimpses into their lives around four centuries before Columbus arrived.
Some historians and archaeologists speculate that the Utes are the descendants of the Anasazi people who, in about 1276, deserted their pueblos and cliff dwellings and wandered in the four directions. Within this probable migration may lie the thread of ancient Ute culture.
It is just as probable that some of those people found their ways into the Crystal Valley.
As the Utes established themselves in Colorado, claimed hunting grounds and attached themselves to such current popular locales as Penny Hot Springs, they claimed a domain that once covered about 150,000 square miles. Rulers of what they called “The Shining Mountains,” they were called the “Blue Sky People” by other tribes.
Charles S. Marsh says they are the only tribe truly native to the state of Colorado. They called themselves “Yuuttaa” and, more familiarly, “Nuche” meaning “the people” or “we the people.” Marsh says the Spaniards called them “Yutas,” the Cheyenne called them “Black People” and they were known as the “Rabbit Skin Robes” by the Omaha and Ponca and “Deer Hunting Men” by the Zuni.
As hunter-gatherers, the Utes established seven major sub groups – the Uintahs, Yampas, Parianucs, Uncompahgres, Weeminuches, Capotes and Mouaches with each group claiming a specific part of what is now Colorado.
The Utes practiced a universal religion in a natural sanctuary of mountains, rivers and forests whose bounty allowed them a comfortable life. Basing their spirituality on the natural world around them they prayed to spirits representing floods, thunder and lightning, and wild game, and appealed to a spirit of the blood to ward off sickness. The Utes did not fear death but believed in an afterlife of fair skies where there were great mountains, endless forests, grassy plains, fleet horses, beautiful women, strong men and sweet rivers that would flow forever.
Such were the people who inhabited the Crystal River Valley long before the white man discovered it and changed it forever.
TO BE CONTINUED
By Larry Meredith, author of “This Cursed Valley”
“This Cursed Valley is a compelling tale of wit, survival, love, lust, boom and bust in the late 1800’s in western Colorado … Combining western legend with Native American Mythology, this story incorporates real life characters right along side of fictitious ones.”
Material from a wide variety of sources including
“Elk Mountains Odyssey” by Paul Andersen and Ken Johnson. Published by the West Elk Loop Scenic and Historic Byway