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Show Essay on the Sources Because of the small size of the tribes of American Indians, the source material relating to each is relatively small, except in some unusual cases such as the Cherokee, Sioux, or Navajo. The greater part of the literature which is available is anthropological or episodical in nature. The historical literature deals mostly with wars or bizarre incidents. The Ute ethnic community is a small one. After a recent period of strenuous growth, the Southern Utes now number less than 900 people. With their neighboring relatives the Ute Mountain Utes and the Uintah-Ouray Utes, they comprise a total population of only 4200. In spite of their numbers, the documents relating to them are relatively extensive. This is due in part to the attention of scholars, but is mainly owing to the records of their administration by the Federal government. Therefore, the largest body of material consists primarily of records in the possession of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the National Archives and Records Service. Some secondary works are worthy of mention. Wilson Rockwell's The Utes, A Forgotten People, published in 1956, Denver, Sage Books, is spotty and episodical, but very useful. Robert Emmitt, The Last War Trial: The Utes and the Settlement of Colorado, University of Oklahoma Press, 1954, is somewhat poetic in its treatment, but of value, nonetheless. The book of Marshall Sprague, Massacre: The Tragedy at White River, 1st ed., Boston: Little, Brown, 1957, deals largely with the Meeker Affair of 1879 and the expulsion of the Utes from Colorado. For Southern Ute history, it has limited value. The rsame can be said of Ute People: An Historical Study, compiled by June Lyman and Norma Denver, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1970, because its orientation is largely to the Utes of the Uintah-Ouray Reservation. Some sections are useful to provide background for Southern Ute history. Several M.A. theses and doctoral dissertations have proved valuable. Foremost among these is S. Lyman Tyler's "Before Escalante, an Early History of the Yuta Indians and the Area North of Mexico .. .," unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of History, University of Utah, 1951. This work is essential to the understanding of early Southern Ute history, and it remains a landmark which can be used as |