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Show Another Shoshonean-speaking people living in the Great Basin at the time of European entry were the Utes, the horsemen for whom the state is named. In the early nineteenth century they seem to have been a loosely organized people who could claim as their inheritance a successful and adaptive "Archaic" adjustment to their environment but whose culture had acquired an overlay of Plains traits (which grew thinner from east to west). Plains traits include the colorful objects associated with the horse: elaborate equestrian equipment; the use of the parfleche, travois, and tipi; a strong reliance on the use of hides instead of vegetal fibers; and other organizational and ceremonial elements. Some Ute groups seem to have maintained early vigorous trade contacts with the Hispanic northern borderland settlements (such as Santa Fe) and the northern Plains, which argues for a long history of similar commercial enterprises. There is no doubt that by the early eighteenth century some Ute groups consisted of highly mobile, mounted traders who had adapted their material culture and lifeway to the horse.8 North American Indian equestrian equipment was probably originally modeled on the designs of late medieval Spanish horse gear, the first any Indians would have seen. Frame saddles such as the Utes constructed were made of forked or curved horn and soft wood covered with sinew-stitched green rawhide, which added great strength to the much-used objects. Other necessary accoutrements of an equestrian people are the girths, quirts, saddle bags, cruppers, and martingales which the Ute people constructed of raw and tanned hides. They learned to mold rawhide into the brightly painted parfleches which were dragged on the long poles of the travois (Fig. 13). People packed these indispensable suitcases with their possessions and transported their mobile household from place to place. Ute women became adept leatherworkers; and creamy, brain-tanned Ute hides were in demand. In the nineteenth century, the Utes enjoyed from neighboring groups the deference due a powerful people. The Kaibab Paiutes eyed the Utes with wary respect, flatly believing that "the Utes know everything. They know how to make buckskin dresses and gloves and how to make beadwork."9 And Navajos, exchanging blankets for hides, pelts, robes, saddle bags, bandoliers, and other skin articles, found the Ute people to be congenial and sophisticated traders.10 Logically, though somewhat reluctantly, the Utes extended their trade relations to include the Anglos who drifted into their territory in the early nineteenth century. Visiting fur trappers' rendezvous and the commercial forts which had been established in the Uintah Basin,11 the Utes acquired guns, ammunition, blankets, strike-alights, and other metal tools and trinkets. Life was enriched and adorned with the Fig. 11 (upper left) Winnowing basket. Paiute. Probably sandbar willow (Salixexigua). Twined. Early 1900s (?).L: 45.5 cm. W: 43.0 cm. Collection of Utah Museum of Natural History. Fig. 12 (upper right) Gathering basket. Paiute. Probably sandbar willow (Salixexigua). Twined. Late 1800s (?). L: 65.0 cm. W: 56.0 cm. Collection of Utah Museum of Natural History. Fig. 13 (lower left) Parfleche. Northern Ute. Purchased at Whiterocks, Utah, from uncle of John Duncan in early 1900s. Rawhide, commercial paint. Geometric design. Late 1800s (?). L: 63.5 cm. W: 31.0 cm. D: 15.0 cm. Collection of Utah Museum of Natural History. Fig. 14 (lower right) Gloves. Northern Ute. Collected on the Uinta-Ouray Reservation in the late 1800s. Native tanned hide, sinew, pigment, commercial textile, glass and metallic seed beads. Spot-stitched beadwork. Late 1800s (?) L: 39.8 cm. W: 17.9 cm. Collection of Utah Museum of Natural History. 10 |