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Show Story Telling Another form of recreation for the Utes was story telling. Often the elders of the family group would gather around the campfire at night and tell the children stories. Many of these tales were religious or admonitory, teaching the children about the beliefs and traditions of the Utes. Other tales were simply entertaining, much like fairy tales told to children today. The characters in many of the tales of all kinds are animals who speak and behave like people, animals like the prairie dog, the frog's children, the red bug, the fox, and the bear. Still other tales were about the Utes themselves, about warriors and hunters, and about the everyday lives of the Utes. Different storytellers had different versions of the tales, and details were often added or forgotten as children who had listened to stories grew up and told them to their children. The tales that follow are just a few of the many Ute tales. Wolf and Coyote One day the wolf saw the coyote carrying a bag with him, so he started out after the coyote and asked him what he had in the bag he was carrying. But the coyote didn't want to show him what he had in the bag and he started running from the wolf, so the wolf chased him around and around. Finally he caught him, then he told the coyote to take out the things he had in the bag. When he did take them out, they were all little people. He took out quite a few of them, and finally the coyote closed the bag really fast, and left very few in the bag. The old man who told this story said that this was the few amount of people that are left here, as the Southern Ute people are now. He said if the wolf hadn't done this to the coyote there wouldn't have been so few Indians left here; there would have been more people today. After all this had been done, the coyote told the wolf, "Now go and make your arrows. Now there is going to be a war." The Race Between the Skunk and the Coyote The skunk and the coyote decided they would pool their plans and catch some prairie dogs for lunch. The coyote said, "I'm going to walk into the mud and also roll around in it until I'm all muddy and then I'll go lay down near the prairie dog colony. You must go and tell the |