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Show considered the Utes to be Great Basin folk.1 The cultural and linguistic patterns tend to confirm their view. There are other evidences of the Great Basin influence, even on the groups who were resident in present-day Colorado. Rituals, hunting and gathering practices, and size of communities are somewhat similar. Ute society was relatively simple. Extended family organization tended to serve the society best, as hunting and gathering customs dictated. There were some exceptions to the scattered pattern, such as the large group at Utah Lake where the supply of fish and game from neighboring canyons of the area allowed a concentration of several hundred people. The Utes were not particularly aggressive in their habits and relationships. Their peaceful and passive view of the world was and is one which requires mainly a response to a need or an act rather than a preconception about the need to do something or change things. This rather pleasant philosophy is reflected in their economy, social, and religious activities. Their social and religious concepts seemed to be one, or at least joined. Their traditional ritual was the Bear Dance, held in very late winter or early spring. The ceremony was neither very formal nor very complex. J-A. L. Kroeber, Cultural and Natural Areas of Native North America, (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 19^7), p. 52; and R. H. Lowie, "Notes on Shoshonean Ethnography," Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. 20 (New York: American Museum of Natural History, 1924), p. 199- |