Guest Author - Phyllis Doyle Burns
This article was written by our previous editor, Phyllis Doyle Burns, and all rights are reserved. For inquiries and comments, please contact the current editor, Jane Winkler.
The Ute tribes occupied the vast lands of eastern Utah and western Colorado, parts of New Mexico and also Wyoming. They had occupied these areas for at least 1000 years prior to the arrival of Mexican settlers. Seventeen of the largest known groups were: Capote, Cumumba, Kapote, Moache, Moanumts, Pah Vant, Parianuche, San Pitch, Sheberetch, Taviwach, Timanogots, Tummpanawach, Uinta, Uncompahgre, White River, Weeminuche, and Yamperika.
Like all other tribes, they have delightful and beautiful stories that have been handed down verbally to each new generation.
This is their story of Pokoh, Old Man.
Pokoh, Old Man, they say, created the world. Pokoh had many thoughts. He had many blankets in which he carried around gifts for men. He created every tribe out of the soil where they used to live.
That is why an Indian wants to live and die in his native place. He was made of the same soil. Pokoh did not wish men to wander and travel, but to remain in their birthplace.
Long ago, Sun was a man, and was bad. Moon was good. Sun had a quiver full of arrows, and they are deadly. Sun wishes to kill all things.
Sun has two daughters (Venus and Mercury) and twenty men kill them; but after fifty days, they return to life again.
Rainbow is the sister of Pokoh, and her breast is covered with flowers.
Lightning strikes the ground and fills the flint with fire. That is the origin of fire. Some say the beaver brought fire from the east, hauling it on his broad, flat tail. That is why the beaver's tail has no hair on it, even to this day. It was burned off.
There are many worlds. Some have passed and some are still to come. In one world the Indians all creep; in another they all walk; in another they all fly. Perhaps in a world to come, Indians may walk on four legs; or they may crawl like snakes; or they may swim in the water like fish.
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