by Samantha Tisdel

Towaoc, Colorado

“OKAY, FOLKS, TIME IS UP! Bey-ki! Means ‘Come here’ in Ute.” We gathered in a half-moon around our guide, David Wells, on top of an unexcavated ancestral Puebloan kiva in Mancos Canyon, our hands full of the potsherd treasures we had found lying thickly around the site. We had been given four minutes to “find something special,” and each one of us had been victorious. 

“This is the Red Pottery Site,” David said, punctuating each word with a comma of space. “Three-hundred people lived here. The Utes call them Mukutu.” His eyes livened beneath the brim of his CU Buffs ball cap, his lips spreading generously around the word.  “In Mesa Verde, all you see is in glass cages. You don’t know you have the power, to find.” 

We carefully set down our jagged pieces of gray, corrugated cooking pots, red-painted trade pottery from northern Arizona, and the black on white pottery characteristic of the Mesa Verde area. The treasures would stay here, but we would keep the thrill of finding them.

It was the first stop of the day on our tour of the Ute Mountain Tribal Park in Mancos Canyon near Towaoc, 20 miles south of Cortez. The park shelters myriad Anasazi ruins and petroglyphs that can be seen only by tour with a Ute guide. 

As we ambled back to the van after a freewheeling lecture from David that had ranged in subject from potsherds and trade routes to salt plant and greasewood bush to wild horses and “reservation boys,” a travel writer in our group asked David to teach us some more Ute words. “Kava-kwuchup, kava-kwuchup,” he intoned. “Means, ‘Horse manure!’” I laughed, scribbled the word in my notebook, and wondered why, in a lifetime of living within this area, I had never before come here. 

The Four Corners area is rich in Ancestral Puebloan relics and ruins, from the rugged, far-flung grandeur of Chaco Canyon to the easily accessed, hugely popular Mesa Verde National Park. A visit to Ute Mountain Tribal Park is unique because it is as much a lesson in Ute culture as in Ancestral Puebloan heritage. Interwoven with David Wells’ thoughtful and well-informed lectures on petroglyphs and cliff dwellings were generous helpings of stories from his childhood, Ute uses for the native plants, a beautiful explanation of the Utes’ sacred Bear Dance, difficult tales of alcohol abuse among the modern Utes, bittersweet tongue in cheek remarks about modern Ute culture  (“We used to memorize songs. Now we go to Wal-Mart and get a recorder.”)

We were reminded throughout of the sacredness and power of the place.  40 miles back into the Tribal Park, before descending into Lions Canyon to visit four sets of cliff dwellings spread out along a one and a half-mile trail, David blessed each of us with water, and passed around a small bag of red “paint” (actually a fine powder made of ground hematite) to mark our faces and bodies as we saw fit. “I will pray for you,” he promised. 

David grew up in McElmo Canyon going barefoot or in moccasins. He loved trick-riding. At boarding school, his braids were cut off and he was forced to wear black BIA shoes. Now wearing Wrangler jeans, hiking boots and a khaki ranger shirt, with a thin straggle of ponytail, he told us to “…listen to the birds, watch the clouds, call the wind. Always call the wind.” 

“How should we do that?” somebody asked. 

“Got your own way,” he answered. And it seems that David Wells, too, has “got his own way” of creating a bridge between the Utes, the Anasazi, and the rest of us. 

Photos

1. Nicholas Santistevan, a nine-year-old fifth grader from Ignacio, dresses in traditional costume for the Southern Ute Pow Wow over Memorial Day weekend. He is the son of Lorraine and Robin Santistevan. Samanatha Tisdel.

2. Potsherds found along the trail. Samanatha Tisdel.

3. Chimney Rock near the park. Courtesy Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Park (appears in their brochure).

4. David Wells explains park history to visitors. Samantha Tisdel.
 
 

Full and half-day tours are scheduled daily, leaving the Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Park 22 miles south of Cortez, Colo. on Us Hwy 491. Visitors should bring lunch and drinking water and their own vehicle for transportation. (800) 847-5485.