A History of Utah's American Indians 2000

The White Mesa Utes Robert S. McPherson and Mary Jane Yazzie Billy Mike, the oldest living resident of the White Mesa Ute community, sat comfortably and slowly ran his fingers through his silver hair.

The thick glasses perched upon his nose served more as a token of past vision than as an aid to see today's world. Blind in one eye, and with failing sight in the other, he moved about slowly with the assistance of a cane. His life of ninety-some-odd years had spanned a period of transition for the Ute people. At times, his mind wandered clearly over events from the past, while at other times his memory became clouded. But there was no doubt as he remembered his people's association with the land before it had been divided and controlled by the white man. He recalled, "No one really owned the land. It was like it owned us—the Ute (Nuche) people."1 This relationship of which he spoke—of land and people—went back, according to tribal accounts, to the beginning of time, when the gods played a part in establishing the Ute's domain.

Following the creation of the world, the gods contained the people of the earth in a large sack. The Shin-au-av brothers, Pavits and Skaits, received the bag with the instructions to carry it unopened to the center of the world. However, curiosity overwhelmed Shin-au-av Skaits, who opened the bag and then watched many humans flee from its confines.

Tav-woats, another god, saw what was happening, angrily resealed the bag, and took the remaining people to the only place left: the desert and mountains of the Four Corners region.2 There he released them to settle in the area to become the Paiutes and Southern Utes—known as Nuche, Nutc, or Nunts, and translated as "The People." Various versions of this story exist; each band of Utes and Paiutes tells of how the sack was opened in their particular territory, thus creating the "homeland" of all the groups.3 Historic and anthropological sources paint a different picture. Based upon their studies, the Numic-speaking peoples entered the Four Cor—225—