“You think you own whatever land you land onThe land is just a dead thing you can claimBut I know that every rock, tree and creature Has a life, has a spirit, has a name."~Disney's PocohontasAnd the same is true of the Ute Indians, a people whose great respect and admiration for the land and its inhabitants weaves in and out of their rich cultural heritage like the threads of a tapestry. Not unlike the other Native American tribes, the Ute feel a deep connection to the land that is their home. Everything they believe and everything they do is a direct result of this Ute history that has lasted more than a thousand years. It is a mystery, an action adventure, a love story, a drama and a tragedy rolled into one. Theirs is the story of a people who believe that a great spirit created the world for them, which they love the land and works in collaboration with nature rather than against it, and who has learned to adapt to meet the challenges he has encountered. When first the Spanish and then the Europeans set foot in Ute territory; however, everything changed for the Ute, making the story of the modern Ute a story of tragedy, injustice, and the strength of a people determined to persevere.1. Origin: The Great Mystery No one can really say when the Utes first arrived in the Colorado Plateau area of ​​the Great Basin or exactly where they came from. Their nomadic nature has left little anthropological evidence to support an exact time of arrival and there have been many theories as to their origin. He seems to agree; however, that the Utes most likely entered the Colorado Plateau area around 1200 AD and migrated here from the south based on linguistics. Before Ute occupation or... middle of paper... America: Colorado Plateau. Network. http://cpluhna.nau.edu/People/fremont.htmMisc:Lewis, David Rich. Neither wolf nor dog: American Indians, the environment, and agrarian change. 1994. Google Books. Network. http://books.google.com/books?id=P7UakZd-7boC&pg=PA31&lpg=PA31&dq=ute+cosmology&source=bl&ots=5_0s_TT4y8&sig=BSdu9GekkFh5u_et9c0yzbOgzT U&hl=it&ei=DkXNTrfHIo--tgevkolj&sa=X&oi =book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved= 0CCMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=ute%20cosmology&f=falseCosmology:Utah American Indian Digital Archives. "First Peoples: White Mesa Utes." 2008. Network. http://www.utahindians.org/archives/whiteMesa/earlyPeoples.htmlSocial and Political: Burns, Sam. “Ute Relationships with the Lands of West Central Colorado: An Ethnographic Overview Prepared for the U.S. Forest Service.” Rev. 2004. Web. 2 November 2011.