The Ute were among the first Indians to get horses from the Spanish.
Subsequently they moved about rather freely and were rather quick to
adopt the white man’s culture whenever this was present in their area.
There are almost no early accounts of the Ute. They had neither the
spectacular aspects of the true Plains Indians, nor lands close to
the trails frequented by pioneers and early explorers. On the other
hand, they did not enjoy the isolation of many of the Great Basin
tribes which preserved their ways of life into comparatively recent
times. Thus ethnography of the Ute is relatively scant except for a
few accounts and short articles. There are three principal works. The
first is Robert Lowie’s _Notes on Shoshonean Ethnography_ (1924), based
primarily on observations at Ignacio, Navajo Springs and White Rock.
The second is Omer Stewart’s “_Culture Element Distribution: XVIII,
Ute, Southern Paiute_”, (1942), while the third is Edward Gifford’s
_Culture Element Distribution XII: Apache-Pueblo_ (1940). Another
short paper by Ralph Beals (1935) on the ethnology of Rocky Mountain
National Park adds to the picture, though he draws heavily on Lowie’s
work. Finally there is a collection of articles gathered by the Durango
Public Library and edited by H. S. Daniels (1941). This is composed of
a series of interesting papers by people intimately connected with the
area surrounding the present Ute reservation. J. Alden Mason’s article
“Myths of the Uintah Utes” (1940) contains numerous myths which may
yield scraps of ethnographic material if care is used in selection.
Other short works can be found in the bibliography and will be referred
to in the text.