“You think you own the land you land on. Land is just a dead thing that you can claim as your own. But I know that every rock, tree and creature has life, has a spirit, has a name. » ~ Disney's Pocohontas And so it is with the Ute Indians, a people whose great respect and admiration for the land and its people are woven in and out of their rich cultural heritage like the threads of a tapestry. Much like other Native American tribes, the Utes feel a deep connection to the land that is their home. Everything they believe and everything they do is a direct result of this connection. The history of the Utes spans more than a thousand years. It is part mystery, part action adventure, part love story, part drama and part tragedy. It is the story of a people who believe that a great spirit created the world for them, who love the land and work in cooperation with nature rather than against it, and who have learned to adapt to meet the challenges he encountered. When first the Spanish and then the Europeans set foot on Ute territory; However, everything changed for the Utes, making the history of the Utes today a story of tragedy, injustice, and the strength of a people determined to persevere.1. Origin – The Great MysteryNo one can really say when the Utes first arrived in the Colorado Plateau region of the Great Basin, or where exactly they came from. Their nomadic nature left little anthropological evidence to support an exact time of arrival and many theories surrounded their origin. This seems to be agreed; however, that the Utes most likely entered the Colorado Plateau region around 1200 AD and migrated here from the south based on linguistics. Before the Ute occupation o...... middle of paper ......America: Colorado Plateau. Internet. http://cpluhna.nau.edu/People/fremont.htmMisc:Lewis, David Rich. Neither Wolf Nor Dog: American Indians, Environment, and Agrarian Change. 1994. Google Books. Internet. http://books.google.com/books?id=P7UakZd-7boC&pg=PA31&lpg=PA31&dq=ute+cosmology&source=bl&ots=5_0s_TT4y8&sig=BSdu9GekkFh5u_et9c0yzbOgzTU&hl=en&ei=DkXNTrfHIo--tgevkolj&sa=X&oi=book _result &ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAQ# v=onepage&q=ute%20cosmology&f=falseCosmology: Digital Archives of the American Indians of Utah. "The First People: The White Utes of Mesa". 2008. Internet. http://www.utahindians.org/archives/whiteMesa/earlyPeoples.htmlSocial and Political: Burns, Sam. "The Ute Relations with the Lands of West-Central Colorado: An Ethnographic Overview Prepared for the U.S. Forest Service ". Rev. 2004. Web. November 2 2011.