MY NATIVE AMERICAN LIFE

The Ute Tribe

BY: MASON W. ERNST

My name is Mahkah, which means Earth.

I am part of the Ute tribe.My family and I live in the southern mountain region of

North America.It is the year 1423.This is my story…

Where I live.This is my house. It is made mostly of birch wood and spare twigs. It is made round so that the wind will blow around it and it is easily portable. It can be moved easily and quickly and placed about anywhere. I helped build it with my cousins and other young people in my tribe because the adults in my tribe make us do it as a sign of respect. This is our home in the southern mountain region of North America.

My house

What we wearUte women and girls usually wear long dresses made of deer skin. Men and boys usually wear leather leggings and buckskin shirts.We also wear necklaces with beads. The beads are made of animal teeth. The more beads you have the more you are respected and thought of highly. You can get more beads by hunting , aging, or helping other tribe members. Only the adults in the tribe can give them to you.

My mom’s necklace My necklace has eight teeth: two bear teeth two fox teeth two elk teeth two deer teeth. I got four from my mom for helping her make a new fishing net.I got three from my dad for helping him kill a elk. My last tooth came from Chief Ouray. we call him the peacemaker because he is friends with everybody. I got my tooth because I gave him a fish I caught in the river and it was my first fish.

My family grocery store.We eat the food we hunt. Most men use large bows to hunt. I have a small but deadly dagger. My mom has a net that she uses to get fish from the lake. My dad is in charge of hunting for the elk or deer meat. I am sometimes with my dad hunting or out getting wood for the fire. My friend Waini has a birch wood bow and flint head arrows which are very deadly. Sometimes my dad would use a spear instead of a bow. That’s only when he is hunting for Elk that are RATHER LARGE DEER!!! this is my friends bow-------------------------------------------

Tribe Characteristics

Now it time for me to tell you some tribe characteristics. We are a very spiritual tribe and we have a famous dance called the Bear Dance every year that happens when the bear comes out of hibernation. We also are good hunters. A ceremony that we have yearly is named Hunting the Great. It is a competition where you are trying to kill the biggest prey. once my dad set a record for catching a bear. I entered the contest last year with my uncle. We caught a prize winner. It was a large deer. Second place went to another person who caught a smaller male deer.

This is a picture of my uncle catching the largest deer I am up hill with my bow in case it sprints--

Terrain I live on

In the summer and spring I live in the mountains with my entire tribe. When it starts to get cold we follow the elk and the deer more south parts of the mountains and towards more shelter. I like the summer time better because there is more things to hunt.

Ecosystem of my region

Another part of our beliefs is caring for nature at least that what my mother says every day we chop a tree or pick some berries. we always make sure the seed gets put back in the ground even when we kill a animal we make sure it has a baby and that the baby is old enough to fend for itself so that it won’t die and that family of animals does not cease to exist.

Here is a herd of elk

Common plants & animalsThis time I am going to tell you about some plants and animals that live near me let start with the animals1. Elk2. Bear 3. Blue jay/Robins/Humming bird4. Rabbits 5. Large mouth bass/Lake trout 6. DeerNow plants some plants7. Birch trees8. Poison ivy9. Wild berries 10. Grain11. Wild flower12. Poison berries – watch out!We use plants for their oils and healing properties, and sometimes to flavor our food. BUT I do not want to eat a poison ivy salad!

Weather description

Burr it is REALLY COLD. It can get below 22 degrees in the winter but over 98 degrees in the summer. It is really cold I can’t even walk even though I have cozy warm clothing. It still can get cold enough to make you not want to play. Here is a image of what it looks like from my house.------------------------------

Weather Impact & Survival StrategiesIt is so cold I don’t think I can feel my feet even the animals and fish agree every winter it is so hard to find food even the plants die so what we do every fall before the animals and plants die is we collect as much as we can and then we store it in the house and don’t touch it till winter. it does not go bad because of the plants and spice we put on them to preserve them. It also is very hard to get around because every thing is white and looks the same. One survival tactic my tribe has is that we break apart into family units for the winter away from other families because then we only look for food in our area and there are less people to feed. My family unit has my mother, my father, my Uncle and my cousin and my grandmother. We go to the same spot on the mountain every winter and I look for berries.

Reflection #1– My future plans

So these are some of my final thoughts and I want to tell as much as possible about my future plans. My future plans are to invent easier ways to live for my family. Like making hunting easier for my dad. And find ways to survive winter with more food. I would like to invent new games and maybe even find new resources to keep us warm in the winter because I really don’t like to be cold! I hope I can do that before the next winter because I don’t want to be in a cold house again. I also need a easier way to fish in the winter because when we do in the winter the water is way too cold!!!

Reflection #1.5 -Outlook for tribe

I think my tribe is going to keep surviving because we are strong. My friends and I have in the last month created a new game called catcher the flag. We also have a new way to store food instead of putting it in a corner on the floor we now put it in a cabinet made of bark and twigs. My tribe continues to survive long after I am gone into the 21st century. Later after I am dead the area that we live in becomes known as Utah named after the Ute tribe I am in.

Reflection #2

This project went pretty well because I kind of had fun doing it. I enjoyed making the presentation in Power point and the slides with the pictures. I did not enjoy trying to find the information for each topic because it was a lot of work and there were so many resources. There is a lot of information on the Ute tribe and too many websites!! I think I did pretty well on this assignment and I would give myself an B+ because I could have used better vocabulary and been more creative.

Bibliography

"Southern UTE Cultural Center & Museum, Ignacio, Colorado." <i>Southern Ute Cultural Center and Museum</i>. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2013. <http://www.succm.org/>.

"Vocabulary Words in Native American Languages: Ute (Southern Paiute)." <i>Southern Ute Words</i>. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2013. <http://www.native-languages.org/ute_words.htm>;.

"The Official Web Site of the Ute Indian Tribe." <i>The Official Web Site of the Ute Indian Tribe</i>. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2013. <http://www.utetribe.com/>.

"Ute Indian Fact Sheet." <i>Facts for Kids: Ute Indians (Utes)</i>. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2013. <http://www.bigorrin.org/ute_kids.htm>.

"Countries and Their Cultures." <i>Religion and expressive culture</i>. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2013. <http://www.everyculture.com/North-America/Ute-Religion-and-Expressive-Culture.htm.>;.

Thanks for watching!!!!