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Ute Texts
Compiler and editor
This second volume of our Ute trilogy contains a collection of Ute oral texts. Ute oral literature reflects the life experience of a small-scale hunting-and-gathering Society of Intimates and its tight connection to the local terrain, flora and fauna that supported the hunter-gatherer life. Ute story-telling tradition is the people's literary heritage, with the narrative style allowing considerable artistic freedom and diversity in contents and style. Stories were not memorized verbatim, and story-tellers took creative liberty in elaborating and re-inventing the 'same' tale. The core cultural contents of each story are nevertheless preserved across tellers. Ute stories were most likely told at night around the fire, in front of or inside the lodge, to a mixed audience of children and adults who had heard the tale many time before. The stories aimed to both instruct and entertain. Their underlying themes are stoic and oft-cynical reflections on the vagaries of human behavior and harsh existence. They are the foundational literary tradition of The People--Núuchi-u.
[Culture and Language Use, 7] 2013. xvi, 333 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Published online on 15 July 2013
Published online on 15 July 2013
© Southern Ute Tribe, Ignacio, Colorado
Table of Contents
- Text 1. He who created the people
- Text 2. He who created the people
- Text 3. The origin of the people
- Text 4. The stealing of the fire
- Text 5. Sinawav and the seven sisters
- Text 6. How Sinawav named the trees and bushes
- Text 7. Sinawav the copycat
- Text 8. Sinawav the copycat
- Text 9. How Sinawav got his yellow eyes
- Text 10. Coyote deprives himself of his eyes
- Text 11. Porcupine, buffalo-cow and Sinawav
- Text 12. Porcupine tricks Coyote
- Text 13. Sinawav racing the birds and betting
- Text 14. Sinawav burning his own house
- Text 15. Hungry Coyote races Skunk for prairie-dogs
- Text 16. Hungry Coyote races Skunk for the prairie-dogs
- Text 17. Hungry Coyote, Rabbit, and the white-man’s chicken
- Text 18. Coyote and the rock children
- Text 19. Coyote cooks She-Bear’s children
- Text 20. Coyote, Wolf and Horned-Toad
- Text 21. How Coyote and Bobcat got their shapes
- Text 22. Rabbit getting mad
- Text 23. How angry Rabbit got his brown spots
- Text 24. How the Pinyon Jays got their curse-name
- Text 25. Bear runs away with Mountain-Lion’s wife
- Text 26. The origin of the Beardance
- Text 27. How the Beardance used to be
- Text 28. The origin of the Sundance
- Text 29. The last war party
- Text 30. News broadcast (KIUP-FM)
- Text 31. Speech at the Ute language committee
- Text 32. Cloud family lore
- Text 33. Speech at the Tri-Ute language meeting
- Bibliography
Cited by (12)
Cited by 12 other publications
Olthof, Marieke
Givón, T.
Givón, T.
2016. The usual suspects. In Language Contact and Change in the Americas [Studies in Language Companion Series, 173], ► pp. 219 ff.
Givón, T.
2016. Nominalization and re-finitization. In Finiteness and Nominalization [Typological Studies in Language, 113], ► pp. 271 ff.
Givón, T.
Givón, T.
Givón, T.
Selinker, Larry
2014. Chapter 10. Interlanguage 40 years on: Three themes from here. In Interlanguage [Language Learning & Language Teaching, 39], ► pp. 221 ff.
Selinker, Larry
2014. Chapter 10. Interlanguage 40 years on. In Interlanguage [Language Learning & Language Teaching, 39], ► pp. 221 ff.
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