Ute "Prayer Trees", the Cultural Resource that Never Existed

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Braiding Knowledge: Opportunities and Challenges for Collaborative Approaches to Archaeological Heritage and Conservation" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Tribes regularly fight the destruction of their cultural resources and the appropriation of their culture. But what happens when someone appropriates a cultural resource that never existed in the first place? The three Ute tribes have been regularly engaged over the past few years in dispelling the concept of a Ute "prayer tree". Despite repeated appeals from the tribes, individuals continue to advertise and make money on Ute "prayer tree" workshops, events, and consultations. Some have even gone so far as to claim they understand Ute cultural resources better than the tribes themselves. In this talk, Southern Ute tribal representatives seek to set the record straight on the concept of prayer trees from a Ute perspective as well as provide guidance to other tribes and archaeologists battling the misappropriation of culture.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Braiding Knowledge: Opportunities and Challenges for Collaborative Approaches to Archaeological Heritage and Conservation

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 26236