Ute Land Religion in the American West, 1879–2009 is a narrative of American religion and how it intersected with land in the American West. Prior to 1881, Utes lived on the largest reservation in North America—twelve million acres of western Colorado. Brandi Denisontakes a broad look at the Ute land dispossession and resistance to disenfranchisementbytracing the shifting cultural meaning of dirt, a physical thing, into land, an abstract idea. This shift was made possible through the development and deployment of an idealized American religion based on Enlightenment ideals of individualism, Victorian sensibilities about the female body, and an emerging respect for diversity and commitment to religious pluralism that was wholly dependent on a separation of economics from religion.
As the narrative unfolds, Denison shows how Utes and their Anglo-American allies worked together to systematize a religion out of existing ceremonial practi
Trade Review
"A welcome edition to the library of anyone interested in the history of the Ute."—Curtis Martin, Southwestern Lore
“Beautifully written, clear, and compelling. [This book] is grounded on a solid understanding of history, while also providing insightful interpretation and theoretical nuance.”—Suzanne Crawford O’Brien, professor of religion and culture at Pacific Lutheran University and author of Coming Full Circle: Spirituality and Wellness among Native Communities in the Pacific Northwest
“This terrific book shows how white settlers in Colorado used the construct of ‘Ute Land Religion’ to justify their appropriation of Native land, how Ute people both resisted and participated in that invention, and how the category of religion has functioned in the making and remaking of the American West.”—Tisa Wenger, author of We Have a Religion: The 1920s Pueblo Indian Dance Controversy and American Religious Freedom
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Maps
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Religion, Memory, and the American West
1. Plowing for Providence: Nathan Meeker’s Folly
2. Of Outrageous Treatment: Sexual Purity, Empire, and Land
3. She-towitch and Chipeta: Remembering the “Good” Indian
4. Abstracting Ute Land Religion: Fiction and Anthropology on the Reservation
5. Remembering Removal: Enacting Religion and Memorializing the Land
6. The Limits of Reconciliation: Ute Land Religion, Hunting Rights, and the Smoking River Powwow
Conclusion: The Burden of Dirt and the Politics of Memory
Notes
Bibliography
Index
