American Indian Tribes in Utah

American Indian Communities in Utah

The pow wow is a traditional way for American Indians to gather together to share their heritage, art and culture. As a celebration featuring music, dance and exquisite regalia, it functions to help urban Indians maintain their traditional identity in a modern world. But all seriousness aside, pow wows are just plain fun and there is usually at least one pow wow a month in Salt Lake City. Friends and family flock to these social events and out-of-town relatives often travel hours to attend a pow wow.

The arts, crafts and music of Utah’s American Indians exhibit fantastic ranges of expression between traditional and modern, unchanged and cutting edge, sacred and secular. The dance regalia used in pow wows can be decorated with porcupine quills in styles dating back centuries, with glass beads that were first made available by mountain man traders of the eighteenth century, or by plastic and sequins that became fashionable only in the last decades. Indian culture adapts easily to modern Western technology but cultural values are still expressed in traditional art forms and handed down from generation to generation.

Bands of Utes, Goshutes, Northwestern Shoshones, Paiutes and Navajos all call Utah home, for each of these Indian nations has tribal land or historical presence within the state of Utah. But today, Salt Lake City is also an urban gathering place for Indians from all across the North American continent. They all bring their own traditions of language, beliefs and customs that are expressed in songs, rituals and crafts and each teaches their children, through the traditional arts, how to maintain Native identity in the modern world.

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1.	Navajo artists share this traditional art form with their children. Made from willow and sumac collected by the banks of rivers and streams, they learn the Navajo legends and understand the Navajo worldview by doing this art form. In a constant process of preserving balance, these young people will pass their creativity and their love of this art form to their children, thereby providing a simple but profound domestic activity that unites families and helps them to live in harmony with each other and their environment. In this way also, children are taught "to walk in beauty."
3.	This Utah tribe lives in a little known and sparsely populated portion of the state of Utah. There actually are two reservations of this tribe, the largest of which is the Deep Creek Reservation located on the Utah--Nevada border about sixty miles south of Wendover, with a portion of the reservation in each state. The second, and smaller, reservation is located in Skull Valley in Tooele County, about ninety miles west of Salt Lake City.
5.	So successful was this innovation by the Navajo, that military commanders credited it with saving the lives of countless American soldiers and with the successful engagements of the U.S. in the battles of Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.
6.	Skin shoe worn by indigenous people of North America, excepting the sandal wearers of the Southwest area. They were usually symbolically decorated with porcupine quills and, after the coming of the Europeans, with glass beads.
8.	The ritual seeking of personal communication with the spirit world through visions that are induced by fasting, prayer, and other measures during a time of isolation: typically undertaken by an adolescent male.
9.	A Navajo Indian dwelling constructed of earth and branches and covered with mud or sod.
11.	An object, usually an animal or plant (or all animals or plants of that species), that is revered by members of a particular social group because of a mystical or ritual relationship that exists with that group.
12.	Doing this process using a solution of deer brains and fat stretches it, so during the process it has to be tightened, just as you might tighten your shoe laces. The solution helped to remove the fur and keep the hide from becoming brittle when dry.
13.	The term _______ applies to cottonwood dolls made by the Hopi and Zuni that are exquisitely carved and dressed like the dancers. Originally intended to instruct the children about the hundreds of _______ spirits, the finer carvings have become collector's items.
14.	The chief deity in the religion of many North American Indian tribes.
16.	Navajo myths and legends help preserve hózhó and are depicted in this art form.
17.	Many designs for this art form were adapted from the ritual sandpaintings of the Navajo.
18.	A central ritual of the messianic religion instituted in the late 19th cent. by a Paiute named Wovoka. The religion prophesied the peaceful end of the westward expansion of whites and a return of the land to the Native Americans. The ritual lasted five successive days, being danced each night and on the last night continued until morning. Hypnotic trances and shaking accompanied this ceremony, which was supposed to be repeated every six weeks. The dance originated among the Paiute c.1870; later, other Native Americans sent delegates to Wovoka to learn his teachings and ritual. In a remarkably short time the religion spread to most of the Western Native Americans.
21.	The Shoshone tribe is known for this art form.
22.	A ceremony, especially one accompanied by magic, feasting, and dancing, performed for the cure of disease, success in a hunt, etc. A council or conference of or with Indians.
23.	This tribe was primarily responsible for bringing the Ghost Dance to many tribes in the American West.

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2.	A Navajo and Pueblo Indian ceremonial design made of various materials (as colored sands) on a flat surface of sand or buckskin
4.	This Utah tribe is especially known for their exquisite beadwork. Before their introduction to beads by traders and trappers in the west, members of this tribe would paint on porcupine quills and decorate their buckskin clothing and mocassins.
7.	Among Native Americans and other traditional peoples as far back as Paleolithic times, a person believed to possess supernatural healing powers. Like the shaman this person was a specialist in spiritual healing.
10.	One of their reservations lies in southwest Colorado, southeast Utah, and northern New Mexico. Also the name of the University of Utah mascot.
15.	A wooden frame worn on the back, used by North American Indian women for carrying an infant.
19.	A trickster figure; a transformer and his antics are the source of much that is rich and distinctive about North American Indian stories.
20.	They call themselves the Dine --they are the largest tribe of North American Indians, located mostly in the state of Arizona..

American Indian Tribes in Utah

American Indians in UtahCrossword Puzzle

American Indian Communities in Utah

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American Indians in Utah
Crossword Puzzle