At Pikes Peak Summit House dedication, Ute leader urges officials to 'ask, not take'

On a summit held sacred by his people, Southern Ute Indian Tribe Vice Chairman Bruce Valdez offered traditional blessings to Gov. Jared Polis and regional leaders — while calling on them to always “ask, not take.”

Delivered during a prayer at this month’s dedication of the reimagined Pikes Peak Summit House, his words were a reminder that Colorado and the Pikes Peak region were built on the displacement of Ute Indians and other Native people.

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The remark was also, in its way, one of praise.

Valdez, of Ignacio, later thanked officials for inviting the Southern Ute Indian Tribe to comment on plans for the region’s premier attraction and to play a role at its ribbon-cutting, which effectively kicked off Colorado Springs’ 150th anniversary celebrations, calling them positive steps.

“So now we’re involved in these things, whereas before it was just take, take, take. As I stated in the prayer, we never take — you ask. So, reaching out to the tribes and asking for that collaboration — that’s the asking. So things are getting better.”

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For hundreds of years before the arrival of European settlers, Pikes Peak played a key role for indigenous societies, including the Utes, whose territory encompassed Colorado, Wyoming, eastern Nevada, northern New Mexico and Arizona.

Prior to the introduction of horses by the Spanish, the Utes “would travel and camp in familiar sites and use well-established routes such as the Ute Trail that can still be seen in the forests of the Grand Mesa, and the forerunner of the scenic highway traversing through South Park and Cascade,” according to the tribe’s website.

Sites of cultural importance abound on Pikes Peak, generally aligning with the region’s most popular destinations.

Manitou Springs and the Garden of the Gods factored into Utes’ spiritual life, and Ute Pass was a critical corridor between the mountains and the plains. In their tradition, Pikes Peak is one of the summits on which their people were born.

Colorado Springs’ rise, beginning with its founding in 1871, coincides with the story of Native tribes’ weakening hold on the land, as their territory was reduced amid treaties and agreements that ultimately created three federally recognized reservations — one in Utah and two in Colorado. The Southern Ute Indian Tribe reservation is in southwestern Colorado, with its capital in Ignacio.

According to Valdez, a new sense of “collaboration” between Native groups and land managers across the Rocky Mountains has made headway in smoothing relations, not only with the Utes, but with Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes and many others with historic ties to Colorado.

In Colorado Springs, for example, city archaeologist Anna Cordova contacts the Ute tribes before dirt is disturbed in Garden of the Gods.

“For me, it’s just about respect,” Cordova said. “It’s about respecting that not only were they here, but they still are, and they will be in the future.”

City leaders weren’t always so sensitive to the tribes’ wishes, so the work is also about changing a longstanding dynamic.

She recently served as an on-ground monitor when new bathrooms were installed at Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs’ most heavily visited park. She declines to detail tribal concerns, partly to avoid publicizing places that have private significance to Native people.

"We’ve altered some trails in Garden of the Gods because of their input. We’ve changed some things because of their concerns," she said.

Cordova said she scouts ahead of planned trails there and in other locations to check for artifacts, reporting any that are found.

“We always want to consult with them, to ask how we should handle them, how we should store them, or even if they want them back,” Cordova said. “Just because I’m an archaeologist, and just because we own the property, doesn’t mean we own the history and the artifacts. So we do consult with the tribes on those issues.”

Before interpretive signs are put up at Native American cultural sites, she consults with tribes as to their location and content, she said.

“Especially in the U.S., (the tribes) have had their story told for them so frequently and so often, that I think it’s out of the respect that if anybody should be telling their story, it’s them.”

For the Forest Service, the job of keeping tribes informed and involved about changes on public lands falls partly to Susan Johnson, who manages tribal relations in five states in the southwestern U.S., including Colorado. During Valdez's visit to Pikes Peak, which she helped arrange, Johnson said the summit was made available to the Southern Ute tribe for a private ceremony prior to groundbreaking on the new Summit House, but she asked that no details be disclosed, citing cultural sensitivities.

Behind Johnson's work is the recognition that "all lands are indigenous lands," she said.

Valdez credited the players in the Summit House project for consulting with tribes in a way that “respects the tribal ancestry that came before.”

Before the prayer ceremony, the crowd on the summit was asked to turn off their phones and make no recordings.

For several minutes, they stood in silence as Valdez performed a traditional Ute prayer ceremony, sprinkling tobacco and waiving an Eagle feather in wide, deliberate gestures, while calling for blessings from his ancestors and his “ancestors’ ancestors."

What followed, he said, was a "beautiful" morning celebrating a shared community asset.

“I thought it was great — just the feeling up here is great," Valdez said. "Everything was done in a good way. Everything was positive. Those are the things that you get when you’re on top of a mountain.”