Ute Mountain Utes hosted their 133rd Bear Dance Friday as tribal and community members gathered to celebrate. After two years of COVID-19 limitations, the theme for this year’s celebration was “awakening.”
In 2021, the Bear Dance was limited to tribal members only because of COVID restrictions, and in 2020 the celebration was conducted entirely on social media.
The Bear Dance is one of the oldest known dances in North American history. It is traces to the 15th century and represents a blessing.
“How it originated was when a bear came to a Ute village and there were two brothers, one brother went with the bear and the bear taught the young man the songs and how to dance,” said Mountain Ute Tribal Chairman Manuel Heart. The bear told the young man to go back to his tribe and teach them. This will heal them.”
Historically, the dance was done by the Utes in the spring after the first sound of thunder. This resembled the end of winter and hibernation for the bears.
“Traditionally, this bear dance comes out in the spring time when everyone has had a hard time through winter wherever they may have been or other challenges they may face. They would come in and receive a blessing from this ceremony,” Heart said.
Gender does play a role in preparing for the celebration. Men will construct the bear dance corral made out of cedar, and women will prepare the clothing for the event.
Women sit on the north side, and men sit on the south side of the corral. Singers are on the west side of the corral. The opening of the corral always faces east because of the sunrise.
The music during the celebration often does not use drums but rather an instrument called a morache.
“A morache is kind of like a stick with notches on it has a bone that you make that growling noise with,” Heart said.
According to Heart, it is always women’s choice when it comes to choosing their dance partners. Women must wear traditional dresses, and men must await the women to choose them.
“The women go out there to pick which partner they want. Two women can dance with one man. There’s a person called a cat man. If a woman picks a man and the man hesitates or doesn’t want to dance. The cat man can go over there and push them out to dance with the woman that picked them,” Heart said.
The event starts on Friday with a beginning song and has an ending song on Monday. Throughout the weekend games such as softball and a traditional hand game are played.
“The traditional hand game is a game played by many tribes up north, all the way up into Canada. You hide two bones, one has a piece of tape on it, and you try to guess pick which side it's on. There’s two players on each side and they have 12 sticks. Whoever comes up with the most sticks is the winner,” Heart said.
In the traditional hand game the sticks are awarded to the team who guesses correctly as a way of scoring. With each wrong guess, the guessing team has to turn over a stick to the opposing team.
Other Bear Dance week events include a parade, the Bear Dance memorial walk and an all day feast on the final day of the event June 6.
tbrown@durangoherald.com
