Terrorist foiled on Southern Ute Reservation

In light of the somewhat recent threads on being pulled over by the cops and the demand for "your papers, please" I thought I'd relate a bizarre incident in which I played a starring role a couple of days ago.

I was on one of my trips over to western Colorado and had dropped down to Farmington, NM to see a Pow Wow celebration put on by the Navajo Indians. It was a pretty cool scene with lots of great dancing and drumming, yummy Navajo fry bread, and very nice, friendly people. By time I left to go back up to Colorado it was beginning to get dark and as I crossed the Colorado line, it started to rain. The slick, wet road caused a big accident which closed off the main road and traffic was routed over a side road into the Southern Ute reservation headquartered in Ignacio, Colorado.

I really didn't want to go to Ignacio, it was the opposite direction from where I needed to go and it also has a bad rep for being the epi-center of lots of drunk driving accidents on weekends and holidays. I decided to check my maps and make myself a sandwich and figure out which road I needed to take. I didn't want to just pull my car off on the narrow shoulder of a winding mountain road in the dark and the rain, so I found a gravel side road and pulled off on it. There were no "No tresspassing" signs, nothing that said it was a private road or anything like that.

I turned off my headlights and was looking at my map under the dome light of my car when suddenly two thugs disguised as Colorado State Patrol officers drove up and blinded me with their lights. They had me get out of my car and while they didn't search the car, they looked in at the contents with their flash lights through the windows. Then they began to interrogate me. Where was I from? Where was I going? Why was I there? What were all those plants inside my car? (I'd gathered some sage as a favor for a Native American friend of mine who wanted to make sage bundles and likes the kind of sage that grows only on the Western Slope). Was I the owner of the car? What was my complete name and address and where was my ID?

I explained that I had just stopped to make a sandwich and look at my maps. I couldn't find my day timer which had my driver's license in it because it had slid under the pile of sage and camping gear I had in the back of my car. They told me I was near a gas pumping field and they had been alerted that there was a possibility of sabotauge to the gas wells in the area. I told them about being routed off the main road due to the accident (which they must have heard about on their car radio), and showed them my half eaten sandwich and my map. They had to have recognized the sage for what it was. It grows everywhere down there and bears no resemblance to any illegal plant. As a middle aged white woman, I find it hard to believe I match any terrorist profile. Never-the-less, I could see them getting ready to haul me in when I couldn't find my ID. I was saved by a message that suddenly came over the radio about a domestic violence call from a trailer park in Ignacio. The thugs were diverted by this, and departed, first ordering me to go to Ignacio to finish my sandwich. Probably, they wanted to know where I'd be so they could collar me after they got through with the domestic violence call.

I watched them go and then high tailed it back over the state line to New Mexico (only 10 miles away), and escaped their clutches.

The moral of the story: When on the Ute reservation, never eat a sandwich; or if you do, at least make sure your papers are in order. Isn't it nice to know that homeland security is working so well?

[Troubleshooter]

Isn't a reservation off the beaten path for State Troopers?

[garnet]

Cops in small towns are a special breed of cop. A lot of them have some serious time to kill, and will pick on obviously innocent people just to give them something to do. Yeah, always have your ID handy, no matter where you're going. They can mess with you really easily if you can't supply it ASAP. The one time I didn't have my ID I got pulled over, and the cop read me the riot act. He asked about a zillion questions (they want to see if you hesitate in answering anything), and did a check on me that took about a half hour. I'm a white chick in my heavily insured, legally registered vehicle in whitebread suburbia--I can only imagine what would happen in a backward-ass little town in the middle of nowhere. Mari--for what it's worth, I don't think you look like a terrorist!

[garnet]

Originally Posted by Troubleshooter

Isn't a reservation off the beaten path for State Troopers?

Yeah, isn't that a bit odd? I've spent a little time in AZ, and I know the reservations there have their own police depts. Maybe it depends on what reservation and in what state you're in.

[Troubleshooter]

Originally Posted by garnet

Cops in small towns are a special breed of cop.

I know. I live in a small town, population 15k. The thing is, is that state troopers have an extra layer of protection.

Originally Posted by garnet

Mari--for what it's worth, I don't think you look like a terrorist!

You sure about that? Anybody who lists politics as an interest has to be an urban ne'er do well.

TS, I don't know why the state troopers were messing around on the Ute res. I know for a fact that if you drive onto the Navajo reservation, the authorities you will encounter (if you HAVE an encounter) will be members of the Navajo tribal police who in my experience are very reasonable individuals. For example, the Navajo tribal police once stopped me on the Navajo res outside of Chinle, Arizona. I started to scramble around for my "papers" when the officer stopped me. "Lady," he said, "you're on the NAVAJO nation now and we don't worry about that kind of stuff. I just stopped you to tell you that one of your tail lights is out. They carry replacement bulbs at the trading store in Kayenta, just down the road. You have a nice evening and drive safely now." Nicest encounter with a cop I ever had.

[Troubleshooter]

Originally Posted by marichiko

TS, I don't know why the state troopers were messing around on the Ute res.

If that is the case then you may want to contact the res officials and tell them that the rednecks are causing problems with the pow wow tourists.

Originally Posted by Troubleshooter

If that is the case then you may want to contact the res officials and tell them that the rednecks are causing problems with the pow wow tourists.

Well, the thing is that it was a NAVAJO pow-wow, not a Ute one. A few members of the Ute tribe may have gone down to NM to participate, but it was not something that would draw tourists to the Ute reservation. I was on the Ute reservation quite unwillingly, along with all the other drivers who had been routed off the main road by the accident.

Just as an aside, I find it curious how the Navajo people versus the Utes have adjusted themselves to life with their lands over run by the white people. The Utes seem to have great difficulty retaining both their cultural idenity and their hope for a better tomorrow. The towns on the Ute reservation are run down and one is hit by the sense of despair and futility which seem to have taken permanent root there. Alcohol has hit the Utes very hard.

By contrast, the Navajo have retained their own language and spiritual traditions. In the 4 corners area there are at least two radio stations which broadcast in Navajo. One of them begins each broadcast day with a series of Navajo ceremonial songs. The Navajo are a very musical people and there are any number of Navajo groups who make recordings and sell CD's. I have never heard anyone speak in the Ute tongue and I know of no Ute musical groups, although I would think surely some must exist.

The Navajo have managed to make a pretty good business out of selling their traditional jewelry and rugs, especially, to the tourists. Navajo weaving is greatly prized. There was a rug auction at the pow wow and one of the rugs began with a bidding price of $3,000.00. It was absolutely beautiful and I wish I'd had the money to buy it. In 5 to 10 years its value will have easily doubled. The Navajo have several community colleges on their reservation. The Ute have none. While alcohol has impacted the Navajo people, it has taken nowhere near the toll it has on the Utes, and Navajo tribal authorities have instituted a major campaign to steer their young people away from alcohol use.

I used to teach at Fort Lewis College in Durango. Fort Lewis gives free tuition to any member of a Native American tribe. I can remember the lost look in the eyes of both the Navajo and Ute kids who came in each September as freshmen. But the Navajo kids were the ones who most often made it through the entire 4 years and got their diplomas. Many of the Ute teenagers I had in my classes dropped out after the first semester and I never saw them again. Maybe all this is why you will encounter a state trooper on the Ute res, but never on the Navajo one.

[xoxoxoBruce]

The Utes are a perfect example of what happens to people who've fallen prey to the cult of victimhood.