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Show Southern Utes Turn To Farming, New Living Ways As long ago as the late 1890s the Ute Indian was told his way of living must yield to that of the white man and because they heeded that advice, most members of the Southern Ute tribe are farmers. Chief Buckskin Charley, who assumed leadership of the Mouache and Capote tribes when they combined, saw almost as soon as the reservtation was established in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico that the old Indian way of life was doomed. lie tried to have his people moved to another reservation more suitable to stockraising and without the handicaps posed by their reservation's odd. rectangular shape. When the attempt to move failed. Buckskin Charley urged his people to learn to farm as the white man did, and to send their children to school. They heeded his advice, and today most of the Southern Utes are farmers. The Southern Utes are not "Tourist Indians." They live in houses, not in teepees. They do not make blankets or rugs, as do the Nava-os, or make Jewelry or beadwork for sale, as do some other tribes.. They dress much as their white neighbors do. The auto and tractor have replaced the horse to a great extent on the reservation, as elsewhere. Most members of the tribe speak English. Nevertheless the Southern Utes have been a people apart. They have become farmers, but because of tribal land problems and other factors few have been able to make a living by farming alone. Other lob opportunities have been few in the Ignacto community. And years of wardship Inevitably fostered a habit of dependency upon the Indian Service. Many of "the Indians were poverty-stricken until income from oil and gas leases started filling the tribal coffers about four years ago they had received no gratuities In cash or provisions for about 20 years. Tribal leaders were aware that their people, through years of poverty and dependency, had lost much of the self-reliance and dignity of their ancestors. They knew also that many Indians had fallen Into the habit of idleness. The tribal leaders set out to overcome these conditions at a most difficult time when their people suddenly had become wealthy, with no experience la handling wealth. The leaders determined that the land claims money the Southern Ute share amounted to about S5,-500,000, after fees were paid must be used to fit their people for full citizenship.. The Southern Utes, they said, must be trained in management of both their personal and tribal affairs, so that their resources would be Increased rather than depleted and as that ftc time th lupervUlon of the Indian Ser rice eoold b ended. And, toe, the self-rejpeet and self-reliance el the Indian must b restored. Two attempts at drafting a M-habihtaUoa protfraca for s W the land claims money which would meet th approval ttf both Mm people and the Bureau of Indian Affairs failed. But these first plans reflected the Ideas of non-Indians rather than the thinking of the Southern Utes themselves. So the Indians set to work to write their own plan. A young member of the tribe John K. Baker, a veteran of World War II. was called back from engineering school to head the task. Baker termed the resulting report a "blueprint for action." The plan called for building a better family life, for better education of younger Indians, for remedying defects in the tribal land code, for improving the status of Indian farmers. It called for eventually transferring all the functions of the Indian Service to the same agencies which serve the neighboring white community. It called for extensive participation of the In-ians themselves in all phases of the program, |