For all hunting and fishing, ritual observances and purification were important. Gifford mentions ceremonial sweat houses in this connection, while Stewart lists a number of important taboos.
Food Preparation
Hand stones and grinding slabs were employed for preparing seeds and berries. Some pounding was done. Seeds could be roasted underground or could be made into a kind of gruel. Meat, according to McCall (Daniels, ed., 1941), was roasted over the fire or jerked. In this connection some statements of E. G. Palmer concerning the Paiute are of interest. The Paiute were very similar in culture to the Ute and before 1700 were probably indistinguishable from them (Schroeder, 1953). In particular Palmer mentions cooking by heating rocks, covering the desired edibles with wet grass and sprinkling them with water to create a kind of steam bake. About their food in general Palmer says, “As to food the Pah Utes will eat anything that will not prove absolutely poisonous soon after being swallowed.”
Gifford notes roasting and eating of both yucca and cacti. He also lists the use of surface salt and clay for flavoring. Small animals were pounded up whole and cooked. Bone was cracked for marrow or ground up and eaten if possible.
Shelter
Prior to the use of small skin tepees, the Eastern Ute used a conical or domed-shaped shelter of brush. These were used even after white contact, but usually only for summer habitation. The door faced east. Gifford and Stewart both note that the Ute used available rockshelters and lean-tos on hunting trips. C. T. Hurst in 1943 excavated an overhang containing evidence of Ute habitation. According to several sources, sweat houses were built.
Fire Making and Other Technologies
Lowie reports that the Ute used fire drills only rarely though an informant told Mason that they did not use such devices. Obviously every effort was made to keep the fire going but apparently if one’s fire went out, one borrowed a light from a neighbor. Perhaps in an emergency fire tools could have been made.
Concerning the stone technology of the Ute we will quote a section from Powell (1875; noted in Lowie, 1924). “Obsidian or other stone of which the implement is to be made is first selected by breaking up larger masses of the rock and choosing those which exhibited the fracture desired; then the pieces are baked or steamed—perhaps I might say annealed—by placing them in a damp earth covered with a brush fire for twenty-four hours, then with sharp blows they are still further broken down into flakes approximately the shape desired. For more complete fashioning a tool of ... horn is used.” He also states that a small skin cushion was employed in the hand, and that often a few especially skilled people would exchange their products for other items. Barber (1876) notes that a Ute hunter could differentiate between the types of stone projectile points used by various tribes. This is of special interest to the archaeologist for it indicates that point styles for such a group were intentional and fairly consistent over a period of time. Stone knives, scrapers, rough flakes and drills are listed by Gifford and Stewart in addition. According to Gifford’s informant, stone axes were polished. Arrowheads were stemmed or stemless, while the shafts were marked by rills engraved along the length. These were feathered and painted.