Ute Indians endowed Ponderosa Pines with prayers and blessings. Some of these trees live 800 years, and it was believed their prayers would be carried to the Creator for centuries.
The Ute Prayer Trees
We all are born from the earth
We live our lives walking on the earth
We die and we seek the creator above
The Black Forest area of Colorado northeast of Colorado Springs is densely populated with Ponderosa Pine trees. A century and a half ago, the Ute Indians called this place home, before they were marched off to settlements in less desirable areas. The Ponderosa Pines became the instrument of Ute lore and they used the trees as trail markers, as a means to catalog celebrations, as tabernacles for prayer and as burial trees to honor their dead.
Some Ponderosa Pines live to an age of 800 years. The Utes employed the trees as vessels for prayers that would live on for centuries after they were gone. Some of the trees they manipulated required generations of care and tending. Markers were bent 30 degrees and helped them navigate through the forests. Celebration trees can be distinguished by a y-pattern that resembles a football goalpost. Burial trees are notable for two man-made 90-degree bends, the first a few feet from the base of the trunk, and the second further up the trunk allowing the remainder of the tree to reach toward the heavens with loving sentiments for the deceased chief or warrior. While not as well-known as the Japanese man-manipulated trees in Bonsai, the Ponderosa Pines of the Ute Indians tell a non-literary history of a people who once carved their existence in the forests near Pikes Peak in Colorado.
