[BROOK]

It is at Day's request that I share a story of the knowing and relationship my family had with the American Indians, and where the teaching of my family and the truth have evolved so far.

I come from a long line of old west settlers, and some rather famous ones at that...but the story and the purpose of sharing it is from the standpoint of the relationship with the Ute Indians of the area they settled in.

You only have to google the name "Queen Ann Bassett" or Josie Bassett to see that I tell the truth here...and on one hand the stories are sensationalized by too many journalists..the truth stands here in what I know and what I'm telling you of that relationship..as handed down from my family..the truth

Sam Bassett..first came to Brown's Hole..now named Browns Park Colorado in 1852. Here is his diary entry

Sam Bassett's diary recorded that event as follows: Brown's Hole, November, the month of Thanksgiving, 1852.

Louis (Simmons) and I "down in." Packs off. Mules in lush cured meadow. Spanish Joe's trail for travel could not be likened to an up-state high lane for coach-and-four. Mountains to the right of us, mountains to the left of us, not in formation but highly mineralized. To the South, a range in uncontested beauty of contour, its great stone mouth drinking a river (Lodore Canyon). Called on neighbors lest we jeopardize our social standing. Chief Catump, and his tribe of Utes. Male and female created He them. And "Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed so fine." Beads, bones, quills, and feathers of artistic design. Buckskins tanned in exquisite coloring of amazing hues, resembling velvets of finest texture. Bows and Arrows. "Let there be no strife between me and thee!"2


The truth...he asked permission to settle there..which gained him great favor and respect from the Chief


They remained there for the next 120 years...Then Herbert Bassett, who my father's middle name is after..came to stay there with his wife Elizabeth.


The Bassetts spent the first year of their residence in Brown's Park with Uncle Sam Bassett in his one-room log cabin several miles north of Lodore Canyon. In this cabin, attended by Dr. John Parsons (father of Warren P. Parsons mentioned above), on May 25, 1878, Elizabeth Bassett gave birth to her third child, a daughter, whom they named Anna. Elizabeth had no milk, and baby Anna's life was in doubt until one of the Brown's Park bachelors - Buffalo Jack Rife - came up with the solution.
A band of Yampatika Ute Indians were camped several hundred yards from Uncle Sam's cabin, and Rife, an ex-buffalo hunter who spoke the Ute language, had a powwow with Chief Marcisco and the medicine man, Muchekuegant Star. Within an hour of her birth, Anna - the first white child born in Northwestern Colorado - was handed over to the medicine man who carried her bareheaded, but otherwise warmly bundled up, through a pouring rain to a Ute squaw who had given birth a few days previously.
Every two hours thereafter, day and night, little Anne was carried by the medicine man to her foster mother, Seeabaka, until the time when the band of Utes moved on, at which time Asbury B. Conway showed up with a milk cow which he presented to the Bassetts.

Here is the full story if you desire to know where it comes from ...jsut remember..it is written by a journalist..and although some thing are very accurate...some are not

http://www.prospector-utah.com/bassett.htm


Now if you know anything about the Indian Culture..the Chief and Medicine Man are very highly respected figures..and a medicine man does not carry a child every two hours to be fed unless there is a great mutual respect of the family. That tribe was not just "camped" there that was their home..and my family lived there in respect of their neighbors...by asking permission to be there.


Ann grew up playing with the only neighbors she knew..the Ute children. And her Mother Elizaberth learned of the herbs to use in healing ways. They called Elizaberth "magpie" because she was always talking, and very outspoken.


Ann had a very special relationship with the medicine man..as he saved her life..and because my father was a Doctor...a medicine man if you will..she insisted that I be named Brook..an Indian name...no e on the end...and thought my mother thought it silly to name a white child an Indian name...and because Ann always got her way with my dad..I am so named.


Both Ann and my father died when I was three..the stories ended there....but my mother handed down the truth..and



As my family has taught from generation to generation...it is this....these people are to be respected...they did not ask for us to invade their sacred ground...and it is that indeed.


We the white man have taken..and to this very day have not yet stood up to our promise..but swept it under the table.

I think if you are to lean anything of the Native American Culture..it starts from knowing the truth..the harsh cold reality of injustice...and in raising social awareness...then the mutual respect can be had..and the teaching begins.