In the beginning, the Earth was without form and void, and darkness ruled. Ute storyteller Larry Cesspooch agrees the biblical book of Genesis got that much right.
But for Cesspooch and other American Indians in Utah, the creation story departs from there into imaginative and myriad narratives born of timeless traditions rooted in the heart and soul.
Today, such ancient yarns make up the spiritual bedrock for tribes campaigning to restore and safeguard southeastern Utah’s former Bears Ears National Monument, broken up and slashed to 15 percent of its original 1.3 million acres by the Trump administration.