Augmented reality program provides opportunity for reflection and continued healing related to events of 1923

An augmented reality experience premiered in Blanding over Labor Day weekend with hope of offering healing and hope in San Juan County.
The art installation revisited events of 1923 known as the Posey War and the Ankinuche Incarceration.
While the art installation focused on looking back to the events in 1923, project director Angelo Baca said the project is intended to help attendees understand the past in order to facilitate healing.
“So, have a wildly good imagination about what the next 100 years could be,” said Baca. "Let's make those ancestors proud and fix everything in the next 100 years. so that we have a good collective future for the children, the grandchildren, the great grandchildren.”
The installation began with a dedication and prayers offered by county residents representing Diné, Aniknuche, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Baca noted that is the vision of the original project director Shaun Ketchum Jr.
“He talked about bringing the community together like this and I think that's really important because we have not had an opportunity to do that in an entire century. If you look around you, you can see that these people want healing. They want restoration. They want to feel better about the next 100 years.”
Praying at the event was Mark Bake, representing the Blanding Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Bake prayed offering gratitude for the community and the chance to connect with each other in love and friendship, as well as a blessing of understanding of the past and suffering, with a blessing to move toward greater unity, peace and love.
The project seeks to promote healing by sharing the Ute perspective of the events of 1923.
The events were a culmination of decades of rising tensions between Ute people, and ranchers and settlers in the region.
Details of the painful episode in San Juan County history are often disputed with even the most basic and general portions of the event as described below likely to be disputed or admittedly lacking complete context.
Following a trial and conviction of two Ute young men for robbery of a sheep camp, one of the young men and the sheriff had an altercation resulting in the sheriff attempting to shoot the young man. The gun jammed and then was taken by the young man who shot the sheriff’s horse with the gun while fleeing with several other group of Utes.
What followed included the imprisonment for several weeks of other Allen Canyon Utes in the school house basement and later a stockade in Blanding.
The deputized posse of settlers and the crew of fleeing Utes had a final confrontation at Comb Ridge resulting in the death of one of the young men who had been on trial, with the Ute people who fled eventually surrendering to the pursuing group.
A search continued for Chief William Posey with the release of the Ute people coming after Posey’s body was discovered.
The conclusion of the conflict included the assignment of land allotments and an agreement to abandon traditional nomadic ways, to take up farming, and to allow for children to be enrolled in schools.
The “Through the Silence” project includes a Ute perspective on the events.
Leaders speaking at the event recognized that the pain of the Ute people who experienced the stockade meant many would not share their story or perspective in life.
Speaking at the event, Ute Mountain Ute White Mesa Council Representative Malcolm Lehi spoke about the desire for healing from previous generations of leaders.
“They asked me to take on that lead and speaking with our ancestors and elders that were around at that time, They're no longer here.”
Also speaking at the event was Forrest Cuch, who worked as the Director of the Utah Division of Indian Affairs for over a decade, as well as previously being a high school history teacher.
“I know the importance of history and I know the importance of healing because I've had struggles in my own life and I have found healing through education, plant medicines, horse therapy, I call it horse medicine.
"These are all things that we can use to heal ourselves from all the hurt and pain of the past. What we're trying to do is promote healing not just for the Nuche, the Indian people, but for our non-Indian friends as well.
"We've learned that trauma occurs in the oppressor as well as the oppressed. So that's what we're trying to do is to heal ourselves and heal others.”
Utah Diné Bikéyah Executive Director Janet Slowman also spoke at the event, emphasizing the importance of the Bears Ears and the medicine that grows in the area.
“It needs to be protected so that we continue to have what we need for healing. And it's not just for native people or the indigenous communities.
"It's for everybody. It's for everybody. We all want to heal. I like what you said, sir. You (Gary Guyman) mentioned in your prayer that we will work together. That is the key. We have to put effort into understanding each other and to work together.”
Former Utah Diné Bikéyah Executive Director Gavin Noyes also spoke about the divisiveness in the nation, but noting that Utah has some of the answers to cure that in the form of community.
“There is an LDS community. Everyone looks out for each other more than themselves.
"There's a Diné community. Everybody looks out for each other and they feed each other, they take care of each other.
"There's a Nuche community that on this day in this place fundamentally changed in 1923. We're here to restore that respect, what that relationship looks like.
"We always started this work saying that this is about spirituality. We all need to respect the ways that we pray and interact with this earth and with each other.”
Westwater community leader Thomas Chee noted that just talking to each other about the past can bring healing.
“We shed light on it, maybe it will go away, turn into shadows and maybe we'll move forward.
"We do live in a beautiful county here. It has a lot of history,.
"We have pioneers, we have warriors and all kinds of Native traditions that have been probably forgotten, but I would like to see them reemerge.”
Chee added he was grateful for those involved in the event, including Gary Guyman who gave a prayer at the start of the event.
“I work with him. So, we help each other and even though we have a difference in our religion, we always come together and at the end of the day, we always have a smile.
"So, I think that the best thing is, let it be beautiful everywhere. And that's what I pray for every time.”
Baca added his gratitude for the elders and community leaders lost.
"We should have done this a long time ago. We lost all those people who hear those stories. This should have happened 20, 30 years ago when they were still here so they could see this today.
"For some of them, it's still so painful they don't want to talk about it. But we're here to let the people know in all of our communities that it's okay to talk about it.
"It's okay to heal from it. It's okay for us to come together and heal that wound. If we just let it fester, it will never come back to balance; to restoration; to–as my brothers say–in hózhó.
"So think about the next hundred years. Think about the future, because we as native people, we almost never get that opportunity. We're worried about how to take care of ourselves now, how to pay the bills, feed our families, and take care of the little ones.
"We want to think about the future because that's what our ancestors used to do. This was an interruption in that future. So, we're here to talk about it, to experience it, to make it right. So, have a wildly good imagination about what that next hundred years could be.”
Baca added that all of San Juan County is a community of neighbors, friends.
“Now we're relatives. All of us, right? We all have inter marriages with native, non-native, Ute, Navajo. We can't undo history if we try.
"So now we’ve got to make the next 100 years better. I know ancestors are with us and I know they're proud of us because this is hard, difficult work and there are no guarantees.
"We have to tell our stories and leave that strength with our generations to come. That's what carries us through.”