Loading summary
Child
Mom, can you tell me a story?
Mom / Carvana Advertiser
Sure. Once upon a time, a mom needed a new car.
Child
Was she brave?
Mom / Carvana Advertiser
She was tired mostly. But she went to Carvana.com and found a great car at a great price. No secret treasure map required.
Child
Did she have to fight a dragon?
Mom / Carvana Advertiser
Nope. She bought it 100% online from her bed, actually.
Child
Was it scary?
Mom / Carvana Advertiser
Honey, it was as unscary as car buying could be.
Child
Did the car have a sunroof?
Mom / Carvana Advertiser
It did, actually.
Child
Okay, good story.
Mom / Carvana Advertiser
Car buying. You'll want to tell stories about. Buy your car today on Carvana. Delivery fees may apply.
Dave Cawley
I'm Dave Cawley, and this is a bonus episode of you went a triangle. At the start of episode three, you heard a quote from a man named Connor.
Larry Cespuch
A man might say he would be gone until the moon was full. And when that time came and he hadn't returned, then that would arouse some suspicion.
Dave Cawley
Those are Chappoose's words, but not his voice. The text comes from an interview conducted in 1960, about a year before Chappoose died. To bring them to life, I thought it important to find a voice actor who, like Connor Chapus, is a Ute. So let me introduce you to that voice.
Larry Cespuch
My name is Larry Cespuch. It means white belly in our Ute language. It comes from my great great grandpa, whose name that was. We all have Ute names, but that was his because he had a big white birthmark on his tummy.
Dave Cawley
The Ute language is today at risk of extinction. There aren't many fluent speakers left, the number dwindling with each passing generation. Larry is one of the few who remain.
Larry Cespuch
My Indian name is Ayep, which means young man. When I was probably about 10, 11, I made my first kill, and it was a little buck, a little two point. Our tradition is you give that to an elder. So I gave that to my grandpa. And he said, go take the eyeballs out of the skull. And anybody trying to do something like that, especially a little guy trying to do that, it was pretty tough. And then he said, okay, you go dig a hole. And he went out and he prayed with those eyes. And he said, you will be ipuj. You'll be a young man. You'll be like this deer throughout your life. You'll be able to see like this young one. You'll be able to move like this young one. And that's your name. Forward AIPWEC. That's how I was given my name. I'm 73. I can still do things a 35 year old can do. If not better than him. I'm happy to be able to do that and be blessed with that name.
Dave Cawley
The story of Eric Robinson's disappearance takes place largely in the Uinta Mountains, a small piece of the homelands of Larry's ancestors.
Larry Cespuch
Right. The original homelands were pretty much from Baggs, Wyoming, down into Abiquiu, New Mexico, and of course, all of Utah, about three quarters of Utah. Now.
Dave Cawley
The Utes are not a monoculture. They were historically comprised of many different bands spread across this vast region, centered in modern day Colorado.
Larry Cespuch
I'm a White River. We call ourselves Wadu river because of the White river in Colorado. That's where we were before we were relocated here. And the name Ute comes about where, when the Spaniards came, they called us. Some say that Utah has something to do with the color of our skin because we were a little darker than most other tribes. But that's what they called us. Utah. And Ute is shorter for the Spaniards calling us Utah.
Dave Cawley
During the mid-1800s, ute bands came into increasing conflict with white miners, ranchers, and homesteaders. In 1868, several Ute bands signed a treaty with the US government. They gave up claim to lands in the eastern Rocky Mountains of Colorado and were, in exchange, granted most of the west slope. This was a huge expanse of land full of valuable Minerals. Only about 10 years later, an agent appointed by the federal government named Nathan Meeker arrived on this reservation. Meeker attempted to force the White River Utes to adopt a new way of life, giving up hunting in favor of farming. Missionaries were also pressing Utes to convert to Christianity and assimilate. Relations deteriorated, and The White River Utes sought help from Uray, who was chief of another Ute band.
Larry Cespuch
You hear it played on as habit our re or like habit your way, have it our way, but it means arrow and Ute arrow. And that's what Uray's name was. Uray, but everybody just called him Oray. Okay, but you'd say that Yuri.
Dave Cawley
Yuri, Chief Ouray or Yuri, had good relations with white officials, but was unable to convince them to replace Meeker. The crisis reached a breaking point, and Meeker summoned help from U.S. army troops stationed in Wyoming. Those troops entered the reservation, and The White River Utes met them with armed resistance. The Utes rose up against Meeker, too, killing him and his and abducting several women and children. Colorado had only recently become a state at the time of what's now called the Meeker Incident. Its governor and other Leaders responded by calling for the expulsion of the Utes. Chief Uray and his wife Chipita, traveled to Washington, D.C. against this backdrop, in early 1880, they met with high government officials, hoping to find a peaceful resolution to the crisis and to prevent the forced removal of their people. Chipita even testified before Congress about the Meeker incident, but to no avail. Congress issued a declaration banishing the Utes from almost all of their land in Colorado, forcing them onto much smaller reservations. The White River Utes were exiled to what is today the Uinta and Ouray Reservation in Utah, at the southern foot of the Uinta Mountains. It's the second largest Indian reservation in the United States by land mass, spanning more than 4.5 million acres. But only a fraction of that land actually belongs to the tribe today. And most people living within the reservation boundaries are not Utes. That's because the US government claimed a chunk of the land as national forest and opened the reservation to homesteaders.
Larry Cespuch
So there were 500 of our people, including my families, moved up to South Dakota to ask the Lakotas to come down and and help rid us of the homesteaders. But they were worse off than we were.
Dave Cawley
I share all of this history with you because it explains why modern Utes live mostly in arid stretches away from the mountains their ancestors called home. It also explains the name of a significant landmark in the story of Eric Robinson's disappearance. Chipita Lake. The Chipita Lake trailhead is where Eric started his trek on the Uinta Highline Trail. I asked Larry if Chipita means anything in his language.
Larry Cespuch
Chipita was just her name.
Dave Cawley
The book, Utah Place Names, claims Chipita means rippling water.
Larry Cespuch
No, you'd have PA in there somewhere. Pa is water.
Dave Cawley
Okay. Other sources say Chipita means white singing bird. But this, too is probably incorrect.
Larry Cespuch
To my knowledge, wasn't really anything particular what it meant.
Dave Cawley
Part of the challenge here is Yud is a spoken language, not a written one. That means there was no Ute dictionary until Anglo ethnographers started trying to translate and record Yud words and stories. The results were partial and sometimes conflicting. Making matters worse, different Ute bands spoke different dialects with no formalized pronunciation. And different YT bands are today spread across three separate reservations, further fracturing their culture. The more common a Ute word is, the better chance it's had of being translated correctly. Take, for instance, the Ute word for bear, Quiyugut.
Larry Cespuch
That's the bear. We would follow him as soon as he came out of Hibernation and so whatever he ate was the medicines we use. There's a root that we call bare root.
Dave Cawley
Bareroot, or osha, as it's sometimes called, is an herb native to the Rocky Mountains, where it grows in subalpine forest that includes portions of the Uinta Mountains where ancestral utes would have hunted and gathered medicine.
Larry Cespuch
But it's for digestion. You can imagine what he feasted on. The bear would help calm it all down.
Dave Cawley
The word uinta is often said to mean pine forest in the Ute language. Do you have a personal relationship with the Uinta Mountains?
Larry Cespuch
Well, the mountains to begin with are called ubwitu, and ubwitu means lodge pole pine. And there are some really magnificent lodge pole pine up there that we use for different ceremonies. Growing up here, you know, we spent a lot of time up there. My stepdad pretty much showed us how to exist up there, how to hunt and fish and what we could eat. And so there are places I've fasted up there. Being one of the spiritual people, I fasted. And so I know what is what up there. If I want deer and elk, if I want berries, if I want medicines, it's just like you would be going to town. You know, where the drugstore is, the grocery store. Whatever you need is up there. And so if anything ever happened, that's where we're supposed to go and be able to survive. There is some prophecy that there will be this one big fire that will burn everybody the same, and the only beauty will be the beauty of the spirit. And out of the rocks will come the Indian. That, to me, means that we're meant to go up into the hills. We know how to survive there, and regardless what comes, we'll be able to make it. And that's how you survive.
Child
Mom, can you tell me a story?
Mom / Carvana Advertiser
Sure. Once upon a time, a mom needed a new car.
Child
Was she brave?
Mom / Carvana Advertiser
She was tired, mostly. But she went to Carvana.com and found a great car at a great price. No secret treasure map required.
Child
Did you have to fight a dragon?
Mom / Carvana Advertiser
Nope. She bought it 100% online from her bed, actually.
Child
Was it scary?
Mom / Carvana Advertiser
Honey, it was as unscary as car buying could be.
Child
Did the car have a sunroof?
Mom / Carvana Advertiser
It did, actually.
Child
Okay, good story.
Mom / Carvana Advertiser
Car buying you'll want to tell stories about. Buy your car today on Carvana. Delivery fees may apply.
Dish / Lowe's Advertiser
Tired of overpaying with DirecTV? Dish offers a reliable low price every month without surprises. Get the TV you love and start watching live sports news and the latest movies. Plus, your favorite streaming apps all in one place. Switch to Dish today and lock in the lowest price in satellite TV, starting at $89.99 a month with our two year price guarantee. Call 888-add-D dish or visit dish.com today during Memorial Day at Lowe's Shop Household must haves for less save $80 on a Char Broil Performance Series 4 burner grill to chef up something special, plus get up to 45% off. Select major appliances to keep things fresh. Our best lineup is here at Lowe's Lowe's we help you Save valid through 527, while supplies last selection varies by location. See lowe's.com for details.
Mom / Carvana Advertiser
Visit your nearby Lowe's.
Dave Cawley
If you look at a map of the Uinta Mountains today, you'll see many peaks are named after the surveyors and scientists who helped map the American West. Ferdinand Hayden, John Wesley Powell, Samuel Franklin, Emmons Grove, Carl Gilbert, Clarence King. Fewer places have names drawn from the Ute language. Chipita Lake I already mentioned, but there's also Tocawana Peak, supposedly from a Ute word meaning peace. Then there's Oweep Creek and the Oweep Basin.
Larry Cespuch
Oweep. I've heard it in some some words, but it's not a standalone.
Dave Cawley
Here I must acknowledge my pronunciation of Owepe must grate on Larry's ears.
Larry Cespuch
I respect you more for trying than not.
Dave Cawley
The book Utah Place Names claims Oweep means grass. That's probably close, though imprecise. I've found another source that offers similar sounding words for grass, grain, and wheat. More recent Uinta maps also include a very significant Ute word, Senoiv.
Larry Cespuch
Senoev is a creator, a deity who,
Dave Cawley
in the stories of the Utes, made the sun, the moon, the earth, and all mankind. Larry learned these stories from a young age, as they were passed down by his relatives.
Larry Cespuch
My mom and dad split up when I was probably about three. My dad was in the Korean War, so he drank a lot when he came back, and she didn't like that. So they split up. And so we primarily lived with my my grandma and my uncle took me under his wing and taught me stories. Also taught me how to sing and how to dance. I used to follow him like a duckling. And so my grandma, she was the one who taught me most of the stories. And so I'm just a kid playing around. And she didn't say, sit down here and listen. I've got something to tell you. No, it wasn't that way. It was when she knew that she pretty much had My ear. She would say, listen, I'm going to tell you something long time ago. And she would say this in uteu, and she'd talk about Coyote and whatever he did. But I'd be over here playing, and I would catch it enough to where I was curious, what'd you say? Or what did he do?
Dave Cawley
Yagovich the coyote is the younger sibling of Senoiv. Coyote's a trickster who delights in causing chaos. One of those stories young Larry learned involved Senoiv's creation of humankind. It goes something like Senoeve gathered twigs from all the different trees and placed them into a magic bag. The Creator planned to take these twigs, representing all the different races, and distribute them each in their own place around the world. Now, this required great effort, and Senoiv became tired and went to rest. Meanwhile, Yagovich the coyote felt a tickle of curiosity. He saw that bag, its contents writhing and wriggling, and wanted to know what was inside. So Yagovich cut a hole in the bag to peek, but people came pouring out, all in a jumble. Try as he might, Ygovich couldn't catch them all or get them back into the bag. Realizing he was in trouble, Yugovich ran off to hide. When Senoev awoke and returned to the bag, he found just one group of people still inside. They were the Ute who the Creator placed high in the mountains. I don't tell that story nearly as well as Larry does. And many years have passed since Larry first heard his grandmother telling the story. But he committed it and many others to memory.
Larry Cespuch
I understand my role is I'm a messenger. Growing up as a kid, I used to carry a little point and shoot camera. And so I've got a lot of old black and white photos. And then when I ended up in Vietnam, I was a radioman in Vietnam. I told the creator, you get me through this, I will be your servant. There's a number of times I should have gone on to the next happy hunting grounds, but I went on to art school and changed over to communications, went on to film school.
Dave Cawley
Through all of this, Larry found his own voice. He became an editor of the tribal newspaper, served as the tribe's public relations officer, and founded a film production studio. He also came to realize many Utes were losing touch with their heritage.
Larry Cespuch
Somebody said, well, who knows the creation story? And nobody knew it. And I said, I know it.
Dave Cawley
Larry started sharing the stories he had learned as a boy, keeping alive that tradition of oral storytelling. There's a YouTube video of a TEDx talk he gave several years ago that's garnered nearly half a million views. In it, Larry talks of Senoev gathering the twigs and Curious Egovich cutting open the bag. I've heard variations on this tale. The gist is the same, but the details differ. That's just the nature of oral tradition.
Larry Cespuch
So sometimes they may change a little. But I was told that that's okay because I'm always counting on Creator to keep me on track. And there's times that I listen to stuff that comes out of me and I'm going, wow. Cause it's not me. And I'm just very grateful that I'm allowed to play that part.
Dave Cawley
Larry telling this story on a stage in front of cameras is a much different experience from how he first heard the stories in his grandmother's home from
Larry Cespuch
back when they told it to now things have changed completely. So you add your little things, but don't lose the base moral of the story.
Dave Cawley
What do you feel like the moral is of the Yook creation story?
Larry Cespuch
Moral is all creation stories. They tell where you came from, how you came to be. And so everybody has a starting point. And if you don't know where you came from or how you came to be there, then you're lost already.
Dave Cawley
I find myself thinking about this in the context of Eric Robinson. When I set out to tell Eric's story, I didn't know about the life he had led prior to his arrival at the start of the Uintah Highline Trail. Only by learning about his origin and the path that brought him to the Uinta Mountains, could I begin to understand the significance of his story. I've learned and grown so much through this process, and I hope you feel the same by the time we reach the end of Eric's trail. As a person who speaks for a living, a storyteller, if I might be so bold, such as yourself, I feel like that's the power of story as well.
Larry Cespuch
Oh, sure.
Dave Cawley
To share with people who might not get the experience.
Larry Cespuch
Oh, yeah, yeah. I watch, watch people's eyes when I tell stories, and I know when I'm connecting. And it's those kind of times, too, that whatever comes out of here is not me. But I'm watching all of the dazzle, and I'm going, dang. I'm just very fortunate to be able to see this and experience this. And this is. This is what I was meant for. We find ourselves wherever we are for a reason. And so if it helps you have a broader viewpoint, open mind, that's what it's all about. That's all knowledge. We gain something rather than stayed closed.
Dave Cawley
My thanks to Larry Cespuch for sharing about his life, his language, and his love for wild places. This bonus episode was produced by me, Dave Cawley. Our executive producers are Jessica Cordova Kramer and Stephanie Wittleswax for Lemonada Media and Cheryl Worsley for KSL Podcasts. For more on the story of Uinta Triangle, visit our website@uintatriangle.com that's uinta spelled u I N T A. Thank you for listening.
Child
Mom, can you tell me a story?
Mom / Carvana Advertiser
Sure. Once upon a time, a mom needed a new car.
Child
Was she brave?
Mom / Carvana Advertiser
She was tired mostly. But she went to Carvana.com and found a great car at a great price. No secret treasure map required.
Child
Did you have to fight a dragon?
Mom / Carvana Advertiser
Nope. She bought it 100% online from her bed, actually.
Child
Was it scary?
Mom / Carvana Advertiser
Honey, it was as unscary as car buying could be.
Child
Did the car have a sunroof?
Mom / Carvana Advertiser
It did, actually.
Child
Okay, good story.
Mom / Carvana Advertiser
Car buying you'll want to tell stories about Buy your car today on Carvana. Delivery fees may apply
Dish / Lowe's Advertiser
during Memorial Day at Lowe's. Shop household must haves for less. Save $80 on a Char Broil Performance Series 4 Burner Grill to chef up something special, plus get up to 45% off. Select major appliances to keep things fresh. Our best lineup is here at Lowe's Lowe's we help you Save valid through 527, while supplies last selection varies by location. See Lowes.com for details.
Mom / Carvana Advertiser
Visit your nearby Lowes. This is the story of the One As a procurement manager for a hospital system, she keeps every facility in her network stocked and ready. That's why she counts on Grainger to be her single source for thousands of products, from disinfectants to lighting, air filters, and more. And with fast, dependable delivery, Grainger helps her keep every facility stocked, safe and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER clickranger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.
Lemonada Media | May 20, 2026
Host: Dave Cawley
Guest: Larry Cespuch (Ute elder, storyteller, and language holder)
In this immersive bonus episode, journalist Dave Cawley delves into the Ute language, history, and oral traditions, framing them as essential context for understanding both the land and the story of missing Australian trekker Eric Robinson. Cawley is joined by Larry Cespuch (Ayep), one of the few remaining fluent Ute speakers, who brings to life ancestral stories, the meaning behind Ute place names, and the importance of storytelling for cultural survival.
[01:14]
[03:06–07:43]
[07:43–14:22]
[14:22–19:42]
[19:36–21:35]
The episode is deeply reflective, warm, and respectful, blending history, language, and storytelling with personal anecdotes. Larry Cespuch’s voice brings authenticity and gravitas, while Dave Cawley’s narration provides context and seeks understanding. The mood is both educational and contemplative, highlighting the urgency of preserving language and culture.
"Ute Words" offers a rich, personal journey into the Ute language, worldview, and living tradition of storytelling, contextualizing the disappearance of Eric Robinson within a landscape imbued with centuries of Indigenous presence. Through the wisdom and stories of Larry Cespuch, listeners gain a deeper appreciation for the land, its names, and the enduring importance of knowing where—and who—you come from.