Copied from pg 211 of The Sun Dance of the Northern Ute, by J.A. Jones, 1955, published in the Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology bulletin 157, Anthropological papers, numbers 43-48.

The Cum-um-bah, or Weber Ute, are sometimes classified as Ute, and sometimes as Shoshone. Hurt described them as “a hybrid race between Shoshonees and Utahs” (Hurt, 1876, p. 460). In 1867 Head reports on the Weber Ute as follows: “This tribe is formed from members of different Utah and Shoshone bands, the Utah element largely predominating in their language” (Head, 1867, p. 174). At the time of the coming of the Mormons, they occupied the territory which included the site of present Salt Lake City (Alter, 1944, p. 55). This was the area which James Bridger, famous frontiersman and scout, told Brigham Young was “something of a no-mans-land between the Utes in the South and the Shoshones in the North” (Clayton, 1921, p. 278).

According to figures supplied by F. H. Head, superintendent of the Utah Agency in 1866, there were about 600 Weber Utes at that time. He states, “. . , these Indians are the most worthless and indolent of any in the territory. Their land is nearly all occupied by settlers, among whom they beg their maintenance.” He lists their horses at only 50 (Head, 1866, p. 123), showing either recent acquisition or lack of need of horses in the food quest. It is apparent that at this early date, the Weber Ute had already reached that stage of dependence on Whites that is characteristic of rapidly deculturating Indians.

Whether the Weber Ute were true Ute, or actually a coalition of individual Ute and Shoshoni-speaking families, no evidence may be found that they ever joined the Utes living on the Uintah Reservation. Several definite statements appear in the Reports to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs that they refused to do so (Head, 1866, p. 123; Tourtellotte, 1870, p. 605).