The two prominent buttes called the Bears Ears are sacred to several Native American groups, including the Navajos, Utes, and Pueblos, and are part of their oral traditions. In a popular Navajo story, Changing-Bear-Maiden, a very beautiful woman desired by many men, refused them all, but Coyote the trickster persuaded her to marry him despite her brothers' warning that the union would bring evil. She began to change, and by winter's end her transformation into a mischievous bear was complete. Realizing that the only way to save her was to change her into another form, her brothers killed her, cut off her ears, and threw them away, and they became the buttes seen today. Visible from as far east as Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado and as far south as Monument Valley Tribal Park in Arizona, the buttes are important landmarks for travelers within the Four Corners region.