Uncompahgre Ute
The Tabeguache believed that the Pikes Peak region is their home. Their name for Pikes Peak is "Tavakiev", meaning sun mountain. Living a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle, summers were spent in the Pikes Peak area mountains, which was considered by other tribes to be the domain of the Utes. Pikes Peak was a sacred ceremonial area for the Tabeguache Utes, or people of Sun Mountain, including their Sundance grounds and culturally scarred Ponderosa Pines that were used for different purposes, including prayer, burial, peeled-bark medicine, and arborglyphs or message trees. Some of the trees are 800 years old. An endowment was established by the Pikes Peak Historical Society in 2001 to help members of the Ute Nation to return to their homelands around Pikes Peak.
In the fall they would travel Ute Pass and visit the springs where they "made offerings to the spirits of the springs for good health and good hunting". There were about ten mineral springs, called "manitou" for the "breath of the Great Spirit Manitou" believed to have created the bubbles, or "effervescence", in the spring water. The springs were considered sacred grounds where Native Americans drank and soaked in the mineral water to replenish and heal themselves. Ute and other tribes came to the area, spent winters there, and "share[d] in the gifts of the waters without worry of conflict." Artifacts found from the nearby Garden of the Gods, such as grinding stones, "suggest the groups would gather together after their hunt to complete the tanning of hides and processing of meat."
Private Pike
Pike was born in 1922, and is the youngest of the Walmington-on-Sea platoon. Aged 17 when the series begins, he is not old enough to join the army, although presumably he has reached, or is nearing, his 18th birthday when he is about to receive call-up papers in When You've Got to Go; in the event, it is revealed that he has a rare blood type that excludes him from military service. In War Dance, it is revealed to Mainwaring from Wilson that Pike "is going on 19". He lives in the shadow of his bossy and over-protective mother, Mavis Pike, who is in a relationship with Sergeant Wilson, referred to by Pike as "Uncle Arthur", who is hinted to be Pike's father. If so, he also has an older half-sister by Wilson's estranged wife. (The writers, Jimmy Perry and David Croft, confirmed after the series that Wilson was Pike's father. This was also revealed in the Radio Series (and sequel to Dad's Army) - It Sticks Out Half a Mile where Mainwaring meets Wilson in the branch at Frambourne, where Wilson is the Manager. On chatting to Wilson, he says "And how's your son?" Wilson laughs in an embarrassed tone and says that he has left the bank and is now Under Manager. Wilson's tone shows that he must be the father and Mainwaring's question shows that he knows the truth.) His mother is supposedly a widow; it is unclear if there ever really was a Mr. Pike, as he is never clearly mentioned. (However, if she is a widow, then Mr. Pike would have died when Pike was a baby, or may have died before Pike was born or even conceived, as he initially called Wilson "Daddy" until told to call him "Uncle.")