Indigenous community members and supporters gathered with drums and incense in celebration of their culture during the 10th annual sunrise ceremony.
The Calpulli Tonalehqueh Aztec Dance group hosted the annual event on Thursday morning at The School of Arts & Culture at the Mexican Heritage Plaza as an homage to those in Indigenous groups around the country, including the Mexica and Muwekma Ohlone tribes around the country.
The ceremony attendees intended to educate the community on Native American history and to reclaim the history of Thanksgiving and the massacre and decimation of Native people in the U.S. according to Calpulli Tonalehqueh official website.
Liz Macaraeg, who is Native American, has attended the sunrise ceremony with her sister and niece for six years.
She said she pays respect to her ancestors by attending the ceremony, especially her great-great grandmother and in doing so she learns more about her culture.
“We come every year to receive blessings and to reconnect to our roots,” she said in an interview during the event. “We are taking the time to learn about our indigenous culture as we pray and reflect by giving thanks and blessings to Mother Earth. This is our way to give back to the community.”
Indigenous tribes have lived in the Santa Clara Valley for over 10,000 years according to the ethnohistory of Muwekma Ohlone archives and website.
Donna Wallach, spokesperson for the International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, attends the ceremony every year and educates attendees about Native American activist Leonard Peltier to create momentum for his liberation.
The International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee is a group dedicated to freeing Peltier from imprisonment, according to the committee’s official website.
Peltier is serving two life sentences for the murder of two Fedeal Bureau of Investigation agents in June 1975 after a conflict between proassimilating and traditionalist tribal chair members, according to an International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee flyer.
Peltier continues to wait for another trial after there was “compelling evidence” that the FBI concealed information proving his innocence, according to the same website.
Wallach said she feels honored to be invited every year to speak about Leonard.
“I get so moved by being part of the ceremony,” Wallach said. “I am glad that they started doing the ceremony here in San Jose and that they invite so many community members to come and share their culture and spirituality to the community of San Jose.”
Several event participants prepared a sacred mixture of herbs presented to each guest, who were then offered to “cleanse” by asking for a blessing at the central fire.
The event concluded at 9 a.m. with Aztec dancers saluting the sun through dance, paying tribute to the Earth, Sun, Children, Women, Men, and Elders from “the four directions,” north, east, south and west.
Jesus Tecolotecpac, Danzante Tribe member, attended the event for the first time to reconnect with his Chicano roots.
“Once we start connecting with our roots, we realize those roots have been here for thousands of years and the more we do it the more we are going to find about ourselves,” Tecolotecpac said.
He said he learned the meaning of his name in the Nahuatl language: a person with power to slice or spark a fire inside a person based on his words.
“I have learned the true meaning of what it means to be Chicano, and to be me, the meaning of being human,” Tecolotecpac said. “And the more we intertwine with the roots of the planet, the more we find meaning to our existence.”
