Sunrise Ceremony Honors Indigenous Peoples’ Deep Roots at Alcatraz
As the orange of 6 a.m. daybreak lit up the Bay Bridge, passengers on the San Francisco ferry saw the mass of the island seeming to tower over them: Alcatraz.
The Indigenous Peoples’ Sunrise Ceremony, organized by the International Indian Treaty Council, took place on Nov. 25, honoring the 1969-1971 occupation of Alcatraz by the pan-tribal activist group Indians of All Tribes. This group spoke out against the federal government’s termination policy where Congress disbanded and sold over 2.5 million acres of trust land to non-Natives, causing 12,000 Native Americans to lose tribal affiliation.
To this day, with red paint written by these original occupiers in capital letters, everyone who steps foot on Alcatraz reads a repurposed penitentiary sign looking them straight in the eyes, saying: “Indians Welcome. United Indian Property. Indian Land.”
“We’re all here together as one people. One nation,” said an Indigenous speaker named Don. “I came to Alcatraz when I was 16 years old. But my sister was here before me, Sharon. I want to honor her because she’s the one who came to my family and said ‘We need to be on that island.’”
Sofia Palau, CVHS student and Black Rock campaign coordinator for Youth Vs. Apocalypse, attended this event. “I decided to come to connect more with my Indigenous roots and to support the Ohlone tribe,” she shared.
The Ohlone are Native Americans who have been living in the San Francisco Bay Area region for over 10,000 years. In other words, the Bay Area sits on top of Ohlone land.
People who gathered at this event recognize the ways in which Indigenous land has been and continues to be threatened and undermined by settler colonialism and the U.S. government. Non-Indigenous people stood in solidarity with the Ohlone and many other Indigenous groups who are today alive, flourishing, and resisting in countless ways.
“The most memorable moment [of the ceremony] was when I saw the sunrise over the ocean and we were all praying,” Palau continued to share. “It was really beautiful.”
Throughout the ceremony, intergenerational groups of dancers, singers, and drummers moved through an enormous, yet intimate, circle – a circle held by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people who were there to celebrate.
Aztec dancers held one of the first rituals in this ceremony through a dance honoring the four cardinal directions – east (Tlapallan), north (Mictlampa), west (Cihuatlampa), and south (Huitzlampa). These four directions have roots in Mesoamerican religion and cosmology, where facing each direction honors a deity and five of the 20 signs attributed to the days of their calendar. For instance, as dancers face east – the first direction faced in this ritual – they honor the Sun god Tonatiuh and these five signs: Alligator, Snake, Water, Reed, and Movement.
Don detailed another type of dance. “My tribe, we do the Ghost Dance. It was brought by the Paiutes to us. And our women were the visionaries. They created the dance that we still do today in the roundhouse. And they taught that to the men. The men now carry our roundhouse ceremonies. But if it wasn’t for our women, we wouldn’t have that tradition,” he said.
This event, however, was not only a celebration; it was also a call to action.
Laura Kiwasi, representing the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, spoke: “As we continue to confront the violence of colonialism and racial capitalism, and continue to forge a vision of emancipation and solidarity, with every step on this path we walk together, we are reminded of our interconnectedness of our struggles. The fight of our collective health is intertwined with the fight for self determination over our nation’s political and economic priorities.”
As Don said, “The sulfur from Lake County Clearlake comes down to this Bay. All the fish in Clearlake are poisoned with mercury. None of our tribes can fish anymore or eat the food from the lake… But we’re waking up everyone here.”