Jessica Veikune’s brow knits together in concentration as she uses a needle to scoop small beads and pieces of seashells onto a delicate thread in a repeating pattern. Veikune is one of many Indigenous dancers hard at work in preparation for the first annual Cali Native Night and 24th annual Mexica New Year Ceremony.

She points the needle down and repeats the pattern. Shell, shell, blue, gold, brown, white, brown, gold, blue. Veikune, a member of the Muwekma Ohlone tribe, will dance in a ceremony for the first time on Friday. 

“I wouldn’t say it’s been hard to learn,” she says of the dances, “we’re just focusing on learning the spiritual aspects of it right now. I just feel really blessed, really thankful.” 

Thanks in particular go to the members of the Miwok tribe, including Toni Espinoza, who have joined them to help revive their dances, as Ohlone rituals were forbidden during colonization and the Mission era.

“I love teaching. It’s an honor for us as well,” Espinoza says. She stresses that while there are traditional elements to follow, there is no right or wrong way for a person to dance or to connect with their culture. 

Aquihua Perez has danced with the Calpulli Tonalehqueh Aztec dance group for the last dozen years. This year, they host the largest Mexica New Year ceremony in California and possibly in all of the U.S. 

More than 1,000 people are expected to gather at Emma Prusch Farm Park to see hundreds of Mexica performers attired in colorful plumage and regalia dance to the intense percussion of large standing drums, like rare birds responding to the earth’s heartbeat. 

“It’s liberating, it’s freedom,” Perez says. “We feel the power of our ancestors, we feel the power of that energy that we call upon as we open our ceremony.”

The Mexica are an indigenous Mexican group who ruled the Aztec empire in the lush valley of central Mexico until Spanish colonization. Cuauhtémoc, the last leader of the Mexica people, counseled them to hide aspects of their culture from Spanish conquistadores for protection, and prophesied that they would one day thrive again.

“For us to actually understand that we are connecting to what Cuauhtémoc was talking about hundreds of years ago is amazing, and that’s why it’s so powerful,” Perez says.

Gerardo Ixteyo Loera is a member of the Calpulli Tonalehqueh leadership council who has participated in San Jose’s Mexica New Year ceremony since it started 24 years ago. He says the ceremony brings young people of Mexica heritage closer to their culture. 

The ceremony’s greatest power, Loera says, lies in “the coming together of our Mexica community in historic East San Jose.” Accompanied by natives from many other Indigenous tribes, Calpulli Tonalehqueh “put down a prayer on behalf of those we come from, for those that have yet to come.”

Indigenous groups will come together for three days to string together generations who have gone ahead, who still touch the earth, or who wait to be born. The gathering is open to the public and free to attend; however, as a sacred rite, the organizers have asked that alcohol and drugs be left at home, even by those observing the cleansing rituals of the celebration.  

Julie Dominguez is both Muwekma Ohlone and Mexica. She and her son Isaiah will both dance in this year’s ceremony. Her brother Joseph Torres was instrumental in reviving the Muwekma Ohlone dances, and her brother Johnny will dance with the tribe this weekend. His toddler son, whose name means “thunder” in Chochenyo, will watch from the audience.

Julie sews feathers from wild turkeys and ocean birds into a headdress beside her cousin, Jessica Veikune, who is still working on her beaded adornments. Shell, shell, blue, gold, brown, white, brown, gold, blue. The two share memories of their great-grandmother Dolores, who grew up in Mission San Jose. Forbidden to practice her culture, she received secret lessons in Chochenyo from her aunts.

“I feel like they knew that we could bring it back,” Dominguez says.  

Mexica New Year
Fri-Sun, Various Times, Free
Emma Prusch Farm Park, San Jose

This Thursday, the Mexican Heritage Plaza holds its 10th annual Native UnThanksgiving Sunrise Ceremony, honoring the Indigenous peoples of the Americas and commemorating the 1969-1971 reclamation of Alcatraz. 

Aztec dance group Calpulli Tonalehqueh—which means “community of warriors who accompany the sun” in the Nahuatl language—will lead the Sunrise Ceremony, performing Aztec dances that were once outlawed and punishable by death during Spanish colonization of what is now Mexico. 

Yei Tochtli Mitlalpilli founded the Calpulli Tonalehqueh in 2004 after becoming a father. Sunrise Ceremonies, like the one performed at the UnThanksgiving celebration, are all about awareness and the transformative change necessary beyond one cold morning in November.

“It’s not so much what are we going to do that day, but what are we going to do today going forward?” Mitlalpilli says. “We can’t change the past, but we can change right now.”

After the 18-month reclamation of Alcatraz, many tribes began to perform sunrise ceremonies as a way to celebrate Indigenous heritage and raise awareness of the issues facing the community. The dawn gatherings also show solidarity with other tribes across the country who observe National Day of Mourning on Thanksgiving in somber remembrance of Native Americans lost to colonization and genocide.

While the dances are not religious, Mitlalpilli says they are spiritual and connected to respecting land and nature. 

“There’s a respect for the elements: the fire, the water, the wind, the earth,” he says. “We’re not going to dance one day and then go pollute the water the next day. Everything’s connected.” 

Aquihua Perez, dancer and instructor in the Calpulli Tonalehqueh, is descended from the Caxcan and Wixarika nations of the southern Zacatecas. Perez says many Indigenous people still face the ongoing consequences of colonization including racism, over-policing and gentrification.

“As Native people, we continue to suffer the effects of the system similar to African-Americans or anybody else that is struggling with racism, with displacement, with gentrification,” Perez says. “Those are the things that we continue to fight against. To promote our cultural heritage allows us to come together as a community to support each other.”

Perez says he hopes to see Thanksgiving transform from a tradition which tacitly celebrates the genocide of Indigenous peoples with football and over-indulging, into a day of service and community which inspires lasting change.

That change, Perez says, needs to begin with a recognition of what Thanksgiving as it is celebrated today stands for. 

“You can’t ignore how this holiday came about, you have to understand the history of it,” he says.

Whether Indigenous or not, Perez encourages people to connect with their roots—as well as each other—in a way that is mindful of Thanksgiving’s sordid past, and to keep working towards a better future.

“There are so many ways that we can create unity, a sense of togetherness and a sense of purposefulness that can be so much more productive,” Perez says. “We continue to fight against this Thanksgiving narrative, and we want to do it in a way that honors our ancestors’ teachings—our own philosophy as Native people.”

Joseph Torres is a member of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, who are indigenous to the San Francisco Bay Area and descend from the Native peoples who persisted here after Spanish missionization. Torres is helping to revive his tribe’s dances after they were lost to colonization and forced assimilation. He and Perez both say that connecting with their culture through dance is a healing experience.

“We’re carrying that medicine,” Torres says. “It’s an old way that we’re reviving. Ancestral responsibilities are kicking in. I’ve been put in a sacred responsibility to bring back the dance.”

At a flag-raising ceremony for the Muwekma Ohlone tribe on November 6, Torres participated in the first Muwekma Ohlone ceremonial dances in over 150 years.

“It’s healing, it’s a beautiful thing to see,” Perez says. “We all have that DNA in us of our original ancestors. And once we begin to discover our own identity, that DNA is awakened. It is like a small explosion of energy and beauty.”

Sunrise Ceremony
Thu, 5am, Free
Mexican Heritage Plaza, San Jose