Thousands of people gathered Sunday under the oaks at Santa Rosa Junior College for the annual Native American Spring Celebration.
"It's always an amazing gathering of local Pomo people and local tribes," Dean Hoaglin of Santa Rosa said.
Santa Rosan born and raised, Hoaglin said the celebration is a priority for him each year because of all of the people he'll get to see.
"It's about family," Hoaglin said.
Hoaglin, a longtime member of the Santa Rosa Pomo Dancers, was waiting his turn to perform later in the day. Meanwhile, he greeted numerous friends as he watched Pomo dancers perform from the Elem Indian Colony in Lake County.
"This is the start of the dance season for us," Hoaglin said.
About a dozen dance groups performed Sunday, from inland and coastal tribes, as well as Hawaiian and Aztec dancers.
Some included very young children making their first appearance in dance regalia, said Brenda Flyswithhawks, an SRJC instructor who organized the annual celebration.
"The best part is the different tribes get to come and show their style of dancing," she said. "And non-native people come and learn about us and hear us sing our songs handed down to us by our grandmothers."
In addition to the performances, the celebration featured dozens of vendors offered crafts and food.
Several children gathered at one booth, learning how to make clamshell beads using hand pump drills.
"We're making money," Mishewal-Wappo artist Christi Gabaldon said. She was teaching the method and explaining that clamshell beads had been used by tribes as currency.
"I like it," said 10-year-old Rayray Rodriguez of Santa Rosa, who was patiently working away at his clamshell. "When you make a hole you make money."
Tanya Ruiz, a Pomo dancer from the Redwood Valley Rancheria in Mendocino County, also wanted to learn.
"I found some shells at the river so I came to ask Christi (Gabaldon) how to put them into a necklace" for her regalia, Ruiz said. "At 29, it's time to learn to make to make it myself."
The event for years was part of SRJC's Day Under the Oaks festival, but in recent years has become its own celebration, drawing several thousand people throughout the day.
It is sponsored by the Lytton Band of Pomo Indians.
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