ALCATRAZ ISLAND, Nov 24 (AFP) - A tribal chant rose from a thousands-strong prayer circle on San Francisco's Alcatraz Island, as Native Americans held a sunrise "Unthanksgiving Day" ceremony.

"What we call it, is Unthanksgiving," Bear Lincoln of the Wailikie Tribe told AFP as he waved burning sage to purify the area and ward off evil spirits.

Traditional Thanksgiving feasting in the United States is a tribute to the meal the original European Pilgrims shared with the Native Americans who helped them survive in the new land. But it is not a day of celebration for the Wailkikie tribe.

"It was the saddest day for us. It was a big mistake for us to help the Pilgrims survive that first winter. They betrayed us once they got their strength."

An estimated 3,000 people packed onto ferries that set out from Fisherman's Wharf for Alcatraz in the pre-dawn darkness Thursday, according to organizers.

A bonfire blazed at the center of a prayer circle set up on a bluff beneath the Alcatraz lighthouse. And at the base of the rock wall leading up to the ruins of the former federal prison were a pair of Indian teepees.

"Ultimately, this is their land," said Irma Pinedo, a Mexico City native who was among the Aztec dancers taking part in the ceremony. "For us, no turkey today."

Turkey, which nearly became the national bird in the United States instead of the eagle, is the main course at traditional Thanksgiving dinners.

"I take my children to this every year because I want them to understand there is another side to the story," said 41-year-old Erin Alexander, who added that the event has grown significantly since she began attending 12 years ago.

Groups representing Japanese, Palestinian, Aztec and African indigenous people joined Native Americans in dancing, chanting and prayers.

"Eventually, everyone is going to get their indigenous rights," a member of the Palestinian group told the gathering. "For many, it will be a right of return to their land."

Gary "Firewolf" Hsiao, 26, and his brother, 17-year-old Isaac "Mountain Lion" Rozco donned native American dress to join their tribal elder grandfather at the ceremony.

"When it comes down to it, this day reminds us that many of our people were massacred," Hsiao told AFP.

"They have been terrorists since they landed on the East Coast in 1492, and they they are still doing it today in Iraq and other countries," Lincoln said of the pilgrims and their legacy.

"We are reminding them we are still here, and still surviving," Lincoln, 51, added.

Alcatraz Island became a symbol to tribes after a group of Native Americans occupied "The Rock" in 1969, after US authorities had closed the prison. Native Americans claimed the "abandoned" federal property under the terms of treaties between tribal and government leaders.

"When we took this island, it was like a shot around the Earth," said Chief Lone Walker, who was among the handful of native Americans who boated into the bay and set up camp on the island in November of 1969.

"Indians were dead, and this brought them back to life," continued Walker, an 86-year-old Blackfeet Tribe member who also went by the name "Indian Joe." Fifteen thousand Native Americans from throughout the United States made pilgrimages to Alcatraz during the 19 months that the band lead by Richard Oaks held onto the island, Walker said.

Ironically, the history-shifting occupation of Alcatraz by Native Americans was the impromptu plan of "a couple of guys in a San Francisco bar," Nobert Chacanaca of the Kupa Tribe said with a chuckle.

"It wasn't meant to kick off any kind of movement, but it did," said Chancaca, who was a US high school student during the Alcatraz occupation.

Tribal elder Pat Vallinger called for indigenous people on all continents to be allies against thuggish governments and greedy corporations.

She urged those present to follow the Native American way of considering the next seven generations when making important decisions.

"We have people on this island today from all over the world," Vallinger said.

"It's "Thanks-taking" because with didn't give it to them, they took it."

About Thanksgiving

100 Pilgrims sailed on the Mayflower from UK and arrived in 1620, having crossed  the Atlantic Ocean to separate themselves from the official Church of England and practice freely their form of Puritanism. Arriving at Plymouth Colony—part of today’s Massachusetts—too late to grow many crops, and lacking fresh food, the Pilgrims suffered terribly during the winter of 1620–1621. Half the colony died from disease. The following spring, local Wampanoag Indians taught the colonists how to grow corn (maize) and other local crops unfamiliar to the Pilgrims, and also helped the newcomers master hunting and fishing.

Because they harvested bountiful crops of corn, barley, beans and pumpkins, the colonists had much to be thankful for in the fall of 1621. English Puritans had traditionally designated special days of thanksgiving to express gratitude for God’s blessings. In the autumn of 1621, the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony held their first Thanksgiving. They invited their Wampanoag benefactors who arrived with deer to roast with the turkeys and other wild game offered by the colonists. The colonists had learned how to cook cranberries and different kinds of corn and squash dishes from the Indians.

The first Thanksgiving Festival began on December 13th at Plymouth, Massachusetts. The celebration lasted three days with the people enthusiastically participating and invited Native Americans to partake in the meal.

Native Americans had celebrated a harvest festival for many centuries before the arrival of Europeans in North America.

It wasn't until 1789 that the first national Thanksgiving proclamation was issued: by George Washington, in the year he was inaugurated as the first president of the United States.

But not until Abraham Lincoln's proclamation in 1863 did Thanksgiving become an accepted national holiday and not until 1941, another time of war, was it declared an "official" holiday.

In 1988, a Thanksgiving night ceremony of a different kind took place at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. Among the more than four thousand people gathered there were Native Americans representing tribes from all over the country and descendants of the later immigrants. The ceremony acknowledged publicly the Native American role in the first American Thanksgiving, a feast held to thank the Indians for sharing the knowledge and skill without the first Pilgrims would not have survived.

The traditional thanksgiving dinner menu includes turkey and stuffing, often accompanied by cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes, gravy and polished off with pumpkin pie

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