A solemn procession of about 20 people wound its way through the sidewalks of Milpitas Wednesday. The theme was clearly Native American, as participants carried and wore traditional Indian items decorated with beads, feathers and items from nature.

This was the first day of the 2010 Sacred Site/Shellmound Peace Walk.

This year's Peace Walk is a 10-day tour of sacred Indian sites throughout the entire Bay Area, including San Jose, Vallejo, Alcatraz and Emeryville. The walk began on Wednesday and will continue through Nov. 26. It is produced by Indian People Organizing for Change (IPOC), a group in the East Bay that promotes Indian culture in urban areas. Sacred Sites Protection and Rights of Indigenous Tribes (SSP&RIT) and Footprints for Peace are also sponsors.

This is the fifth walk IPOC has conducted since 2005.

The group's most pressing issue is the fate of Indian shellmounds, the ancient massive mounds of mollusk shells that once dotted the entire Bay Area. The largest were the size of city blocks and as tall as a three-story building. They were created by the many Ohlone tribes that thrived here for millennia before contact with Spanish missionaries.

Many of the shellmounds served as ancestral burial sites, which makes them sacred. Most mounds have disappeared from the Bay Area landscape over the last century, having been demolished and desecrated by developers. IPOC and other organizations lobby developers and local governments and communities to halt the destruction of remaining mounds and to regain possession of human remains that have already been disinterred.

The group gathered at Alviso Marina in North San Jose Wednesday morning, formed a circle, and started the day's activities with remarks and a prayer from Corrina Gould, Ohlone Tribe member and founder of IPOC.

Duck Redstone of the T.O. and Cheyenne Tribes sang a traveling song about a jackrabbit that scans the skies for predators before venturing out. Gould explained that Alviso was home to her ancestors, who were enslaved by Spanish missionaries around 1800 and marched to Mission San Jose in Fremont. The route of Wednesday's walk approximated their trail.

The first rest stop was in front of a Cisco Systems building on Tasman, which prompted a visit from inquisitive Cisco representatives, who seemed relieved by the brevity of the stop.

The next site of significance was Elmwood Correctional Complex on Abel Street in Milpitas, where a shellmound used to be—and from which human remains were removed in 1993. Indians on the walk said prayers and dropped medicinal herbs on the sidewalk outside the jail to benefit both the inmates and the spirits of the dead. Redstone later expressed frustration that walk organizers didn't allow him to sing a song at this site in favor of continued Buddhist chanting.

The walk continued up Abel Street then onto Milpitas Boulevard, crossing the county line to Warm Springs Boulevard. The intended destination for the day was Mission San Jose and the nearby Ohlones Cemetery, but because of a traffic-induced late start, the walk ended early at Booster Park in Fremont, 10 miles and five hours from the starting point. Support vehicles shuttled the walkers to Mission Peak Unitarian Universalist Congregation church, where they spent the night.

IPOC's mission is clear, but the individual reasons for participating in the Peace Walk are varied, yet interrelated. Indians and non-Indian sympathizers on the walk take the opportunity to visit shellmounds and other significant sites, but there are multifaceted spiritual and emotional draws as well.

Community elder Wounded Knee of the Miwok Tribe explained Wednesday that there is a long tradition of long-distance walks among Native Americans. On one level, they are reminders of historic forced migrations, such as the Trail of Tears in the 1830s. On another level, on an unseasonably warm November day, the physically demanding nature of an all-day walk is a personal sacrifice.

"An act of sacrifice is spiritual," said Wounded Knee.

The Bay Area Shellmound Walks were the idea of IPOC co-founder Johnella LaRose, who echoed the sentiment. Referring to "The Longest Walk" in 1978—an Indian solidarity walk from Alcatraz in San Francisco all the way to Washington, D.C.—LaRose said, "That's a prayer."

The Asian Buddhist nun draped in orange cloth who marched near the front, continuously beating a drum and chanting, was Jun Yasuda, who was born in Japan, ordained in India and now lives in New York. She has participated prominently in many Native American walks over the years, including The Longest Walk.

Jun-san, as her co-walkers fondly address her, practices a fundamental tenet of the Nipponzan Myohoji sect to which she belongs by beating her flat, hand-painted paddle-shaped drum and chanting a particular mantra called the Lotus Sutra as she walks and prays for peace.

Her presence seems incongruous, but she identifies with incidents of human suffering, such as the destruction of the shellmounds and the mistreatment of Native Americans, and sees their traditional communal ways as exemplary of her Buddhist principles.

A third common motivation for the walkers is the struggle against nuclear proliferation. LaRose described how Indians in the Southwest mined Uranium, which sickened them, and then later was used in the atomic bombs detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945. This linkage bonds Native American and Japanese anti-nuclear activists like LaRose and Yasuda, as well as members of Footprints for Peace, which hosts anti-nuclear peace walks around the world and who are participating in the Shellmound Walk.

The multicultural group drew puzzled stares from Milpitans as they passed. One motorist was annoyed when the pack took a few extra seconds to clear a crosswalk, but for the most part, onlookers were respectful and supportive. Some even asked for more information and received buttons and brochures from volunteer Perry Matlock.

The Peace Walk's ambition is to lead by example and create a world where, in Jun-san's words, "Compassion is most important."