Thoughts on the ongoing controversey between Native American Church and City of San Antonio
This is the San Antonio River or as i prefer Y
a small group of Native American Church members gathers in San Antonio's sprawling Brackenridge Park for a ceremony called Midnight Waters. They meet at a specific bend in the San Antonio River. The slow-flowing river is lined with cypress and live oak trees and attracts herons, egrets and double-crested cormorants.
The site of what most people know as Yanaguana or the San Antonio River, near the headwaters, starts to take on the shape of a river in the sky," Gary Perez said. Perez is a Native American Church member and the principal chief for the Pakahua/Coahuiltecan Peoples of Mexico and Texas.
What Perez calls "the river in the sky" is also known as the constellation Eridanus. He said it's this river bend's resemblance to the constellation and the presence of cormorants that qualifies it as a sacred place.
"These birds carry our intentions or our prayers up to the heavens," Perez said.
In June, the city received a pair of court wins in an ongoing religious rights battle between San Antonio and the Native American Church members over the shady river bend, its trees and the water birds who call them home.
The tensions began more than two years ago, in February 2023, when the city closed the river bend area to begin repairs on historic buildings and retaining walls along the river. The city said the project would require the removal of 77 trees. If the trees stay, government officials said, their roots will likely cause further damage to the retaining walls. But Perez and his partner and fellow Native American Church member Matilde Torres sued for access to the site and to save the trees along the riverbank.