In a first, the marathon begins with an acknowledgment of Indigenous land.

It was well before dawn on Monday when, near the starting line of the 125th Boston Marathon, the chairman of the Boston Athletic Association read a statement acknowledging that the marathon’s 26.2 miles run through the homelands of Indigenous people.

The statement, read in the dark to the accompaniment of rattles and a drum, marked a victory for activists who had protested the decision to hold the marathon on Oct. 11, increasingly celebrated as Indigenous Peoples’ Day. The marathon is usually held in April but was rescheduled because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Rather than find another date for the marathon, as some activists demanded, the association apologized and offered to make the land acknowledgment. It also agreed to donate $20,000 to hold a celebration of Indigenous Peoples’ Day in Newton, one of the communities through which the marathon route passes. And it featured two Indigenous runners, Patti Dillon, of the Mi’kmaq, and Ellison Brown, of the Narragansett, on banners along the route.

The focus on Indigenous peoples added an unusual, somber note to marathon weekend, in the heart of a region that has long unreservedly celebrated its colonial history.

On Sunday night, two Navajo women performed a traditional Jingle Dress Dance at the finish line, tracing slow, bouncing circles in regalia strung with dangling metal cones, whose sound is believed to spread healing. Drums echoed in the canyon of Boylston Street.

One of the dancers, Erin Tapahe, 25, said she was running in part to bring attention to missing and murdered Indigenous women across the country by running in a long, red skirt, something she also did during training.

Love Richardson, 52, was one of 12 members of the Nipmuc Nation who were present for the pre-dawn acknowledgment on Monday.

She grew up in the central Massachusetts city of Worcester in the 1980s, and recalled her mother abruptly picking her up from school as Columbus Day and Thanksgiving approached, “because she didn’t want me to see those paper cutouts of turkeys and headdresses.”

She described it as “traumatic” to have been taught one version of colonial history at school and another, much more painful version at home. “We were not mentioned, we were colonized, assimilated,” she said.

Larry Spotted Crow Mann, 54, a Nipmuc singer and drummer, described Monday’s land acknowledgment as “amazing, kind of ineffable to describe,” despite the darkness and the bustle of marathon staff and the moving of trucks and cameras and equipment.

As soon as he started singing, he said, all of that seemed to disappear.

“I hope this is just the beginning of more press, and more coverage, in terms of doing it when it is actually light out,” said Mr. Mann, director of the Ohketeau Cultural Center in Ashfield, Mass. “Still, being there on that spot will leave an indelible mark.”