Tineo says that practicing Indigenous rituals and medicine is an act of reclamation. Tucson, one of the longest continuously inhabited regions in North America, has been home to the Tohono O’odham and Pascua Yaqui peoples for thousands of years. “This desert was once honored, understood, and cared for, long before colonization drew borders or built cities. So when we gather to heal, speaking in Spanish, Nahuatl, or O’odham, we are weaving our memory back into the land,” Tineo says. “Every ritual, every prayer, and every story is resistance. And it is also remembering.”
