Now we come to the most familiar form of O’odham music — waila. The word means both this genre of music and “polka.” Modern waila is almost exclusively instrumental dance music, and is usually played ...

Tucson’s Mayor and Council approved renaming Christopher Columbus Park to Danny Lopez Park Wednesday in honor of the Tohono O'odham educator and elder who dedicated his life to preserving the Tohono O ...

A Tohono O'odham girl growing up in the 1950s spent her formative years helping her farmworker family pick cotton in the fields in central Arizona. With a thirst for learning but few books at home, ...

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Cousins Tanisha Tucker Lohse and Maria Francisco set off from their desert camp around dawn on most early summer days, in search of ripe fruit from the towering saguaro cactus, an ...

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — On St. John the Baptist’s feast day in late June, an extended Tohono O’odham family attends Mass out at their desert camp, where they gather to harvest saguaro fruit in a process ...

The music I described the last time is what is left over from the days before the Europeans arrived in this region. It has changed, of course, but it has the oldest roots of any O’odham music. The ...