The Tucson City Council unanimously approved the process to begin returning 10.6 acres of ancestral land to the Tohono O’odham Nation.

Council Member Lane Santa Cruz headed the initiative to return land on Sentinel Peak back to the tribe.

“We don’t honor and revere our indigenous people, the people who made this city possible,” Santa Cruz said. “The relationship that indigenous people have with the land is what we need to pay attention to and listen to.”

The foot of Sentinel Peak is widely considered to be the birthplace of Tucson. But before the city became what it is now, it was home to ancestors of the Tohono O’odham and Hohokam tribes for 4,500 years. The city’s Spanish name even came from the O’odham village name S-cuk Son, meaning “at the base of the black hill.”

You can read more in an article by Paola Rodriguez published in the azpm.org web site at: https://tinyurl.com/mr2kzvh9.