[citation needed] The historical lands of the Tohono Oʼodham stretched over much of what are now the jurisdictions of southern Arizona and Northern Mexico, across most of the Sonoran Desert.

The first European exploration and recording of Oʼodham lands was made in the early 1530s by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca of the ill-fated Narváez expedition.

Instead, their sense of belonging came from similar traditions and ways of life, language and related legends, and experiences shared in surviving in a beautiful but not entirely hospitable land.Debates surround the origins of the Oʼodham.

Oʼodham songs are accompanied by hard wood rasps and drumming on overturned baskets, both of which lack resonance and are "swallowed by the desert floor".

Dancing features skipping and shuffling quietly in bare feet on dry dirt, the dust raised being believed to rise to atmosphere and assist in forming rain clouds.

Girls were already generally good runners due to being water fetchers, and all members needed to be able to run to escape danger or attacks.

Women played a field hockey-like game called toka which is still enjoyed and is a frequent school sport on the modern reservation.

Through foraging, Oʼodham ate a variety of regional plants, such as: ironwood seed, honey mesquite, hog potato, and organ-pipe cactus fruit.

[4]: 8–10  The Tohono Oʼodham use long sticks to harvest the fruits, which are then made into a variety of products including jams, syrups, and ceremonial wine.

[9]: 17–20 Ak cin, known as "mouth of the wash", refers to the farming method in which farmers would monitor the weather for signs of storm cloud formations.

[4]: 163 As Oʼodham communal lands were allocated to households and some "surplus" sold to non-Native Americans under the Dawes Act of 1888, a variety of religious groups entered the territory.

They were forced to use English, practice Christianity, and give up much of their tribal cultures in an attempt by the government to assimilate the children of various tribes into the American mainstream.

The goal was to make the Indians into "real" Americans, but the boarding schools generally offered training only for low-level domestic and agricultural labor, typical of jobs available in rural areas.

Since the late 20th century, however, U.S. mass culture has penetrated and in some cases eroded Oʼodham traditions as their children adopt new trends in technology and other practices.

[22] Many of the original crops that the Indigenous group produced, such as tepary beans, squash, and the buds of cholla cactus, were items that could have aided in combating the diabetes crisis within the community.

A local nonprofit, Tohono Oʼodham Community Action (TOCA), has built a set of food systems programs that contribute to public health, cultural revitalization, and economic development.

[23] The Tohono Oʼodham community has made efforts to combat future issues by attempting to rehabilitate the systems the tribe had in place before government intervention.

[22] The Tohono Oʼodham Nation is one of the only Indigenous groups to offer tribal members access to medical treatment in the United States.

[citation needed] In the visual arts, Michael Chiago and the late Leonard Chana gained widespread recognition for their paintings and drawings of traditional Oʼodham activities and scenes.

Chana illustrated books by Tucson writer Byrd Baylor and created murals for Tohono Oʼodham Nation buildings.

The Tohono Oʼodham children were required to attend Indian boarding schools, designed to teach them the English language and assimilate them to the mainstream European-American ways.

According to historian David Leighton, of the Arizona Daily Star newspaper, the Tohono Oʼodham attended the Tucson Indian School.

Kirkwood, superintendent of the board of national missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States,[26] asked the Tucson Common Council for land near where the University of Arizona would be built.

At the new semi-religious boarding school, boys learned rural trades like carpentry and farming, while girls were taught sewing and similar domestic skills of the period.

[27] The Tohono Oʼodham Nation within the United States occupies a reservation that incorporates a portion of its people's original Sonoran desert lands.

[22][19] Another influence to the creation of this organization originates from the fact that the Indigenous tribe was on the brink of collapse as a result of growing dependency on welfare and food stamps.

[23] The purpose of the cafe's launch was to bring traditional tribal foods to the community in order to help combat the growing presence of Type 2 diabetes.

Some of their dishes include a Mesquite Oatmeal Cookie, Short Rib Stew, Brown Tepary bean Quesadilla, or pico de gallo.

This prolonged process stems from the fact that the fibers used in these baskets must be harvested and prepared, plus creating a design that represents the history of the Tohono Oʼodham nation.

On September 20, 1959, Martin Luther King Jr. flew to Tucson from Los Angeles to give a talk at the Sunday Evening Forum.