Surrounded by hundreds of people at Malinalli Superfoods in East L.A. on Sunday, members of Winds of the South, a multi-tribal women’s healing collective, sang, prayed and cried to the steady beat of a drum. The women served as the heartbeat at the Indigenous Peoples Day East Los Angeles Music and Arts Festival, a free, all-day event that included Indigenous singers and dancers, a traditional ballgame demonstration and an artisan market.
“Our innate ability is to work with plants, providing an alternative to modern-day medicines or learning to fuse them, because they both have amazing benefits for us,' Davalos said. 'My family comes from Mexico, from Michoacán, so I have Purepecha tribe in me, and my grandma worked with herbs. When she passed away, I dreamt of her. She told me, ‘Mija, work with plants.’ She wanted me to continue the lineage.