Katie Saganitso remembering the past on her sheep camp

This photo is posted as part of Travel Photo Thursday, and you can see more photos at Budget Travel Sandbox. Vera and Charnell traveled to Tuba City in search of the history of Navajo artist Quincy Tahoma, and with the help of Mark Rosaker located the Saganitso family. Charnell Havens caught Katie Saganitso, younger “sister” of Quincy Tahoma in the family that adopted him, as she looked at long-gone hogans on the family sheep camp.

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

NOTE: I did not realize when I wrote this article that it would land in the middle of another name controversy. The code name Geronimo was used for the operation to kill Osama Bin Laden. Take a look at American Indian reaction in this CNN article.

1938 signature on painting shows the artist's name spelled "Tohoma"

When Quincy Tahoma was a child, his adoptive family called him Bi-Gaani, which means “His Arm”. It is customary for Navajos to have a family name that refers to some trait–physical or behavioral, like our referring to someone as Slim, or Gordo (Spanish for pig).

The three-year-old Tahoma had broken his arm, which was crippled the rest of his life, hence Bi-Gaani was his most outstanding trait. So how did he become Quincy Tahoma?

We suspect that when his adoptive father, Jack Saganitso took him to Tuba City Day School when he was nine years old, the school officials ask what the little boy’s name was.  Jack would not have said Bi-Gaani, because that name would only be used in the family.  But he might have murmured the name of Tahoma’s clan–to’a'hannie. The Near Water clan was the clan of Tahoma’s birth mother, and therefore was his own clan. (Although he denied knowing what his clan was throughout his years in Santa Fe, because he had not met his mother until he was an adult.)

Early school records spell the boy’s last name several different ways–Tohanie, Tohoma (which he himself used on early paintings) and finally Tahoma.

1940 signature shows spelling of name changed to "Tahoma"

The “Quincy”, according to one magazine article written during Tahoma’s life,  was attached by a teacher who just happened to like the name.

Before you feel too sorry for the little boy for having random names assigned to him, be aware that he probably did not care a bit.  In Navajo culture, names are not assigned the great weight that they are in our culture. Names used in the family for a child may be abandoned when they become an adult. Names outside the family may be entirely different than those inside the family.

Today he might have a different attitude. I wrote at A Traveler’s Library about the biographies of four Indian women, among them Pop Chalee, which sounds comical in English. Pop Chalee was the artist’s  name in the Tiwa language, spoken in Taos Pueblo, and means Blue Flower. She chose to use that instead of her formal name of Merina Lujan. (By the way, her mother was Swiss). Most Pueblo people have a name that is from the Spanish days, like Geronima Montoya, and also a native name. Hers was P’otsúnú.

Although I read in the book about Maria, the potter (written in the 1940s) that the native names of the pueblos are hidden, today some pueblos are bringing their native language names into the open. In a reaction against being labeled by outsiders, in this case Spanish saint’s names applied by the early Spanish priests, they are reverting to their native names. For instance San Juan Pueblo now calls itself Okay Owingeh. It is a trend elsewhere, too. Here in Tucson, the Papago Indians became Tohono O’odham (Desert People).

The Navajo seem tolerant of being labeled with that name by outsiders, but they refer to themselves as Diné (The People). So far there has not been a movement in the Navajo Nation to change their “corporate” name. That may be because it is not as insulting as some names that have been applied to native people. Or it may simply be a different level of tolerance and acceptance of the strange ways of the Europeans who came into their land.

Where you live, have you seen examples of Native People turning back to their traditional names?

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

As guardian angels go, you would be hard pressed to find a more unlikely one than

Tahoma slept in a room at the rear of the Eppie's bungalow

Spanish-American, hard-working, wheeler-dealer, political-pro Eppie Montoya. But Eppie indeed served as a guardian angel when Quincy Tahoma most needed help.

We never found out for sure how Eppie met Tahoma and decided to offer him a home, but it could have been through his connections with the Christian Brothers and the Catholic Diocese of Santa Fe, or through Jim Silva the art dealer who also befriended Quincy, or it could have been through political connections.  We know that Eppie had connections with judges and with the warden of the state prison.  We have not talked here about Quincy Tahoma’s connection with the state prison, but we may get around to that eventually.  At any rate, when the Navajo artist needed a place to stay, Eppie invited him to his little adobe house on Alto Street in Santa Fe.

Not that it was unusual for Eppie to take in a stray.  One of his daughters, Dolores Castillo, told me,

My daddy used to tell us “you have to treat everybody good, because you don’t know what angel is going to come through that door.”  And he says, “you don’t know what day your child will need something and somebody will be there for them.”  Sometimes he’d make a big pot of posole and he’d look out the door and see people passing by and he’d say, “Come on in.  Come on in.”  I know my older sisters used to get mad because they’d be embarrassed.  We [Dolores and her brothers Morris and Frankie] were small.  We thought it was neat.

Eight children altogether came and went through the years, as well as various “strays”, like the man who stayed for 25 years after being released from an insane asylum. He had been sentenced to the stay in lieu of prison for killing his wife.

Josie and Eppie ran a restaurant, Guadalupe Cafe, and Josie was famous for her tortillas. When the restaurant did not make enough money–partly because Eppie insisted on giving away food to people–he used his political connections and got a highway job.

Eppie’s political activities shed a light on life in Santa Fe and New Mexico during mid-twentieth century and explained some of Tahoma’s life.  According to several accounts, Eppie would report to  the publisher of the New Mexican newspaper, who would supply him with a stack of dollar bills to be handed out to people who voted the right way.  One Montoya daughter who did some genealogical research was astounded to find an Eppie Montoya and Josie Montoya registered to vote in every county in New Mexico!

It was a small town and as Charnell and I researched, we began to think that half of the residents were related to Eppie Montoya–either Montoyas, a very common name in Santa Fe– or Ortega, Josie’s maiden name. Learning about Eppie from the members of his family helped us understand how it was that Quincy Tahoma, the Navajo who came from (he said) no family on the reservation, could have influential friends like lawyers and judges and some of the wealthiest people in town.  Everyone knew everyone, and since Democrats were in the majority, Eppie’s ties cemented Quincy Tahoma’s relationship to important people.

With Eppie and Josie, he found a woman he called “mama”, a place to sleep and to paint, and connections.  It must have seemed like heaven to a displaced man.

To learn more about Santa Fe history, read Turn Left at the Sleeping Dog, by John Pen LaFarge

Have you ever been lonely or alone and been helped by someone with such wonderful generosity?

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Friends said he craved it all his life, especially during his earlier years at the Santa Fe Indian School where mutton stew was nowhere to be found.  Once in a while, during Tahoma’s high school days, the superintendent ordered the slaughter of sheep for a Navajo-style feast. When eating mutton and hearing the familiar language around a campfire, it almost felt like home.

Tahoma's 1942 painting of a mother and child herding sheep, Courtesy of Charlotte G. Mittler

Home — so long ago and so far away from Santa Fe, he might have mused. As a small boy in the early 20^th century, Tahoma had known the nomadic life of the Navajo as they followed their sheep from lower to higher ground according to the season. The Saganitso family that adopted Tahoma didn’t have to travel quite as far as other Navajo because they claimed a vast spread of land near Arizona’s Greasewood Lake, providing ample grazing for their cattle and sheep. The family relished the open space and living in the quiet land. 

During those long days of tending sheep, Tahoma observed the colors of sky, clouds, and rocks. He memorized the shape of yellow-flowered rabbit bush and the spiky yucca plants, and these images came to life in his paintings of the Navajo herding their sheep.

1949, Watching her flock, Courtesy of Richard and Shelley Nielsen

Closeup of the 1949 painting

In a beautiful 1949 painting of a young Navajo woman watching her flock, Tahoma created an endless parade of sheep.  The detail of sheep in the distance is incredible, as is shown in this closeup of the painting’s left side.

A century ago, Navajo owners carefully tended their sheep, which were valued for their wool, their hides and meat.  And even today, the tradition continues.  This elderly Navajo woman shown below watching over her sheep by day, may well have had mutton stew for dinner in the evening.  Yummm!

Watching her sheep in Canyon de Chelle, photographed by Charnell in 2006

Here’s an article about traditional Apache and Navajo foods.

Here’s a recipe, that is rather challenging if you don’t read Navajo. It includes easy to read instructions if you are a sheepherder far from canned goods, too!

However, logically it calls for

• 2 lb. lean lamb or mutton
• 6 potatoes
• 1 bunch of carrots
• 1 cup celery sliced
• 1 onion chopped
• salt and pepper to taste

(See website for instructions on making the stew)

You can learn about more of Tahoma’s personal likes and dislikes when you get your copy of Quincy Tahoma: The Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist. Books are going like Frybread at an Indian Fair, so get your pre- order in now. Just send us a message.

Everyone has a food that reminds them of home. What is your favorite childhood traditional food?

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Christmas card, drawn and hand lettered by Quincy Tahoma, courtesy of Jean Wallace McSwain

A character in a novel starts as a blank page. The author creates a name, a birthplace, a locale, a personality and talents.

Meet Quincy Tahoma, the author of Quincy Tahoma.  In many ways, this creative Navajo artist made himself his greatest work of imagination.  True, someone else contributed the name, Quincy Tahoma, to a young boy who was known to the family who raised him as Bi-Gaani (his arm).

But it appears from school records and friends’ stories that Tahoma created his own family history and particularly invented his birth date. Birth records from the early 20th century are practically non existent for the Diné who lived on the reservation.  The school records are missing from Tuba City and from his one year at the Albuquerque Indian School, but a few years after he started school in Santa Fe Indian Schol, an official record lists his birthdate and year. We know that he shaved a few years off of his age about the time that he started playing sports in junior high school. It might be coincidence, but it also might be so that he would be eligible to play on the seventh grade basketball team.

And the record lists his birth date as December 25th.  Since most of the people he grew up with did not pay much attention to birth dates–saying instead as one man told us, “I was born when the apricot trees blossom”– it is highly likely that date was chosen by Tahoma. We know that he enjoyed non Navajo holidays like Christmas and New Year’s Day, and probably reveled in the attention he got by having a Christmas birthday.

He drew the card shown here for his girlfriend, Jean Wallace (McSwain),  in the early 1940′s, and we share its gentle holiday wishes with you.  Happy Holidays from Charnell and Vera Marie.

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

But Charnell and I visited Tuba City to look back to the 1920′s when Quincy Tahoma was a boy. It was during the enrollment process that he got the name the Navajo artist would put on his paintings for the rest of his life (sorry, you’ll have to read the book to find out about that). It was there that he may have first had the thrill of drawing and coloring a picture on paper. You could say that Quincy Tahoma was born at that school.

Not all Navajo children went to school back then. Some were needed at home to continue herding the sheep or helping with household chores. Like many children, Tahoma started school late, although the school records never seemed to get his age right, and there were no birth certificates to validate his age. But the family that raised him believed in education, at least for the boys in the family, so off to school he went.

In what is a researcher nightmare, we learned that all of the school records from the 1920′s when he attended school had burned.  Being optimists, we wangled our way into the big BIA offices in Tuba City and talked to the keeper of the records. The clerk looked at us stoically and repeated what we had already been told. No records.

Fortunately, while wandering around the Tuba City Swap Meet with us on a Friday morning, Mark Rosacker found a Navajo man willing to chat (but not to let us use his name).  He gave us directions to his home, a modernized hogan, with electricity, but still the traditional form.  While his wife, black hair pulled back in traditional knot, her colorful, full skirts spread around her on a bench,sat silently by, the man pulled out scrapbooks and unfolded his life.

He had been in the first grade at the same time as Quincy Tahoma. He related what it was like to escape into the bright sunlight for recess, the only time the children could speak in their own language. And how the children loved to draw and paint!  The teacher, like so many of that period, believed that art came naturally to the Navajo–in fact to all American Indians. While that sounds like stereotyping today, it was fortunate for the students like the man talking to us and for Quincy Tahoma. Both of them became artists and gained fame for their talent, a harvest that grew from the seeds planted when they were small boys at Tuba City Boarding School.

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Some of our interviewees were adamant on this fact, and anthropological books from the time seemed to bolster that opinion. A woman who had overseen the government nurses who served reservation communities told us that a nurse had rescued a Navajo baby whose family had put him out to die. A part-Navajo woman told us that her mother (a full-blooded Navajo) and her mother’s friends believed that had been Tahoma’s fate until someone rescued him.

Other people, however, were not so sure, and some even had examples of children who had born with defects who were raised by their own families.

The one thing that kept nagging at us about the theory that Tahoma had non-Indian adoptive parents, was the fact that many told us how steeped in the Navajo Way–Navajo beliefs– Tahoma was throughout his life.  He reportedly carried a pollen bag (popularly called medicine bag). We were told that he believed in witches and spirits and the power of evil forces to change from human to animal form.

How could he have such strong beliefs in Navajo ways if he was not raised by Navajos? Eventually we found two surprising answers to our questions.

Do you know someone who held on to his traditional beliefs, even when raised in a different culture?

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

A letter in the school files refers to Quincy as Tahome (or Tohannie). Harrison Begay had suggested that the name Tahoma came from a clan name for Edge Water. David Brugge now suggested that Tohannie is nearer the clan name for Near Water, To’ahanie. So we felt we were closer to finding out his clan name which might help lead us to any family.

By August of 2005, we had talked to Elmer Jenkins, a Hopi who knew Tahoma in school. He recalled having heard that Tahoma returned to the reservation some time, probably in the 50′s to visit family named Spencer. Elmer had given us a great deal of helpful information about Tahoma and his school years, and his memory was sharp as a tack, so we did not question this recollection, but it presented us with another mystery. If Tahoma had relatives named Spencer, why had we not heard about them?

Now we had another family name to seek out. We hoped to get some information from St. Michael’s on the Navajo reservation, which we have heard has the best birth, death and census records. But when we talked to them, they said they could only give information to a family member. For all we know, Quincy has no living family members.  Catch Twenty-Two. Mark continued to comb through census records and wander down paths with dead ends. He found a boy named Quincy who lived near Leupp in the 1930 census. But the information did not quite match up, so he went back to combing through sometimes almost-unreadable records, looking for “our” Quincy.

Do you know the Spencers that lived near Tuba City early in the 20th century? If so, have you heard of any connection to Quincy Tahoma, or someone in the to’ahanie clan?

Posted by Vera Marie Badertscher May 27, 2009.

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.