Continuing to thumb through the school file that we received from the National Archives, we discovered that the school and Indian Health Service made sure the children were healthy with frequent check-ups. Children living in close quarters at a boarding school had to be carefully observed. Here is a passage from the book:

“Health officials thought that the Navajo love of meat and infrequent access to fresh vegetables caused the scourge of trachoma that was rampant among them.

Each morning after breakfast, Tahoma trouped to the clinic with all the other Navajo children to have his eyes checked.  Trachoma had spread across the Navajo reservation causing sore, bumpy eyelids and, if untreated, left its victims blind.  After many false stars and blunders caused by ignoring native culture, the Indian Health Service was able to eradicate the disease.

The careful medical attention included periodic physical exams at the nearby Indian Hospital for all students.  In November, 1933, Tahoma visited W. G. Lewis, M.D. at the U.S. Indian Hospital in Santa Fe. The poking and prodding by white-coated doctors presented one more humiliation to the child from a culture that shies away from physical contact even among friends and family members.  However, by the time Tahoma had survived four years of bureaucratic exercises, so the procedure was no longer new to him and the experience added one more lesson to his growing ability to adapt to unfamiliar circumstances.”

Harrison Begay, Navajo artist who was Tahoma’s friend, had told us that Tahoma had a damaged arm, and some other people had mentioned it. No one knew how it happened, and our initial assumption that it was a birth injury was reinforced by this 1933 medical report, where Dr. Lewis said, “Left arm atrophied (birth accident?) ankylosed at blbow [sic] in 90 deg. position–has use of hand and fingers.” “That part of the examination,” the book goes on, “must have been upsetting, since Tahoma tried to hide his deformed arm from everyone.”

No other physical problems were discovered, but at 16 (now in 6th grade) Tahoma carried only 113 1/2 pounds on his 5’6″ frame.

The next physical exam record in the file dates to 1940, the year he graduated from high school (at 22 years old) He has grown taller–5’9″ and weights 140 pounds. Among the vaccinations and tests listed, we were surprised to see the Wasserman, a test for syphilis, in both 1939 and 1940.

These fragmentary health records from Tahoma’s school days gave his biographers much food for thought. Now we knew what the arm injury was, and could imagine more exactly what it looked like. We could see that although he was pretty skinny and small for his age when he entered school, he grew taller and presumably stronger. His overall health seems good. We learn as much about the attitude of the BIA adminstrators and health care officials as we do about Tahoma. We know what diseases they were concerned about and that they apparently were attempting to keep the students healthy, even if they lacked understanding of Native customs and sensitivity to rights of privacy.

Some people get angry that the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Indian Health Services invaded the privacy of the children in their care. Other people see their work as essential to improving the health of the Diné. Which side do you take?

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

In the previous post about Tahoma’s school days, I told you how the National Archives file provided a valuable resource to understand Tahoma’s life. In that post, I focused mainly on the yearly reports of grades. An intriguing form dated November, 1936–6 years after he first entered Santa Fe Indian School, substituted for the first day enrollment form we had been hoping for.

Two young Navajo boys roaming the sheep ranch that Tahoma called home. Photograph by Charnell Havens

From this 1936 form, we learned that Tahoma attended Tuba City Day School, “graduating” in May, 1928. Someone had filled the other blanks on the form  with the same information on the earlier record, dated June 1930, so the information presumably just was passed on from year to year. Except that by 1936, Tahoma (or someone) had decided to change his birthday to Christmas day, December 25, 1918. Most importantly, this form included his “Roll No.” 71,254.

During the early years of the 20th century the BIA ran a separate census on the reservations every year. While there might be confusion about the spelling of names, and birth dates were iffy before birth certificates were common, roll numbers ran consecutively within families, and stayed with one person from year to year. This would be our greatest help in finding any family that Tahoma might have had.

Besides grade reports and enrollment forms, other pieces of paper in the file gave us a poignant picture of life at a boarding school.

To recap what we knew at this point, someone enrolled  a 9-year-old orphan boy in Tuba City Indian School.  Three years later, the boy was taken to Albuquerque Indian School and the next year he was transferred to Santa Fe Indian School.  In October, 1930, school officials enrolled him at SFIS in the fourth grade, which told us that he either missed a year of school or repeated one of the first four years. In June, 1931, the teachers told him that his English was not good enough and he would have to repeat fourth grade.

At that point he was probably discouraged, sad and lonely. We do not know how he actually felt, but we do know that he told the principal that he wanted to go home.  The principal wrote a letter to C. L. Walker, Superintendent of the Western Navajo Indian Agency in Tuba City, pleading for information. His early school records spelled his last name as Tahome (with an ‘e’ on the end.)

“Last fall one of your boys, Quincy Tahome, was sent up here from the school at Albuquerque.  We have no regular enrollment blank for him and can not say what his term of enrollment may be.  He is asking to go home and we shall be glad to have you let us know what arrangement you can make for his transportation.”

The officials seem to be saying, ‘Who is this kid and who is responsible for him?’

Mr. Walker replies (correcting the spelling of Tahome to Tohannie, a closer approximation of the To’a'hani clan that Quincy was named for). He refers to Quincy’s enumeration number (roll number) and says,

“Our records indicate that Quincy was transferred October 1, 1929 and therefore is not entitled to return home this year at Government expense, and we do not have any funds to defray his expense home.  If  he wishes to come from personal funds, however, we have no objections.”

I don’t know about you, but I find that paragraph heart-breaking.  This little boy, who doesn’t speak English well, has just been told that he flunked fourth grade, and barely understands where he is, has been away from home for two years, but  it is too soon for the government to pay for him to go home. Never mind that the government was willing to pay to get him to Albuquerque and then to Santa Fe in the first place.

And “personal funds?” How is a small boy, isolated from his people, supposed to have personal funds?

Without question, this represents the lowest point in Tahoma’s school days, but as we will see, he conquers the bureaucracy, the money problem, and definitely overcomes his initial loneliness.

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Back in 2005, I received an envelope in the mail that contained possibly the most important documents of all the research that we have done on Navajo artist Quincy Tahoma. A librarian at the National Archives, Rocky Mountain Region Archival Office in Denver mailed us copies of the entire file entitled:

Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs

Santa Fe Indian School

Student Case Files 1937-1970

8NN-75-90-003, Box #71

Translated, the numbers indicate any records in the archive that mentioned Quincy Tahoma from the time he entered school through years afterward when people tried to contact him through the school. Therefore the file shed light not only on his size and physical condiiton (medical reports), studies and aptitudes (grade cards), finances (letters regarding money), but told us something about his post-school activities as well.

The first thing I did was arrange the stack of papers in chronological order.  At first I was disappointed that there did not seem to be paperwork from  Tahoma’s registration when he transferred from Albuquerque to Santa Indian School, but the first report in the file mentioned that he entered 4th grade at SFIS on October 10, 1930. (Ironically, the same date that his obituary would run in the Santa Fe paper just 26 years later.)

On the school form, date of birth is given as 1918, although census records later told us it was actually 1917.  So he was 12 or 13 years old, depending on what month he was born, and he weighed only 85 pounds at the beginning of the school year and 90 at the end.

The next record gives his grades for that first year, and the information that he failed 4th grade because of “lack of English”  and was held back. This record shows a birth date of May 24, 1918–although he was later to claim he was born on Christmas day. The form lists

• Mother: Dead
• Father: Dead
• Guardian: Manual Siganitzo, brother
• church preference: Catholic
• Home post office: Tuba City, Ariz.

We would later learn that his mother was not dead, and although the Siganitzo (Saganitso) name led us to an adopted family, Manual, younger than Tahoma, almost certainly should not have been listed as guardian. The Saganitso family was not Catholic and the people we talked to have no idea why the school records would list Tahoma as Catholic. The first and last facts listed here were correct.

1935 Navajo Country, Courtesy of Charlotte G. Mittler

As would be the case throughout school, Tahoma got his best grades in art, and high grades in deportment.  His examination scores were abominable. He seemed to be one of those nice, well-behaved kids, who struggled in class and  panicked at test taking. We found it interesting to see what he was studying: Arithmetic, Drawing, English, Geography, Penmanship, Spelling, Physical Education, Reading, History and General Education.

The second time that he took 4th grade, Music was substituted for General, and the grading system changed from a 100-point scale to 1 through 4. Straight “1′s” in drawing and a solid 2 in English, along with deportment that still rated high, meant he was promoted to 5th grade at the end of his second year at SFIS.

He continued as a solid C student, with the exception of art and music classes where he won B’s. Unlike the schools that you and I attended, starting in junior high school, teachers gave grades in such things as Farm, Laundry, Kitchen and Dining Room.

All students at the Indian Boarding Schools were assigned work periods, with the stated aim of teaching them valuable work habits and skills, but with the side benefit to the school of providing unpaid labor for the self-sufficient schools.

A good reference for the development of boarding schools, and particularly Santa Fe Indian school, is History of Indian Arts Education in Santa Fe by Wanda Garmhausen. Sally Hyer’s story based on oral history from Santa Fe Indian School students, One House, One Voice, One Heart, provides invaluable insights into how attendees at the school viewed their own experience. In addition, we interviewed a dozen or more of Tahoma’s friends from school days to learn about their own reactions to the school and their memories of Tahoma the school boy.

I’ll be sharing more about Tahoma’s school days in the days to come.

Were you surprised to learn that students at the boarding school did most of the work that kept the institution in operation?

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Getting copies of those records was like Christmas. There were forms with basic information about Quincy’s enrollment, medical records, all of his grade records and letters to and from school administrators. The most important piece of paper had a typed enrollment record that included a tiny picture of a very young Tahoma.Although many of the lines were left blank, the sketchy information included some valuable clues.

Here is some of the information on that form:

Tohoma, Quincy (with Tahoma, Quincy, written in pencil above the typed misspelled name)

Date of filling blank: November 1936

Date of Birth: December 25, 1918 (as noted in another post, the 18 is written over top of a typed twenty-something)

The lines for father and mother were blank, and after father…living, the answer was :No

Stepfather: Yes, Guardian: Yes, Manuel Sigantizo (with the word “brother” written in after the typed information.

What Day School Did you Graduate From: Tuba, Day School    When? 1928 May 30

And of all this exciting information, some of which proved to be incorrect, we found a census number.  The Indian Census, separate from the ten-year federal census, assigned a Roll Number to each person counted. Some of the Indian Census records still exist, and because birth dates are iffy, and as previously note, spelling of names is frequently incorrect, the Roll Number helps pin down individuals better than anything else.

Thus we were REALLY excited to find Tahoma’s Census Number. Surely, it would lead us to his family. And, finally, it did.

Puzzling information included Do you own your own home? Yes–but size and value left blank. And even more puzzling: Brother’s name: Tahoma Age: 18   Sister was left blank.

So now we had to try to find a copy of an Indian Census with Tahoma’s census number on it, and find this mysterious Manuel Sigantizo.

Do you know anybody who attended Santa Fe Indian School during the 40s and 50s? Did you ever look up their records in the National Archives?

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

One of the problems with not knowing one’s clan includes not knowing who one can properly marry. Is that why Tahoma apparently never married (although he seemed never to be without a girlfriend)?

With the help of Mark Rosaker, and David Brugge, we kept following the clues. The Santa Fe Indian School records for Quincy Tahoma, incomplete as they were, at least had a registration form  that said “no parents” and listed a guardian, “Manuel Sagantizo.” Someone had written “brother” in pencil. School records indicated Tahoma came from Tuba City. That record also listed Tahoma’s birth date as December 25, 1918 (the 18 was written over top a typed twenty-something)

David Brugge explained that he had never heard of the name Sagantizo, but Saganitso was a rather common name, particularly around Tuba city. A pause here to complain that mis-spelling of names on records complicates research enormously.  And in the case of non-Indians trying to write down what they think they hear a Navajo say, or Navajos using a different variety of their names each time they are asked–well, confusion reigns.

Mark took the information about Manuel Saganitso and ran with it. Digging into on-line birth and death records, he came up with dozens of Saganitsos–most of them demonstrably not connected to Tahoma. To be continued…

Have you had personal experience with a Navajo who was raised by someone other than his/her parents and did not know his or her own clan? We would like to hear such stories.

Posted by Vera Marie Badertscher, May 17, 2009

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.