During our research we were constantly being surprised by people who came up with information that either confirmed our guesses, or totally disproved our assumptions and set us out on a new trail of clues.

Take for instance the unusual picture of a Navajo man who painted beautiful pictures while he was in the hospital.

One clue that confirmed what we had been hearing,was an e-mail from a woman who said that her father had been a doctor at the Indian Hospital at Santa Fe and had treated Quincy Tahoma.  When I contacted the retired doctor by phone, he told me about Tahoma’s problems with alcohol and the kind of treatment that patients got at that time. The time was the mid 1950′s.

He liked Tahoma, but knew that he had a tendency to spend any money he had on alcohol. Nevertheless, when Tahoma said that he would like to have a radio (we had been told that he liked music) the doctor gave him one, thinking that was not cash, and since Tahoma really wanted it, he would not sell it. Wrong.  As soon as he left the hospital, he sold the radio and used the cash to go “partying” as he and his friends called their drinking binges. The doctor was disappointed. Not only in Tahoma, but also in himself for being mislead.

This doctor told me what the hospital was like and how well-liked Tahoma was by the staff and the other patients.  Tahoma could never be long without his paints, and as soon as he was able to, he would start painting–even in the hospital.  Although most of the alcoholic patients that showed up were suffering from secondary problems–injuries from fights and falls–Quincy Tahoma never had the broken bones and bruises. He was a gentle soul, the doctor said, and apparently avoided fights.

And information about the hospital stays came in two other unexpected ways, as well. When I was visiting the school librarian at the Santa Fe Indian School, a man who worked as a custodian there overheard our conversation and said “I knew Quincy Tahoma.”  It was almost spooky that in this school, nearly 70 years after Tahoma was a student there, I would hear someone say that.

It turned out that the man was hospitalized as a child, and remembered the adult Quincy Tahoma painting pictures in the hospital. Quincy made quite an impression on everybody he met.

The final piece of information that confirmed the hospital stay and using the hospital as an art studio, came when Mark Rosacker turned over one of the Tahoma paintings he had bought, There he saw that beside the signature on the back it said “Santa Fe Indian Hospital.”

Do you look at the back of paintings you own to see if you can find clues to the artist’s life?

Was it possible that Quincy Tahoma actually did not know his clan as he said? He told people that he had no parents, and that information was in the school records that we found at the National Archives Western office in Denver. But somebody cared for him as a child–and the people who raised him must have been Navajo, since he was well grounded in the Navajo culture. So would they not have told him who his mother was, and therefore what his clan was?

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

January 10, 2005

Who are you?

The questions come right after an exchange of names. Where did you come from? What do you do for a living? Do you have children? We tend to quickly try to categorize the people we meet. People think of the questions as friendly exchanges, not prying, and the information exchange helps oil the way to understanding between strangers.

If you come from Ohio, Charnell and I will follow up with, “Where in Ohio?”, because we both came from there. We’ll probably recognize the name of the county and know if you were close to Columbus, Cincinnati or Cleveland. We’ll likely wind up talking about the Ohio State Buckeyes. Likewise, we’ll bond if you’re from Arizona or Texas or Virginia or from Santa Fe. If you have children, we may whip out our PDAs and show you pictures of our families. Of course if you mention Navajo Art as an interest, we’ll talk your ear off.

In the Navajo culture, clan comes first. According to the Saganitso family that took Quincy in as a small child, Quincy was born to EdgeWater and born for Many Goats. (more…)