While we acknowledge that the boarding schools were disruptive and damaging to American Indian youth when they were created, the administration of those schools had changed by the time Tahoma was in fifth grade.

We based our description of life in the Santa Fe Indian School on the testimony of people who had attended school there about the same time that Tahoma did.  When Tahoma was whisked away from his native Tuba City first to Albuquerque Indian School and then quickly to Santa Fe Indian School, the system was despicable. Children were not permitted to speak their native language. Long hair was cut against the wishes of the children. They were marched from place to place in military style. And generally, the objective was to remove any “Indian” from them and turn them into non-Indians.

By the 1930s, a progressive movement in the federal government, pushed along by reformers in Santa Fe, began to mold a system that showed more respect for the individual student. That all happened just after the impressionable young Quincy Tahoma was shifted from Albuquerque to Santa Fe Indian School.The rules were softening, and as he grew up at SFIS, he was able to speak Navajo outside of class and the school had regular events with dances and feasts for the various Pueblo, Navajo and other cultures represented.

So although the beginning of his life in boarding school was tough, his schoolmates looked back fondly on their experiences, particularly in high school. Tahoma was weaned away form the reservation, but he had already been separated from his birth mother and claimed not to have any family at all. And he certainly would not have been able to develop his talent in painting had he stayed on the sheep camp where he grew up. The paintings also gave him some financial freedom, as he was allowed to sell them in the school store that teacher Dorothy Dunn set up.

We believe that it is incorrect to assume that boarding school was always a bad experience. The testimony of students at SFIS during the 1930s contradicts that assumption. (See the First One Hundred Years Project at the University of New Mexico, Center for Southwest Research.)

Museum Hill, Lab of Anthropology on right.

One day Charnell and I visited the library of the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology on Museum Hill in Santa Fe.  The Lab has been in existence since 1931 (later merged with the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture), and has both an extensive archival collection and a library where we  browsed.

We were returning to the welcoming adobe building where the building designed by John Gaw Meem, and funded by John D. Rockefeller, copies Pueblo style. The thick walls of mud topped with heavy log rafters favored by Meem (Spanish Pueblo Revival) transformed Santa Fe in the early 1930′s.

We had previously discovered magazine articles that mentioned Tahoma’s art and books and newspapers that carried brief mentions of Taoma when we browsed the library. The slim bio file of Tahoma at the Lab’s library did not yield much information, much to the dismay of the librarian.

So when we made this return visit, the librarian was very happy to tell us about a new acquisition. Somebody had donated school newspapers from the Santa Fe Indian School, and librarians were beginning to catalogue them, but we were welcome to take a look.  Of course they were not a complete collection, but we were ecstatic to discover the Teguayo student newspaper covered the years that Tahoma went to school at SFIS.

When we went to look at the records available at the Lab of Anthropology, we had a long list of questions. One of those questions was, “What grade was Quincy in when he went to Santa Fe Indian School?” We were also curious to know what other interests he might have had besides art.

We knew that he had been sent to Albuquerque Indian School from Tuba City and had transferred to Santa Fe by the time he was in high school.  But suddenly, we found a sports article in the Teguayo that told us that he was playing basketball for SFIS’s 7th grade team in December 1934. Another member of that team, Herbert Manygoats, would surface later in our research as the friend who drove the adult Tahoma around New Mexico.

Tahoma in football uniform

As we continued our search, we learned that Tahoma continued his interest in sports, as despite his crippled arm, he could throw a football a long, long way, according to Harrison Begay. And he set a track record that lasted for decades, and even taught some younger kids to play tennis. But those are stories for another day. Sports helped young men adjust and survive at boarding schools, we learned. And we’ll talk about that conversation later, too.

The photo at the top of the page was taken by Vera Marie Badertscher, all rights reserved. The photo of Quincy Tahoma in football uniform is used with the kind permission of the Roberta Anglen, daughter of Kee Yazzie who was a friend of Tahoma.

Back to you….What’s your guess as to the role of sports in government-run Indian boarding schools?

Back of 1953 Navajo Scout painting - Courtesy of Mark Rosacker

1953 The Navajo Scout – Courtesy of Mark Rosacker

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?

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?

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