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After a stellar, groundbreaking career as a musician and advocate for Indigenous people and causes, Buffy Sainte-Marie’s stated connections to any tribe in Canada or the U.S. appear to be completely made up. The revelations in an investigation by the CBC’s The Fifth Estate are a heartbreaking disappointment to her fans who saw her as a trailblazer in an industry with so little positive Native representation. At least one Indigenous group is calling for a recent Juno Award for best album to be rescinded. Others like the Piapot First Nation, the Cree tribe Sainte-Marie identified with for more than a half century, stand behind her. Does she deserve complete outrage? Or can we, as Cree author Michelle Good asks, “remember the power that was there regardless of her deception?”
GUESTS
Dr. Kim TallBear (Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate), Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience, and Environment and a professor of Native Studies at the University of Alberta
Michelle Good (Red Pheasant Cree Nation), author, retired lawyer, and activist
Break 1 Music: Intertribal (song) Cree Confederation (artist) Pakosiyimitan (album)
Break 2 Music: Crossroad Blues (song) Lakota John (artist) Lakota John and Kin (album)
Watch Sainte-Marie address the investigation here:
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In a 2022 interview with Native America Calling, Buffy Sainte-Marie talked about her personal history, including her adoption by the family who raised her.
@nativevoiceoneEXCLUSIVE: Watch Native America Calling host Shawn Spruce asks Buffy Sainte-Marie some poignant questions about her personal history, as part of a never-released pre-show conversation conducted in November 2022. This Tuesday, Shawn hosts a special edition of Native America Calling. https://www.nativeamericacalling.com/tuesday-november-7-2023-buffy-sainte-marie-the-weight-of-the-truth♬ original sound – Native Voice One
In the case of “Buffy”, it so apparent not only her but many businesses, organizations, governments have made so much wealth of the “Indian”. Take for instance the high incarceration of Indigenous people, of childwelfare, and so have profited so much of the “Indian”. I just heard someone reference the aboriginal artist or artists is because so many have been incarcerated so they have the time to develop their skills. So then someone like Buffy had to come along and killed it for us.
I can understand and completely support your feeling. While I am not a Native person, I am a scholar of Native cultures…and it strikes me as horrible to claim Indigenous background when someone does not have it. I consider myself an Italian-Jewish ally of Native peoples, but I am not Native. That is an honor that I cannot claim. No one who has suffered the hell that Native folks have been through can accept someone faking Indian identity. But I am sure that Native people will come through this; and I hope that universities stop handing out honors to Pretendians who claim to be Native Americans.
This whole conversation about Buffy saint Marie being indigenous is really big. I’ve been doing this lady’s music. All my life really and it’s very painful Not only for me, but for a lot of people Look up Too Buffy as a role model. I definitely remember her being on television a lot back in the 1990s.
My number one prayer for the Native American community is that they eventually heal from this embarrassment that has happened because of 1 woman’s selfish desires. To be famous.
She is a fraud and very cleverly lived her life to benefit HERSELF in the end, not Native Americans. I remember watching her perform in Central Park in the late 1960’s. I was such a fan, Now I am just disgusted. So many frauds. What a world.
My family and I grew up in Wakefield, MA close to where Beverly and her family had resided. We had looked up to “Buffy” as a talented trailblazer for Native Americans in the folk music, movie, TV, creative arts, etc. industries. To recently find out about the strong evidence suggesting that she had fabricated her adoption story from a Cree reservation in Saskatchewan has been devastating. In addition in order to maintain her alleged Native American identity when offered an opportunity to appear on Sesame Street in the mid 1970s, she threatened to accuse her older brother Alan of bullying and sexual assault when she was a teenager. She also threatened legal action against him and his family for defamation and libel since he had previously written to various news outlets, such as the Denver Post, trying to set the record straight by pointing out that she was not adopted from a Cree reservation as she had maintained since the early 1960s via various media interviews, publicist posts, etc..
Buffy states her growing up mom was part Mi’kmaq. but there is no further discussion of this and what can be known ..Surely this can be explored..