The Canadian Broadcasting Company releases an article and documentary questioning the indigenous heritage of singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie.
The Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) has launched a report calling into query the indigenous heritage of ‘60s singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie. CBC cites members of the artist’s household along with genealogical documentation that implies Sainte-Marie’s story is “constructed on an elaborate fabrication.”
Forward of the report’s debut, Sainte-Marie launched an announcement sustaining her native ancestry, and asserting there was no documentation, “as was widespread for indigenous kids born within the Forties.” CBC’s investigation features a delivery certificates itemizing Sainte-Marie’s dad and mom as Albert and Winifred Santamaria, the Massachusetts couple who she says adopted her. The identical physician who delivered Sainte-Marie’s sister in 1948 signed the delivery certificates.
“Analysis has additionally revealed that kids adopted by dad and mom in Massachusetts had been generally issued new Massachusetts delivery certificates with the title of their adoptive dad and mom,” writes Sainte-Marie’s lawyer in an electronic mail to CBC.
Sainte-Marie says she was one among many native kids faraway from their properties, adopted, and “assigned type of a biography,” a apply referred to as the Sixties Scoop. “In lots of circumstances, adoptive individuals don’t actually know what the true story is.” However CBC notes the Sixties Scoop “is well known to have began in 1951. Sainte-Marie was born in 1941.”
“No one apart from Buffy ever talked about Buffy being adopted,” Sainte-Marie’s niece Heidi informed CBC. Buffy’s cousin Bruce and his household additionally denied her claims she was adopted, and referred to as her declare to indigenous ancestry a publicity stunt.
Buffy Sainte-Marie’s official web site says the musician “is believed to have been born in 1941 on the Piapot First Nation reserve in Saskatchewan.” Her biography additionally calls her a “Cree singer-songwriter.”
“What I learn about my indigenous ancestry, I discovered from my rising up mom, who was half Mi’kmaq, and my very own analysis later in life,” writes Buffy Sainte-Marie in her assertion. “My mom informed me many issues, together with that I used to be adopted and that I used to be native, however there was no documentation as was widespread for indigenous kids born within the Forties.”
“As a younger grownup, I used to be adopted by Emile Piapot (son of Chief Piapot, Treaty 4 Adhesion signatory), and Clara Starblanket Piapot (daughter of Chief Starblanket, Treaty 4 signatory), in accordance with Cree legislation and customs,” Sainte-Marie continues. “They had been variety, loving, and proud to assert me as their very own. I like my Piapot household and am so fortunate to have them in my life.”