Canada’s most prominent Indigenous icon might not be Indigenous
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
TORONTO — Michelle Good still has the ticket stub, a memento of the last concert she attended with her mother. It was April 29, 1996. Onstage at the Vogue Theater in Vancouver that night: Buffy Sainte-Marie.
But a new report has cast doubt on her claim to Indigenous ancestry, unleashing waves of emotions — shock, denial, grief, anger — among Indigenous people here and reviving fraught conversations about what it means to identify as Indigenous in Canada.
“It’s a little bit like an earthquake ripped through the Indigenous community,” said Jean Teillet, an Indigenous rights lawyer in British Columbia and the author of an 86-page report commissioned by the University of Saskatchewan on Indigenous identity fraud and how to detect and deter it.
Good said she’d heard whispers last year that Sainte-Marie might not actually be Indigenous but dismissed the idea as incredible. Then she saw the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. investigation.
“So many people are going to just feel so destroyed,” she thought.
The allegations about Sainte-Marie are the latest in a series in Canada and the United States in which prominent figures — in media, academia, law and beyond — have been accused of falsely claiming and appropriating Indigenous ancestry.
Sainte-Marie, 82, has said she was born on the Piapot First Nation in Saskatchewan and adopted as an infant by a White family in Massachusetts. She has claimed she was reunited with members of her Piapot family as an adult and adopted into their community in accordance with Cree law.
Asked about her early years in a 2018 NPR interview, Sainte-Marie spoke of the Sixties Scoop, a program through which the government took Indigenous children from their families and put them up for adoption by non-Indigenous parents to assimilate them into Canada’s dominant non-Indigenous society. The program began a decade after her 1941 birth.
The CBC based its investigation on public records and interviews, including with estranged family members. A Massachusetts birth certificate says she was born Beverly Jean Santamaria to Albert and Winifred Santamaria — the parents she said adopted her. They had Italian and English ancestry.
The investigation documented shifting statements that Sainte-Marie has provided on her origins, including articles from early in her career in which she was described variously as American Indian, then Algonquin, then Mi’kmaq and then Cree — a sign, analysts said, that a person might be faking their identity.
In a statement before the investigation aired, Sainte-Marie said her “growing up mother,” who was part Mi’kmaq, told her she was adopted and was Indigenous, “but there was no documentation as was common” for Indigenous children born in the 1940s — a claim some analysts have disputed.
“All I can say is what I know to be true: I know who I love, I know who loves me,” Sainte-Marie said. “And I know who claims me. I may not know where I was born, but I know who I am.”
Delia Opekokew, a former lawyer for Sainte-Marie, said in a signed affidavit last month that she had “no doubt Buffy Sainte-Marie is an Indigenous women with community accountability through her Piapot family in Saskatchewan.” The affidavit was not included in the CBC investigation.
The CBC found other records, including Sainte-Marie’s marriage certificate, in which she or her Massachusetts family members certified that she was born there in 1941 to Albert and Winifred.
Sainte-Marie herself has spoken critically of people who have embellished or lied about their Indigenous identity. She told the Los Angeles Times in 1986 of the reaction she got when she told people she was Cree.
“One out of 10 people will come up with the standard American line, ‘My grandmother was a full-blooded,’ quote, ‘Cherokee Indian princess,’” she said. “I just laugh. I know thousands of Cherokees, and I’ve never met one whose grandmother was an Indian princess. But it’s a shame, because it indicates people do have an interest, a pride in even the possibility that they may be part Indian.”
“To us, that holds far more weight than any paper documentation or colonial record-keeping ever could,” they said. “We are a sovereign nation, a sovereign people — Canada does not get to determine who we claim as family, and neither does the media.”
Some draw a distinction between being adopted into a Cree family under tribal law and customs, being granted citizenship to a First Nation and having Indigenous ancestry. The rules for obtaining citizenship vary depending on the Nation.
Indigenous people say that falsely claiming and appropriating their identity siphons away resources and opportunities from Indigenous people and fuels harmful stereotypes in a country where the real trauma Indigenous people have experienced has often been dismissed.
Rogers recently published “Blood Sport,” a play in which people are made to prove their Indigenous identity in a game show. She started work on it more than a year ago. She found much to draw on, she said, from cases in the headlines and in her personal life.
Good sees false claims “as another tool to assimilate and terminate us.”
The Indigenous Women’s Collective said that Sainte-Marie had “engaged in a great deception” and called on the Juno Awards, Canada’s Grammys, to rescind her 2018 award for Indigenous music album of the year.
Kim TallBear, a professor of Native studies at the University of Alberta, said that “what has hurt a lot of people is that she would steal the particular story of some of the most vulnerable,” such as survivors of the Sixties Scoop.
After the investigation was published, 15 survivors from across Canada gathered on a Zoom call to support one another. Colleen Hele-Cardinal, co-founder of the Sixties Scoop Network, said no one defended Sainte-Marie.
Many survivors seek as adults to reconnect with their home communities — a process that can be difficult and emotionally taxing. Sainte-Marie, she said, seemed to have it easy.
“It’s the betrayal of having somebody use the very thing that was taken from us — our culture and our communities — and to use it to benefit themselves in their career,” Hele-Cardinal said. “That was the biggest thing — the betrayal and how long it went on for.”
For many, grappling with the revelations is complicated.
Eden Fineday, publisher of IndigiNews, wrote in a column that it’s “always the Indigenous community that carries the burden of these revelations.” She asked what is accomplished when a woman of Sainte-Marie’s age “is accused of lying to us for decades.”
“Who benefits?” she wrote. “Perhaps it is too soon to tell. For me, there is no freedom in these implied revelations, no greater truth that brings light to the darkness of the world. There are only more questions and the grief of betrayal.”
Good had a suggestion for Sainte-Marie.
“What I think she could do to ameliorate some of the harm is to just come forward with the truth,” she said. “And to apologize.”
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Until this fleshes out I have no comment.
Another mess, it is quite possible that she was part of the ''scoop'' same situation is in the US. Tribes differ from the government in adoption and who and who isn't indigenous.
This should be an on going circus for some time.
I read about this earlier in the week. wtf?
It will be telling who celebrates this revelation if…if confirmed.
Why would anyone celebrate this in any way or for any reason?
Here's a clue ... Pocahontas.
I don't think Pocahontas enters into this, but am more than willing to read how you link her and Buffy.
... absolutely no possible common references to be found, is that what you're saying?
Are you actually READING what my post says?
I don't have the time to explain what everyone else can seem to get just from simply reading.
Youve already made it too complicated for him.
actually I just wanted to see if you could post 3 ignorant comments in a row... congrats!
Alright, YOU tell how Pocahontas has anything to do with it.
Ever heard of Elizabeth Warren?
Trump calls Warren 'Pocahontas' at event honoring …
Web Nov 27, 2017 · By Ali Vitali. President Donald Trump revived his derogatory nickname for Sen . Elizabeth Warren , D-Mass., on Monday, referring to her as " Pocahontas " during an event honoring Native American ...
Any idea why Trump called her "Pocohontas"?
Trump said what he said. Get over it at some point in life.
Warren was pretending to be Indian to advance her career.
Are you claiming Trump was celebrating Warren?!?!
Ridiculous, of course!
And I actually prefer the name "Fauxcahontas" as being more accurate a description of her.
Now, WTF does all this crap have to do with the story or even with the damn comment I initially responded to???
You clearly need someone to connect all this for you like one of those kids "connect the dots" books.
Out of charity I will explain it to you. Trump was "celebrating" the fact that he believed Warren was caught lying about being Native American.
If you need any more help connecting this to the seeded story go ask Trump, I give up.
I suppose it is entirely possible that Trump thought that because she lied!!!!!!!!!!
impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse impasse
That's now how it works. you have to click on their avatar on the last comment they made to you. Just typing it doesn't count.
For your "IMPASSE" to be effective, you must simply type the one single word--"IMPASSE" and nothing else!
You're welcome!
Isn't it rather weird how hard some folks have to work to get Trump into something having nothing to do with him?
Like Trump or anyone else really gives a shit what some old lady is claiming years later!
Just like Trump lied about his heritage for years as did his father and grandfather.
Yippee.
WTF does that have to do with the article?
Again, what does it have to do with the article?
It relates to comments regarding Pocahontas then Trump and finally your comment as follows:
I believe as fair play a liar like Trump should be called out for lying about the thing he is attacking another for.
MISSION COMPLETE.
I was hoping that you would realize that Pocahontas and Trump have zero to do with the article. Oh, well.
Well, great----IF this article had anything at all to do with that. But it just doesn't, despite the best efforts by some to make this, too, all about Trump, Trump, Trump.
Yes, another article trashed through the introduction of Trump, who has nothing to do with it other than occupying the entire attention spans of some.
[Deleted]
And yet you commented on it. Oh, well.
They must have succeeded here you are talking Trump.
Actually, the article isn't trashed if you'd quit talking about Trump. Also, there is some good information in the comments that relate to Sainte Marie, Cree, Indigenous etc.
Yes, trying to get folks back on topic.
See how that works now?
I imagine a world in which everyone knows the difference between dragging someone into a conversation initially and people responding to that.
[Deleted]
She has lived her life as a member of a tribe. That should be enough.
It isn't, especially if her ties to a tribe can not be documented.
you claim to be a texan and every texan in my family would insist you aren't...
And I would care about that because..............?????
And this is any of your business how?
Get back to me when you figure out how public forums work, mmkay?
Thats why im asking you the question.
You DON'T know how they work?
People read comments and respond.
got any documentation?
No, I have no documentation proving I don't give a fuck what some of your family members may have said or will say. Whatever they say holds no interest for me. Guess you'll just have to believe me--or not. It doesn't make any difference to me.
The reports state that she is not indigenous not what tribe she belongs to. A First Nations person can be First Nation and not associate with any particular tribe or more than one. A DNA test will only show what % First Nations she is and it cannot tell from what tribe she came from.
She was authenticated by a Cree lawyer and her adopted parents as being Cree. What is unknown to most non Indians is that the blood quantum rule is a rule by the Canadian and US governments not by the First Nations themselves. If, before that nonsense took over if a child was adopted by a Cree family, they were Cree, period.
3.1 is locked to prevent it from getting worse, charger
And yet you voted up #7?
She's as phony as Lizzy Warren.
Maybe you should wait for a gene jury to rule on that.
I met Buffy during the summer of 1964 when she came to Toronto to see the Mariposa Folk Festival. It was then that I also met and became friends with Joni Anderson. I thought Buffy looked more Indian than any Indian person I knew, and I knew quite a few. I suppose a DNA test of the descendants of Albert and Winifred Santamaria who are noted to be her parents on a birth certificate as compared with Buffy's DNA might help to solve the mystery and either prove or disprove her allegations.