From my sister Chris...

The Buffy Exposé

When I was a very small child, although my family had a

lot of music in it already, my sister Maureen brought

into the family an LP record.

On the front of the cover was an American Indian woman’s face.

Blaze black hair. Big eyes. And lips of a strange shape.

The record was called “It’s my way”.

The singer? Buffy Sainte Marie. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L9DF6H87Xc

She had an interestingly warbly voice.

Musical meaning: (a lot of) vibrato.

She sang a song about a soldier who went to war but it was

full of disconnect for my 8 or 10 year old ears.

Who was this man? 

He was:

“five foot-two and he's six feet-four

He fights with missiles and with spears”

"Universal Soldier"

 

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOuZwpGHJ7E

He was:

“all of 31 and he (was) only 17,

Been a soldier for a thousand years”

How could this be?

It didn’t stop me singing it without having

any idea what it meant.

Or did I?

She also sang “Mayoo Sto Hoon” ….deset ay nay.

Which I learned phonetically, and sang with gusto, also

not knowing what it meant.

I could go on and on about how strongly these songs affected me.

How deeply embedded they became in my psyche.

And I knew every track by heart. 

After that first connection Buffy put out other albums…

all through my lifetime she fed me over and over.

This beautiful, strong, dark eyed woman who was Indian.

American Indian. Indigenous! 

I sang her songs in coffee houses when I was young.

When I grew older I taught my daughter to sing her songs

and we sang them together. For most of my life since I was

eighteen I’ve been asked by people to sing Buffy’s song

“Until it’s time for you to go”

or

“Old Man’s Lament”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJCNkixyrQQ

Now, people are questioning her.

They are telling me that she’s not indigenous.

There are documentaries and newspaper articles

where even her own siblings question her

indigenous ancestry. 

Who is telling the truth? 

Does it matter? 

Do I even care? 

Yes, I do care!

What I care more about is this. In all the time I’ve known of

Buffy Sainte-Marie, she has never claimed to know the absolute

truth of her birth. She was brought up by a loving adoptive family.

She wrote, and sang, amazing songs.

She has given many people a lot of pleasure in this life time.

And I was lucky enough to be one of them. 

Christine Tammer

Composer/Improviser/Artist

WELL, THIS DISCUSSION IS JUST SO COMPLEX!

I’ve heard my sister Chris sing some of Buffy’s songs many times in my life,

sometimes in musical gatherings up here in Central Victoria: Folk Nights, Irish

Nights, Drop-ins at the Scout Hall in Kyneton, Soirées, etc. And Chris’s renditions

have always been applauded. Now she’s in treatment for cancer her voice has

been affected and sadly she cannot perform any more.

I always loved hearing Chris present her versions of Buffy’s songs.

Now I feel her pain, like the pain of so many who have responded to the revelations

of “The Fifth Estate”... the pain felt on both sides of the discussion: either those

who are shocked lovers of the music and career of Buffy, or those who feel hurt by

her “dishonesty” as presented in many articles and comments on YouTube etc.

Starwalker

https://youtu.be/eU0fS0GA6Ek

Some samples of responses from YouTube commentary:

“Lovely Italian American music”

“How amazing an Italian American from Massachusetts has fooled us all for so long.”

“Buffy Saint Marie puts the focaccia in indigenous!”

“I am of a culture that for hundreds of years, honored, respected, and became warriors. 

In the sixties this became my greatest dilemma. So I joined the U.S. Army Special

Forces and became a wounded warrior with two scalps. The scalps were buried with

honor.  I am still troubled with guilt for the two young, but honorable enemy soldiers

I killed.  Buffy, please don't stop singing this song. Maybe it is time to bury the old

traditions.  Chippewa Elder”

“Buffy, apologize and tell the truth about your lies. You’ve done enough harm.”

“Listened to this song for almost 55 years and it still makes me cry.

Real Music of my youth, what a time it was.”

“God bless you Buffy. May Indigenous and all people around the world be inspired

and challenged by this and your other songs.”

"Now That the Buffalo’s Gone"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maAfW-87tas

 "Working For The Government"

“Thank you NativeAmerican 4Life for posting so many great Buffy St. Marie tunes. 

One of the deepest and most talented artists of our time. She just keeps coming up 

with great stuff. Brilliantly fusing together the music of the Aboriginal and Dominant 

cultures in a way that is both relevant and entertaining. Allow me to take from African 

American Poet, Nikki Giovanni when I say Buffy,

"Wrap your feet your justice. Wrap your tongue around truth." 

 

Buffy, your Mi'kMaq sister is so proud of you:)”

EXTRA NOTES:

From Wikipedia:

Some members of the Sainte-Marie family had attempted to clarify her European ancestry in the

1960s and 1970s, but the singer threatened them with legal action for doing so.[64]

In December 1964, Arthur Santamaria, Sainte-Marie’s paternal uncle, wrote to the Wakefield Daily

Item which published his editorial that Sainte-Marie "has no Indian blood in her" and "not a bit" of

Cree heritage.[64] 

Her brother, Alan Sainte-Marie, also wrote to newspapers, including the Denver Post in 1972, to clarify that his sister was not born on a reservation, has Caucasian parents, and that

"to associate her with the Indian and to accept her as his spokesman is wrong".[64] 

Alan Sainte-Marie's' daughter Heidi has stated that, in 1975, her father had met Buffy and a PBS

producer for Sesame Street while working as a commercial pilot. She has said that the producer

later asked her father if he was Indigenous, because he did not look that he was.

Her father clarified that they were of European ancestry and not Indigenous.[64] 

On November 7, 1975, Alan Sainte-Marie received a letter from a law firm representing Buffy

Sainte-Marie, which said, "We have been advised that you have without provocation disparaged

and perhaps defamed Buffy and maliciously interfered with her employment opportunities."

The letter also stated that no expense would be spared in pursuing legal remedies.[64]

Included with the law firm letter was a handwritten note from Buffy Sainte-Marie to her brother

stating that she would expose him for allegedly sexually abusing her as a child if he continued

speaking about her ancestry.[64] 

He decided to back off from his letter-writing campaign and, a month later on December 9, 1975,

Buffy made her first appearance on Sesame Street.[64]

In October 2023, an investigation by the CBC's The Fifth Estate television program

disproved Sainte-Marie's career-long claims of Indigenous ancestry. It included interviews with

some of her relatives and located her birth certificate which listed her as white and her supposed

adopted parents as her birth parents[64]

Sainte-Marie's 2018 authorized biography states she was "probably born" on the Piapot First Nation

reserve in Saskatchewan, and throughout her adult life she claimed she was adopted and does

not know where she was born or who her biological parents are. However, there is no known

official record of her adoption.

Descendants of Piapot and Starblanket also issued a statement defending Sainte-Marie's ties to

the Piapot First Nation, saying that

"We claim her as a member of our family and all of our family members are from the Piapot

First Nation. To us, that holds far more weight than any paper documentation or colonial record

keeping ever could."

They also criticized the allegations against Sainte-Marie as being "hurtful, ignorant, colonial, and racist".[66]\

On October 27, 2023, CBC News published Sainte-Marie's official birth certificate. It indicates

that she was born in Stoneham, Massachusetts, to her white parents, Albert and Winifred Santamaria.[6]Her son Cody has stated that she obtained her claims to Native identity through "naturalization" and

not by birth.[67]To verify Sainte-Marie's early Mi'kmaq identity claims, her younger sister took a DNA test

which showed that she had "almost no" Native American ancestry and she says she is

genetically related to Sainte-Marie's son, which would not be possible if Sainte-Marie was

adopted as she claimed.[67]

Responding to the CBC News findings, the acting chief of the Piapot First Nation, Ira Lavallee,

noted that despite her false claims of being Indigenous, Sainte-Marie remained accepted, saying

that "We do have one of our families in our community that did adopt her. Regardless of her ancestry,

that adoption in our culture to us is legitimate."[68] 

In late November 2023, Sainte-Marie deleted all claims to being Cree and born on Piapot First Nation

in Saskatchewan from her official website. Chief Ira Lavallee said that Sainte-Marie should take a

DNA test to clear up confusions, "That's something that anyone in my community can do and

would not have fear of doing because we know who we are and what we are, and it's easily

provable through a DNA test. If Buffy did that, that's one thing that could clear all this up."[69] 

Cree author Darrel J. McLeod 

said that Sainte-Marie is an honorary member of the Piapot family, but that growing up with

a white family allowed her to develop her talent and audience from a young age and that

she should "apologize, come clean, stop gaslighting us and find a way to make amends".[70]

FROM "VULTURE":

https://www.vulture.com/2023/11/buffy-saint-marie-indigenous.html

INVESTIGATIONS UPDATED NOV. 24, 2023

Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Indigenous Ancestry Called Into Question

Update, Friday, November 24 at 9:15 p.m.: Buffy Sainte-Marie is again pushing back
against an investigation that suggested that she fabricated the Indigenous ancestry 

she has claimed throughout her career. Last month, CBC’s The Fifth Estate documentary 

episode that Sainte-Marie was born to a white Italian family in Massachusetts.

The singer-songwriter previously defended her Indigenous background on Facebook.

In a lengthy new statement obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, Sainte-Marie maintained 

that she has “never lied about my identity.” She said she learned about her Indigenous 

ancestry from her “growing up mother, who was of Mi’kmaq heritage,” in addition her own 

research. She added that she was later adopted into a Cree family “in accordance with Cree 

law and customs,” and noted that her Indigenous identity is rooted in a “deep connection to 

a community which has had a profound role in shaping my life and my work.” Sainte-Marie, 

who has won an Oscar and Canada’s Polaris Music Prize, has been an outspoken advocate 

for Indigenous communities.

She described CBC’s report as an “attack” on her character that was “full of mistakes and 

omissions,” claiming that the documentary relies mainly on a story made up by her brother 

and alleged childhood abuser, Alan. She said that she has never met his children, whom she 

does not blame for believing their father and repeating his claims. “This has been incredibly 

re-traumatizing for me and unfair to all involved,” she said. “It hurts me deeply to discover 

that my estranged family grew up scared of me and thinking these lies because of a letter I 

sent intended to protect me from further abuse from my brother.”

As for the birth certificate that the CBC used as evidence, Sainte-Marie stated that it “was 

common for birth certificates of Indian children to be ‘created’ by western governments after 

they were adopted or taken away from their families.” She concluded that she has never known

if her birth certificate was real, but that she is also “not a piece of paper.” “Being an ‘Indian’ has 

little to do with sperm tracking and colonial record keeping,” she said. “It has to do with 

community, culture, knowledge, teachings, who claims you, who you love, who loves you, 

and who’s your family.”

Chris also sent me this wonderful measured exposition of the issues: 

Defining Indigeneity: The Problem with Buffy Sainte-Marie

by Anton Treuer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogfrMcYXTkk

Well, I hope this is not too much overload folks!

However, it’s a significant issue which has resonance all around the world including

our dear little island nation which we didn’t steal from any indigenous people because

there was no one here to steal it from in the first place, was there?

And there aren’t many full-blooded survivors from that time when there was no one

here to steal the land from, only “pretenders”, eh?

I thank Buffy for her wonderful songs on so many topics including First Nations’ history

of warfare and disentitlement. 

I thank my sister Chris for introducing me to Buffy’s songs and for singing them for

me and my friends over the past sixty years.

pt