Popular singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Indigenous origins are being questioned by members of her own family as well as genealogical records unearthed and authenticated by a CBC investigation, including a birth certificate.
Buffy Sainte-Marie has repeatedly stated that she is Cree from the Piapot First Nation, Saskatchewan. Almost all sources written about him also emphasize this. The artist says she was adopted at a young age by Albert and Winifred Santamaria, a couple from Massachusetts, before being reunited with her original community a few years later.
In a 2012 biography of Buffy Sainte-Marie, author Blair Stonechild states that she does not have a birth certificate. However, last year CBC obtained a copy of the birth certificate in question. It contains the name “Beverly Jean Santamaria”, the musician’s full name before she began her career. We can also read that the parents and the child were white.
A team from the public broadcaster therefore went to Stoneham, the small town in Massachusetts where Buffy Sainte-Marie grew up, to find the original document. In the archives of the town hall, the clerk Maria Sagarino discovered one of Dr. Herbert Land handwritten certificate dated February 20, 1941, certifying that Beverly Jean Santamaria was born on February 20, 1941 at 3:15 a.m. and that his parents were in fact Albert and Winifred Santamaria. Dr. Land also attended the birth of Lainey, Buffy’s sister, in 1948.
Buffy Sainte-Marie’s lawyer, Josephine de Whytell, believes this is not definitive evidence as research shows that children adopted by Massachusetts parents were given a new birth certificate with the adoptive parents’ name on them.
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Buffy Sainte-Marie has left her mark through both her music and her activism. She has received numerous awards. (archive photo)
Photo: Canada Post
Ms. Sagarino denies these allegations. If true, the file would contain adoption documents and proof that the child entered the United States. There is no indication that she was adopted, she emphasizes.
In addition, each certificate is numbered in chronological order. If Buffy Sainte-Marie was indeed born in Saskatchewan on February 20, 1941 – as another biography published in 2018 states – and she was adopted a few weeks or months later, it is difficult to explain why his birth certificate has the number 49 classified between certificate 48 of February 18th and number 50 of February 24th.
Buffy Sainte-Marie and her lawyer have repeatedly argued that it is highly likely that the original document proving she was born in Saskatchewan was destroyed at some point. According to Kim TallBear, a professor at the University of Alberta’s faculty of Indigenous studies, this argument is often made by people who claim to be Indigenous.
In many cases there is no documentation. When a courthouse or house burned, everything burned down, explains Ms. TallBear, who also holds the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technological Sciences and Society.
On the contrary, indigenous children are better documented than the others, she emphasizes. We had to be well documented to be managed by the colonizers [et] from Indian Affairs [sic] so that they could manage the residential schools.
A number of other documents
CBC has located several other official documents indicating that Buffy Sainte-Marie was actually born in the United States:
- A life insurance policy taken out by her mother in 1945 for Buffy Sainte-Marie, in which she swears that her daughter was born in Stoneham in 1941.
- The 1950 U.S. Census shows that nine-year-old Beverly is a white girl born in Massachusetts to the Santamaria couple.
- The official paperwork his older brother Alan filled out to join the armed forces in 1956. In a statement about his family history he testifies that he has a sister, born in Stoneham in 1941. Lying in such a statement is punishable by a fine or imprisonment.
- A Los Angeles County marriage license signed by Buffy Sainte-Marie herself in 1982 to formalize her union with composer Jack Nitzsche. She states that she was born on February 20, 1941 to Albert and Winifred Sainte-Marie (the family would have changed their name from Santamaria to Sainte-Marie due to anti-Italian prejudices that prevailed during World War II). Biography written by Blair Stonechild).
Very hurtful accusations
During its investigation, CBC wrote to the artist requesting a response to these documents. Ms. Sainte-Marie is entitled to a certain level of confidentiality regarding her genealogy and family history, her lawyer responded.
Buffy Sainte-Marie, for her part, published a long statement on Facebook on Thursday. She insists and gives clues about her origins. What I know about my Indigenous identity I learned from my Mi’kmaw mother and through my own research.
My mother told me that I was adopted, that I was native, but that there was no documentation, as is often the case with children born in the 1940s, she adds.
In the same letter she points out again that she doesn’t know who her real parents are and that she will never know. For this reason, it is very difficult for both me and my two families, whom I love very much, to be questioned in this way.
A great career
Buffy Sainte-Marie’s career really took off in the early 1960s, at the same time as Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell.
His hits have been performed by Elvis Presley, Barbara Streisand and Glen Campbell, among others.
In 1964, she was named Best New Artist of the Year by Billboard Magazine.
Buffy Sainte-Marie is considered the first Indigenous person to win an Oscar in 1983 for the play “Up Where We Belong.” She has also received numerous other awards for some of his works, including several for indigenous artists as well as for all of his work.
Buffy Sainte-Marie is also a Companion of the Order of Canada, the highest honor a Canadian civilian can receive.
The now 82-year-old announced at the beginning of 2023 that she would no longer appear on stage for health reasons.
No one but Buffy talked about adopting Buffy
In addition to the written evidence unearthed by CBC, there are several testimonies from people who were close to him over time.
In 1964, in a portrait published in Look magazine, the artist claimed that she was born to Cree parents, which her paternal uncle, Arthur Santamaria, subsequently publicly denied in the Wakefield Daily newspaper. His niece has no Indian blood [sic] In her, he testified, not a drop.
Buffy’s older brother Alan also wrote to the media, who reported that his sister was Aboriginal. Alan’s daughter Heidi says her father kept copies of many important documents, such as letters he sent to newspapers.
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Buffy Sainte-Marie and the members of her group on the sidelines of a concert for Queen Elizabeth in Ottawa in 1977.
Photo: The Canadian Press
Buffy Sainte-Marie wasn’t born on a reservation […]She was born to Caucasian parents in Stoneham, Massachusetts, as we can read in one sent to the Denver Post in 1972.
Associate it with the Indians [sic] and accepting him as their spokesman is a mistake.
Bruce Santamaria, a cousin of Buffy, remembers it being a taboo subject. I remember these stories growing up […] : “Don’t talk about it. We don’t want any problems… Let her do whatever she wants, we don’t want to lose our house. We don’t want lawyers suing us for defamation.”
We were told bluntly that she was my Uncle Albert’s daughter, but he clarified it anyway. He said the family believed the stories about Indigenous ancestry were some sort of publicity stunt.
In September, CBC spoke with Lainey, Buffy Sainte-Maries’ younger sister, to ask if her parents ever mentioned that Buffy was adopted. She said no, noting that she had first heard such a statement from Buffy herself when she was in her twenties.
Heidi Sainte-Marie agrees with her father about Buffy’s roots, she said in an interview with CBC earlier this year.
No one but Buffy talked about adopting Buffy.
CBC has not found any statements from Albert or Winifred, both deceased, about Buffy Sainte-Marie’s genealogy.
Multiple origins
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Buffy Sainte-Marie in Saskatchewan while filming in 1994. (Archive photo)
Photo: CBC / CBC Still Image Library
In the many articles written about her in her early days, Buffy Sainte-Marie is portrayed in a variety of ways. Within ten months, beginning in March 1963, various media outlets claimed she was an Algonquin [sic] from birth or even that she was born Mi’kmaq [sic] in Maine or half Mi’kmaq [sic] of birth.
According to CBC’s review, it was the Vancouver Sun that first featured her as a Cree folk singer that same year.
These changing origins represent a significant red flag when investigating a person’s Indigenous ancestry, explains Métis lawyer Jean Teillet, who specializes in fraudulent appropriation of Indigenous identity. “It’s hard to believe that anyone could confuse Mi’kmaw and Cree,” she explains. These two peoples are so far apart that it’s a bit ridiculous, right?
Although Buffy Sainte-Marie says she was born in the Cree community of Piapot, CBC has not found a document identifying her birth parents by name.
“My real mother couldn’t keep me with her, but I always knew who she was and that I could return to my birthplace whenever I wanted,” the artist would have told the “Ottawa Citizen” in 1966. However, the following year she reported to the Montreal Gazette [qu’elle] born [savait] not who was [sa] real mother.
In recent weeks, Ms. Sainte-Marie has walked back certain statements she has made throughout her career. Additionally, her lawyer argued in a letter to CBC in September that the artist never claimed she knew exactly where she came from.
Taken over by the Crees
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The Piapot First Nation is located northeast of Regina.
Photo: Google Earth
Buffy Sainte-Marie says she rejoined the Piapot First Nation in the early 1960s. At the time, she was performing in Toronto and claimed she was born into an Indigenous family in Saskatchewan. Her friends told her they believed she might have ties to Emile Piapot, son of the famous Cree community leader.
Emile and [sa femme] Clara is said to have had a daughter taken away from her at the same time as Buffy Sainte-Marie was born, according to a biography of the singer.
Mr. Piapot and Ms. Sainte-Marie finally met at a powwow in 1962. After her performance, she called out to me that Emile Piapot had testified in a 1994 interview with the Regina Leader-Post. She wanted an Indian name [sic].
Buffy Sainte-Marie was adopted by the Piapot family.
On the other hand, we never really knew if we were related, the Piapot family and I, she noted during an interview on a podcast produced by CBC in 2022.
Buffy is part of our family
Whatever the birthplace of Buffy Sainte-Marie, those who present themselves as her family in the community of Piapot stand by her in the strongest possible terms.
Buffy is part of our family. “We chose her and she chose us,” said a statement posted on X Debra and Ntawnis Piapot, descendants of Chief Piapot.
We claim them as part of our family and our entire family is a member of the Piapot First Nation. For us, all of this is more important than any document or any colonial archive.
Métis lawyer Jean Teillet doesn’t entirely share this opinion. A traditional adoption like Emile Piapot’s does not make someone Aboriginal.
We become part of this family. It is both serious and touching to be introduced into a family and then bear serious family responsibilities. But it has nothing to do with being local or not, she emphasizes.
No one wants to disrespect the family and their decision to adopt her as one of their members, Professor Kim TallBear does too, but Buffy Sainte-Marie’s statements about her origins go far beyond her adoption. [Son adoption par la famille Piapot] does not contradict or excuse five decades of fabrications about his origins, his childhood and his rejection of his biological family.
With information from CBC