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Buffy Sainte-Marie denies she misled public about Indigenous ancestry

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ska:
Singer calls allegations ‘deeply hurtful’ after documentary questions ‘shifting narrative’ surrounding her Cree roots

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/27/buffy-sainte-marie-indigenous-ancestry-canada-documentary#:~:text=The%20singer%20has%20previously%20said,fire%20destroyed%20her%20birth%20records.&text=But%20the%20CBC%2C%20citing%20interviews,and%20has%20no%20Indigenous%20ancestry.

ska:
"Indigenous Women's Collective calls for Buffy Sainte-Marie's 2018 Juno to be rescinded after CBC investigation"

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/buffy-saint-marie-mislead-indigenous-people-indigenous-women-s-collective-1.7012847

Defend the Sacred:
CBC Documentary with original birth certificate, family photos and home movies and, in her own words, many clips and signed statements from Sainte-Marie over the decades showing her changing backstory as well as confirming she is actually an Italian-American woman, born Beverly Santamaria, raised by her birth parents in Massachusetts.

Investigating Buffy Sainte-Marie’s claims to Indigenous ancestry - The Fifth Estate

Non-Natives and those unfamiliar with the reasons for boycotting commercial DNA tend to immediately demand a DNA test. Well, she doesn't need to take one. Her son took one, as did her sister. The tests confirmed her son is her "adopted" sister's nephew - which confirms the paper trail - Buffy/Beverly was not scooped or adopted as a child. She is the biological child of the same Italian/English couple in suburban Massachusetts who raised her. The sister is her biological sister. Family members tried to tell people, but she threatened them with lawsuits and worse.

This article by Acee Agoyo goes into the DNA, and other details:

Canadian documentary focuses on ‘Icon’ who based career on Native identity

I have seen the sister's gedcom results. "Ethnicity percentages" results are not reliable for detecting Native ancestors, as the companies have very few samples from Native American donors, and much of what they have was taken unethically. What they mark as "Amerindian" can also be misread Central Asian or Indigenous from other parts of the world. There is no way to confirm they are Native American markers unless the person also matches as a relative on those chromosomes with Native relatives whose full ancestral makeup is known beyond any doubt.

That said, the sister's "Amerindian" percentage varied from .41% to .53%. Results of less than 1% are regarded as "background noise" by most companies. They are not a reliable indicator of Native ancestry, even if any legitimate community did go by the one drop rule (and they don't).

I only mention this tiny bit as some are grasping at straws so hard they're claiming that this dubious, potential,  less than one drop makes her Native. It doesn't. That's just not how it works. Or that the Piapot adoption does. All the adoption does is make her a member of that family, it doesn't change who her ancestors and birth family are,  what the first 20 years of her life were like, or the fact that Piapot couple were lied to, and led to believe she was a returning member of their community. That adoption of a famous person took place under limited information and false pretenses. While I think most everyone respects the rights of the current Piapot community to decide what that means now, I think we all know the context needs to be kept in mind.

Adding print version of CBC investigation, which has copies of birth certificate and other images:

Who is the real Buffy Sainte-Marie?
Buffy Sainte-Marie’s claims to Indigenous ancestry are being contradicted by members of the iconic singer-songwriter’s own family and an extensive CBC investigation.
By Geoff Leo, Roxanna Woloshyn and Linda Guerriero

Sparks:

--- Quote from: ska on October 28, 2023, 12:59:26 pm ---Singer calls allegations ‘deeply hurtful’ after documentary questions ‘shifting narrative’ surrounding her Cree roots

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/27/buffy-sainte-marie-indigenous-ancestry-canada-documentary
--- End quote ---

This is a long article related to the documentary referred to above:

https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/features/buffy-sainte-marie


--- Quote ---Who is the real Buffy Sainte-Marie?
Buffy Sainte-Marie’s claims to Indigenous ancestry are being contradicted by members of the iconic singer-songwriter’s own family and an extensive CBC investigation.
By Geoff Leo, Roxanna Woloshyn and Linda Guerriero — Oct. 27, 2023
--- End quote ---

WATCH | The full Fifth Estate documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMsqCWNCUc4
[Investigating Buffy Sainte-Marie’s claims to Indigenous ancestry - The Fifth Estate] (43 minutes)
[Edit: While I was typing, this link was being published by Defend the Sacred.

During the week that has passed since these two links were published, hundreds if not thousands of news articles, Facebook and Instagram announcements, and YouTube videos have appeared, both Pros & Cons.

In her Wikipedia article these developments are referred to in the Personal life and Indigenous identity paragraphs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffy_Sainte-Marie

educatedindian:
It's completely clear she lied consistently. It's also clear that, like Cruz/Littlefeather or DaCorta/Iron Eyes, this is 50-60 years too late to be of any use. It's much like when the feds make a big show of prosecuting long retired mobsters. The time for anyone to investigate or for family members to come forward was very long ago.

Santamaria (we should only use her real name, just like we do for spiritual frauds) is 82 and retired. Hasn't been a big figure in pop music since the early 70s. Since then she played almost entirely for NDNs, which is no doubt why it hurts so much to be deceived.

CBC sat on this story for over a year, just for ratings. Indianz did much better, a 2 day investigation uncovering almost the same facts. The pain and deceit are both very real and raw. Like Sparks points out, we could fill dozens of threads just with all the talk about this in a short time. The fact that these revelations are far too late to do much good is part of why.

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