Buffy Sainte-Marie responds to allegations about Indigenous ancestry

Singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie has responded to questions about her Indigenous ancestry that are expected to be raised in a CBC report airing this week.

“I have always struggled to answer questions about who I am,” Sainte-Marie, 82, said in a statement released Thursday. “Through that research what became clear, and what I’ve always been honest about, is that I don’t know where I’m from or who my birth parents were, and I will never know.”

Questions about Sainte-Marie’s Indigenous ancestry are expected to be central to an upcoming instalment of CBC’s news documentary show The Fifth Estate.

“An icon’s claims to Indigenous ancestry are being called into question by family members and an investigation that included genealogical documentation, historical research and personal accounts,” a description for an episode that airs Friday explains.

Chuck Thompson with the CBC said in an email sent to The Canadian Press on Thursday, “Beyond what’s in the program description, we have nothing more to add.”

CBC did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CTV News.

“I am proud of my Indigenous-American identity, and the deep ties I have to Canada and my Piapot family,” Sainte-Marie said. “My 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’s website describes her as a “Cree singer-songwriter” who “is believed to have been born in 1941 on the Piapot First Nation reserve in Saskatchewan and taken from her biological parents when she was an infant.”

According to her website, Sainte-Marie was adopted and raised in Maine and Massachusetts by a “visibly white couple.” 

“As a child, Buffy’s adoptive mother self-identified as part Mi’kmaq but knew little about Indigenous culture,” the website says, referring to the northeastern First Nations people. “She encouraged Buffy to find things out for herself when she grew up.”

In her statement Thursday, Sainte-Marie said she learned about her Indigenous ancestry from her mother and via her own research. 

“My mother told me many things, including that I was adopted and that I was Native, but there was no documentation as was common for Indigenous children born in the 1940’s,” Sainte-Marie said. “Later in my life, as an adult, she told me some things I have never shared out of respect for her that I hate sharing now, including that I may have been born on ‘the wrong side of the blanket.'”

Sainte-Marie’s website lists her as “the first Indigenous person ever to win an Oscar” for the 1982 hit song “Up Where We Belong” from the film An Officer and a Gentleman. Other notable songs from her six-decade career include “Now That the Buffalo are Gone,” “Cod’ine” and “Universal Soldier,” which was covered by Donovan and Glen Campbell. She is also noted for her activism on Indigenous issues.  

Sainte-Marie’s powerful 1964 debut album “It’s My Way” cemented her status in the burgeoning folk music scene of the 1960s. Her last studio album “Medicine Songs” was released in 2017.

In August, Sainte-Marie announced that she would be retiring from live performances, citing health concerns and physical challenges.

“I have made the difficult decision to pull out of all scheduled performances in the foreseeable future,” Sainte-Marie said in an Aug. 3 statement. “Arthritic hands and a recent shoulder injury have made it no longer possible to perform to my standard.”

With a file from The Canadian Press