We will not touch on the topic of whether Buffy Sainte-Marie is Indigenous or not. That is not up for us to decide. We do want to pick up on some threads on the impact following the investigation by The Fifth Estate on CBC.
The primary argument is the birth certificate. The investigation found that the birth certificate identifies the child as "white." Bezhig Little Bird/Esther Rosenblum — the primary character in Little Bird — says her birth certificate has her being born in Montréal. Bezhig knows that is a lie because she knows she was born in Saskatchewan and adopted by a couple from Montréal. Sainte-Marie was born before the Sixties Scoop; the story she tells matches what happened to Indigenous children stolen from their natural parents.
In the Front Burner episode, Geoff Leo, a senior investigative reporter with CBC Saskatchewan, told of conversations with younger relatives of Sainte-Marie. That would be labelled as hearsay in a court of law. I have a first cousin who didn't really know our grandmother. She wouldn't be a good resource to tell a first-hand story about our grandmother.
The people in the Front Burner episode infer (imply?) that Buffy Sainte-Marie benefited from saying she was Indigenous. This was back in the 1960s in the United States. The major Indigenous figure of that time was the Native American man who cried when he saw a bunch of litter.
Sainte-Marie did make an impact, teaching children about Indigenous people on Sesame Street in the 1970s. Americans and Canadians knew very little about Indigenous people, other than stereotypes. If this wasn't a big deal (it was a big deal), then why was Sainte-Marie the only one to step up back then?
The details Sainte-Marie gets right about what happened in the Sixties Scoop, talking about those matters when few white people even understood what was happening.
Little Bird shows us the adoption notices in the newspapers, advertising the positive elements of each Indigenous child. We watch as the head social worker goes through the dance where the children are taken away. The courtroom where the participants blatantly lie about the status of the children.
If you watched the documentary Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On (which just won the International Emmy award earlier this month), her backstory doesn't make a lot of sense. There is a mystique to the story but that story doesn't hold up too well.
The story of Bezhig/Esther wouldn't have made sense within her adopted community. Ask yourself if you have that kind of mental retention, especially when society tells you this never happened. The struggles that Bezhig goes through just to find her family is rather remarkable for its time.
Canadian film review: Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On
None of this proves that Buffy Sainte-Marie is Indigenous or not Indigenous. All we are saying is that if she isn't Indigenous, Buffy Sainte-Marie has been the Johnny Appleseed of showing settlers what Indigenous people have gone through.
For the record, Sainte-Marie has denied the accusations leveled in The Fifth Estate report.
Thanks to Little Bird, Bones of Crows, Birth of a Family and countless other Canadian films, your humble narrator has learned the basics of the Sixties Scoop.
We have noticed that Little Bird have included Buffy Sainte-Marie songs on the soundtrack. I Remember You is the song we hear as the title credits roll. We would be curious as to what co-creator Jennifer Podemski, among others, thinks about the use of the songs in light of the CBC News report.
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Michelle Latimer responds in her own words
Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers weighs in on the Michelle Latimer issue
As a settler, I have no clue as to why someone would pretend to be Indigenous. Michelle Latimer did a good job with Inconvenient Indian and Trickster yet her lack of authenticity was a significant concern.
The vetting process to receive grants going to Indigenous filmmakers would seem to be a good start. The Devery Jacobs response to the CBC investigation into Latimer seems like a good direction to go. Again, not our decision to make.
Music is a very different world than film.
My response to the CBC exposé written by @Kanhehsiio & @JorgeBarrera about Michelle Latimer’s Indigenous ancestry: pic.twitter.com/V3xAanCQuL
— Devery Jacobs (@kdeveryjacobs) December 18, 2020
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Sainte-Marie has done a lot to educate people about those who are Indigenous. Having authenticity is crucial for Indigenous people to tell their own stories. For so many years, settlers were telling those stories with little concern for accuracy.
The stereotypes that existed when I was young — amplified by various sports teams, pro and college — were highly offensive. I sadly recall the tiny "safe speech" areas around the Atlanta MLB stadium during Game 1 of the 1995 World Series featuring Cleveland and Atlanta. The people were protesting the stereotypes pushed by those teams. The Atlanta mascot, whose name we won't mention here, claimed he was afraid to walk outside in his mocking costume. That was embarrassing given that the space was very small and far away from where the mascot would have been.
Things are a lot better, though Little Bird reminds us that "today there are more Indigenous children in custody than ever before."
Determining authenticity is important even with someone as loved as Buffy Sainte-Marie. This is especially intriguing, given that the Merriam-Webster dictionary people selected "authentic" as the 2023 word of the year.
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Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On and Little Bird are both available through PBS in the United States. Little Bird is available in Canada through Crave and APTN.
photo credits: Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On; Little Bird
video credit: CBC News
Twitter capture: @kdeveryjacobs
