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Originally Posted by Acajack
Lots of chatter about an explosive report on CBC's Fifth Estate to be aired later this week that alleges singer Buffy Ste-Marie is a "pretendian" with no Indigenous ancestry.
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In depth article, the old yearbook photos were interesting
Canadian documentary focuses on ‘Icon’ who based career on Native identity
Acee Agoyo Indianz.Com October 25, 2023
But the Native people who participated in CBC’s documentary process believe Sainte-Marie’s decision to step away from the spotlight is directly connected to the questions about her First Nations identity. According to the sources, work on the hour-long episode began more than a year ago and it grew to include interviews with individuals in the United States, where the performer was raised following claims to have been born in Canada and adopted out of Piapot.
Due to the lengthy production time associated with the CBC project, Sainte-Marie would have been well aware of the nature of the documentary — especially of its potential to unravel a career that began in the 1960s, the people said. The award-winning singer and songwriter has largely remained silent about her retirement decision, with no significant interviews appearing in mainstream media since her announcement more than two months ago.
But on October 14, Sainte-Marie appeared on a podcast in which she undermined her own long-running claims about her Native heritage. In an interview with Terry David Mulligan, a Canadian actor and radio and television personality who described the singer as one of his “good friends,” she said she wasn’t adopted out of the Piapot Cree Nation as she has often asserted.
“I’m always trying to clarify the urban legend stories because some of them are just not true and others are confusing,” Sainte-Marie said on the podcast, seemingly indicating that it’s the public that has not understood her Native claims.
“I think there’s been confusion regarding my Piapot adoption, for instance,” Sainte-Marie said of her connection to an elderly Cree couple that welcomed her into their family after she rose to prominence as a folk singer. “
I was adopted into the Piapot family — not I was adopted out of Piapot Reserve.”