Buffy Sainte-Marie and claims of false indigenous heritage

[Jot the Dot Dot]

The Fifth Estate I honestly don't know what to make of this.

 

[caseyedwards]

Transracial

 

[Buzz]

It wouldn’t be the first time someone did something like this.

 

[rfisher]

I don't know. I wasn't impressed by their evidence and conclusions, especially considering how Native children were adopted out and records were changed. It was appalling that they pulled birth certificates for a documentary. A lot of Native adults have no idea who their ancestors were for this very reason. Canada and the US both have horrible histories during this time period that they really would prefer not be made public. DNA would be the only compelling data and she's not likely to do that at this point in her life.

 

[skategal]

I don't know. I wasn't impressed by their evidence and conclusions, especially considering how Native children were adopted out and records were changed. It was appalling that they pulled birth certificates for a documentary. A lot of Native adults have no idea who their ancestors were for this very reason. Canada and the US both have horrible histories during this time period that they really would prefer not be made public. DNA would be the only compelling data and she's not likely to do that at this point in her life.

Agree.

It’s quite common especially in the USA for adoptees to be given new birth certificates with the adoptive parents listed as the parents.

It was also common of the time to deny Indigenous adoptees were Indigenous because of the stigma of both adoption and racism.

As well, over the counter DNA tests are very poor at identifying Indigenous roots.

All that to say that she could be faking it but we will probably never know the truth one way or the other.

It’s too complicated a situation to know without intensive investigation.

 

[rfisher]

Even as late as the 1960s you could essentially buy a Native baby if you wanted and the records would indicate they were yours by birth. It wasn't until the 70s most US tribes had the power to say no to all those "good intentions" to rescue the child from reservation poverty. There has been a lot of recent attention being brought to this and to the absolutely appalling number of missing Indigenous women. Their rates are way higher than those of White or Black women and most are never found or even investigated.

 

[kwanfan1818]

There are also the complications of what tribes legally can require for membership, or even whether tribes are recognized — here, the Duwamish are culturally and historically recognized locally as a tribe, but not by the Federal government after the Bush administration revoked it — that leaves people of indigenous ancestry the equivalent of stateless. (Tribeless?).

 

[Judy]

The evidence is pretty overwhelming. The birth certificate? Her story changed so many times. I don’t see her representatives offering a DNA sample either. It definitely won’t happen.

 

[rfisher]

The evidence is pretty overwhelming. The birth certificate? Her story changed so many times. I don’t see her representatives offering a DNA sample either. It definitely won’t happen.

The changing story is not uncommon for adopted Indigenous children who don't know what their tribal affiliations were. And, I'm not convinced by anything associated with the birth certificate because they were totally faked for a lot of adopted Indigenous children. Neither of those pieces of the so-called evidence are at all meaningful or indicative of anything. Why should she offer her DNA? Her Native relatives (and if you are adopted into a Native tribe, they consider you a relative) are satisfied.

 

[Jenny]

This is the companion article to the televised piece - long, detailed, attributed and with historical pictures and images of various documents mentioned. Worth a read.

 

[cygnus]

Agree.

It’s quite common especially in the USA for adoptees to be given new birth certificates with the adoptive parents listed as the parents.

It was also common of the time to deny Indigenous adoptees were Indigenous because of the stigma of both adoption and racism.

As well, over the counter DNA tests are very poor at identifying Indigenous roots.

All that to say that she could be faking it but we will probably never know the truth one way or the other.

It’s too complicated a situation to know without intensive investigation.

Except that in this case, her birth certificate is in sequence with other babies born at that time. Had it been retroactive, they would not have changed the numbering on every other birth certificate after hers.

 

[rfisher]

Except that in this case, her birth certificate is in sequence with other babies born at that time. Had it been retroactive, they would not have changed the numbering on every other birth certificate after hers.

Not if she didn't have a birth certificate at birth. Then the one filed by her parents would have been in sequence with all the others filed at that time. This is especially true if she was adopted as a newborn directly from a reservation or Catholic school. They wouldn't document an unwed mother at one of those schools and would have taken the infant away immediately.

I have no idea if she's Indigenous or not, although she certainly has the bone structure, but birth certificates for Indigenous adoptions were faked more often than not. And by faked, I don't mean it's not an original document filed with the public authorities, but that the information on the document is incorrect and not reflective of actual parentage. There was an NPR program about how often this happened last week and the consequences toward adults who determined their Native heritage but had no idea what tribal affiliations were. It was part of the overall cultural genocide toward Indigenous populations during the 19th and 20th centuries in the US, Canada, Hawai'i and Australia.