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I never even had the "Indian great-grandma" story in my family. We knew our ancestors came the Netherlands and the UK and exactly when.
I recently had dinner at a friend's house, and had a long conversation with her husband the first time. I noted that his name sounded Dutch, since I am of Dutch descent myself (with a very English last name). Turns out he is Belgian, but then he went on to say that he grew up being told that he was MOSTLY Native American and then had his DNA done and found out he's maybe 5%. But he just turned 61, and he's lived most of his life believing he's mostly indigenous because there was some family story handed down that wasn't true.
One of my great-grandfathers looks completely "Indian" in his pictures. My mother said people joked about his ancestry, he did so not look Mennonite. We are a pretty homogeneous group. My theory is that there's a gypsy in the family going back a generation or two. Someone I know traced the geneology on that side of the family and came across a strange story of a Mennonite child being abducted by gypsies back in Ukraine.
Years later a young Mennonite man was riding his horse through a gypsy encampment and spied a young lady whom he recognised to be the now grown-up Mennonite child. So he abducted her back and married her. One or two generations later my great-grandfather was born.
It does not seem plausible to me that a child abducted would be recognizable as an adult. So I think my ancestor spied a beautiful gypsy girl, it was love at first sight, and ran away with her.
This keeps happening and it will keep happening. Main reason is, it is very easy to do so. Many Native communities in Canada are very very mixed (some more than others) and have members of their tribes that are clearly more european than native. I personally know people that are officially part of a tribe, have blonde hair and light eyes. I know one young lady that is a member of a band in Ontario, has a status card , she took a DNA test and got 20% indigenous to the americas, the rest was European, a mix of French and English. She says she knows of other Natives that have taken DNA tests and have gotten even less like in the single digits. Many tribes in the US and Canada actively discourage their members from taking DNA tests. Metis people were also recently officially recognized as a first nations group. Some of them have very little Native blood. The arguments I get from native people about this are, natives don't recognize race the same way europeans do. Or they say race is a social construct, Or race is a colonizers concept. They refuse to accept or reject the fact many of them are more European than Natives. Or they say that some natives are simply "light skin" and thats why they look European. This is specially true in Eastern Canada.
So with so many first nations communities becoming more white over time it is no wonder so many people will attempt to claim native when they're not. It's crazy Buffy got a way with it for so long but completely understandable here in Canada.
This keeps happening and it will keep happening. Main reason is, it is very easy to do so. Many Native communities in Canada are very very mixed (some more than others) and have members of their tribes that are clearly more european than native. I personally know people that are officially part of a tribe, have blonde hair and light eyes. I know one young lady that is a member of a band in Ontario, has a status card , she took a DNA test and got 20% indigenous to the americas, the rest was European, a mix of French and English. She says she knows of other Natives that have taken DNA tests and have gotten even less like in the single digits. Many tribes in the US and Canada actively discourage their members from taking DNA tests. Metis people were also recently officially recognized as a first nations group. Some of them have very little Native blood. The arguments I get from native people about this are, natives don't recognize race the same way europeans do. Or they say race is a social construct, Or race is a colonizers concept. They refuse to accept or reject the fact many of them are more European than Natives. Or they say that some natives are simply "light skin" and thats why they look European. This is specially true in Eastern Canada.
So with so many first nations communities becoming more white over time it is no wonder so many people will attempt to claim native when they're not. It's crazy Buffy got a way with it for so long but completely understandable here in Canada.
You're right....some are very mixed....I remember seeing an interview on TV with the chief of a First Nations band near Cache Creek, BC during a forest fire back about 2018 and he had piercing light blue eyes and didn't look indigenous at all....
the whole time I was thinking....this guy is the chief?....wow....
I had an uncle and an aunt who looked way more native than that guy...
at least Buffy looks the part....easily fooled me ...but I always thought it was weird when
old almanacs indicated different birthplaces for her ....Craven, Saskatchewan...Boston, MA....
I'm not sure that I'm understanding the outrage here. Oh, certainly, the First Nations can be outraged, and rightly so. But for the rest of us ....
Fact is, that Buffy Sainte Marie hasn't been relevant in about forty or fifty years. I'd suggest that most of us, at least those of us who can remember that far back, know her as a folk/rock musician, who rode the wave of Canadian Content regulations after they were introduced for radio in early 1971. Radio was so starved for Canadian content, that any garage band could take a demo tape into a radio station, and if it was anywhere near good, it would get airplay. And so, we got Keith Hampshire*, Gary and Dave, Ken Tobias, Larry Evoy**, Ray Materick, and Peter Foldy, among others. Never heard of them? I'm not surprised; with only a few exceptions, their music and thus, their names, did not survive.
And Buffy Sainte Marie might as well join them. I can name songs by the above (Ray Materick, "Linda, Put The Coffee On," Ken Tobias, "I Just Wanna Make Music," Peter Foldy, "Bondi Junction," Gary and Dave, "Could You Ever Love Me Again?"). Might as well add Patsy Gallant and "From New York to L.A.," though she came a little later. But I cannot name a song by Buffy Sainte Marie. Maybe she's not as relevant as she and the CBC thinks she is.
I say that as a former radio host. Buffy Sainte Marie was not in our "Cancon to fill out the 30% in the hour" go-to bin; while Gordon Lightfoot, Rush, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Klaatu, the Guess Who, and by extension, Burton Cummings, were. Like I said, maybe she's not as relevant as she and the CBC thinks she is.
* Keith Hampshire recorded "Daytime Night-Time," and "The First Cut is the Deepest," but may be best known for writing and recording the Toronto Blue Jays' theme song, "Okay, Blue Jays."
** Larry Evoy may be best known as the lead of "Edward Bear," which did have a couple of international hits--"Last Song," "You, Me, and Mexico," and "Close Your Eyes" all charted in the US.
Last edited by ChevySpoons; 10-31-2023 at 12:19 AM..
This is good news! Awards that Buffy Sainte Marie received through deception should be rescinded. If not, they should be taken and given to the deserving Indigenous runner up for the awards.
"A group of Indigenous women is calling for Buffy Sainte-Marie to lose her Juno Award for Indigenous album of the year, after a CBC story raised doubts about the singer's ancestry.
"We invite the Juno Awards Committee to revisit this 2018 category and explore ways of righting a past wrong. All Indigenous artists in this 2018 category … should be reconsidered for this rightful honour," the Indigenous Women's Collective said in a statement late Sunday.
...
The Junos did not respond to a request for comment Monday but said last week that it had not seen "The Fifth Estate" show and had "nothing to provide."
Sainte-Marie has also received many other notable awards, including the Order of Canada in 1997 and a Gemini, now known as the Canadian Screen Awards.
The Office of the Secretary to the Governor General said in a statement that it's aware of the report about Sainte-Marie's ancestry but does not comment on the possibility of honours being revoked.
"The Order of Canada advisory council reviews nominations and makes appointment recommendations to the Governor General. This same council can also make a recommendation to terminate an appointment."
The first two to three rows of photos show blond, blue-eyed Andrew Delisle of a Mohawk community on the south shore of Montreal. He was a major public figure during the Oka crisis of 1990.
This keeps happening and it will keep happening. Main reason is, it is very easy to do so. Many Native communities in Canada are very very mixed (some more than others) and have members of their tribes that are clearly more european than native. I personally know people that are officially part of a tribe, have blonde hair and light eyes. I know one young lady that is a member of a band in Ontario, has a status card , she took a DNA test and got 20% indigenous to the americas, the rest was European, a mix of French and English. She says she knows of other Natives that have taken DNA tests and have gotten even less like in the single digits. Many tribes in the US and Canada actively discourage their members from taking DNA tests. Metis people were also recently officially recognized as a first nations group. Some of them have very little Native blood. The arguments I get from native people about this are, natives don't recognize race the same way europeans do. Or they say race is a social construct, Or race is a colonizers concept. They refuse to accept or reject the fact many of them are more European than Natives. Or they say that some natives are simply "light skin" and thats why they look European. This is specially true in Eastern Canada.
So with so many first nations communities becoming more white over time it is no wonder so many people will attempt to claim native when they're not. It's crazy Buffy got a way with it for so long but completely understandable here in Canada.
Easier to do so - maybe. You're right about how mixed people tend to be these days. Manitoba MP Leah Gazan is a very prominent and vocal Indigenous activist. Her background: Jewish Holocaust survivor dad from Europe and a mother who is half Indigenous North American and half Chinese.
That said, people's pedigrees are also being scrutinized more than ever. So while there are advantages to having Indigenous status today (free university, tax exemptions, etc.) there is also a higher risk than ever of getting caught if you're a fake.
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