Sainte-Marie has won seven Juno Awards – the country’s equivalent of a Grammy – including 1997’s Best Music of Aboriginal Canada Recording, as it was called then, as well as 2009’s Aboriginal Recording of the Year and 2016’s Aboriginal Album of the Year and 2018’s Indigenous Music Album of the Year.
A CBC investigation broadcast in 2023 shed doubt on the singer’s claims of Indigenous ancestry, alleging that Sainte-Marie fabricated her Indigeneity, and presented a birth certificate shown on camera that claimed she was born Beverly Jean Santamaria, in Massachusetts, to white parents.
Singer Buffy Sainte-Marie stripped of prestigious Canadian honour ‘Universal Soldier’ singer addressed ‘hurtful allegations’ questioning her claims of Indigenous ancestry in 2023.
Her 2018 biography also states she was likely born Cree, while her website stated that she was “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”.
Sainte-Marie, 83, best known for her 1964 anti-war anthem “Universal Soldier” and for co-writing the Oscar-winning song “Up Where We Belong”, was awarded the Order of Canada in 1997 for her services to Indigenous Canadians.
