Buffy Sainte-Marie says a CBC Information investigation that questioned her Indigenous heritage is an assault on her character, life and legacy.

“Being an ‘Indian’ has little to do with sperm monitoring and colonial report maintaining: it has to do with group, tradition, data, teachings, who claims you, who you’re keen on, who loves you and who’s your loved ones,” stated the 82-year-old Sainte-Marie in a written assertion to The Canadian Press.

The CBC’s claims additionally had been included in an episode of the community’s Fifth Property documentary that featured interviews with Sainte-Marie’s members of the family.

Within the documentary and investigation, the CBC stated it discovered Sainte-Marie’s beginning certificates stating that she was born in 1941 in Massachusetts to white mother and father. The CBC stated the knowledge was corroborated by Sainte-Marie’s marriage certificates, a life insurance coverage coverage and the U.S. census.

A CBC spokesperson stated the broadcaster stands by the story and that the proof was pretty introduced in a press release to CBC.ca.

Sainte-Marie has claimed that she was born on Tribal land and adopted by white mother and father.

Sainte-Marie stated she “is not going to stoop to answer each false allegation.” Nonetheless, she stated it was frequent for beginning certificates to be “created” after Indigenous youngsters had been adopted or taken away from their households. She stated she used a beginning certificates all through her life that was the one doc she had, based on the CBC. She added that she has by no means recognized if the beginning certificates was actual.

“I’ve heard from numerous individuals with related tales who have no idea the place they’re from and really feel victimized by these allegations,” she stated in her assertion. “Most significantly, that is my life — I’m not a chunk of paper.”

Sainte-Marie additionally stated CBC two estranged members of the family whom she doesn’t know perpetuated a narrative fabricated by her alleged childhood abuser.

In a earlier assertion on social media, Sainte-Marie wrote,  “My Indigenous id is rooted in a deep connection to a group which has had a profound position shaping my life and my work.” She added that the CBC allegations “pressured me to relive and defend my expertise as a survivor of sexual abuse, which I endured by the hands of my brother,” Alan St. Marie.

The singer-songwriter has been feted as the primary Indigenous individual to win an Academy Award for cowriting the track Up The place We Belong for the movie An Officer and a Gentleman.