Buffy Sainte-Marie: Celebrating Indigenous Identity
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Well, hello, welcome to the Jan Arden Podcast and very special show. I'm sitting here today with Buffy St. Marie, who

who is coming to us from Hawaii. Buffy St. Marie is an indigenous singer, songwriter, musician, brilliant composer, a visual artist, an amazing educator. Social activism is where I first started seeing and hearing about Buffy St. Marie in the 70s as a young girl in Springbank, Alberta,

Buffy St. Marie was hitting all those buttons in my head about being a woman in this world, being a performer in this world, being someone who was voicing her opinions.

And I think it's your bravery and your outspokenness that struck me so much. You've been working in these areas and so many more. Your repertoire has spanned six decades. And I've just recently watched your documentary twice. Buffy St. Marie, please say hello. Everybody, you can hear the cheering all across the country. Thank you, Chad. You're just too nice. Thank you very, very much.

With your documentary, I want to start there just because it's, I was so mind boggled of what I learned about you. I was so completely thrilled that there's so much archival footage of you and your young life going to New York and the folk scene and everything that you were doing.

I was captivated. I watched it the first time about six weeks ago, and then I watched it again two weeks ago. And I just want you to talk a little bit about what that was like revisiting your past. I mean, in your career that has been so vast. Well, thanks for even being interested. We really need to mention Madison Thomas, who is the young filmmaker, who is the director. She is mixed heritage herself.

And Andrea Warner, who actually wrote the second biography about me. Not one biography, but two biographies. There are two biographies.

Let me mention the second one first since I'm talking about Andrea Warner who lives on the West Coast and she's a very well-known journalist and she wrote another wonderful book about women in music. And if you want a treat, or you've probably already read it, Jan, but maybe some of our listeners don't know, We Oughta Know. We Oughta Know by Andrea Warner. It's about the time when there were four women musicians

on the top of the Canadian charts. And some guy decided that you can't play women back to back, or I don't know what was supposed to happen. But anyway, God forbid, uh, Andrea's book, we ought to know is really a treat. It's really wonderful. It's about Alanis Morissette and, and, and Celine and, uh,

Sarah McLaughlin and Shania Twain. Yeah, I know we were dominating the world. It was a very crazy time. I think there's some ridiculous number of literally 170 million records or something were sold between these four women in like a 10 or 11, 12 year period. Anyway, your documentary is called Carry It On.

It's a couple of hours of your history. Is it strange looking back, Buffy, when you just think about what you have been through? How does that make you feel? Oh, gosh, a lot of things at the same time, Jan. This is the second documentary about my life.

So I kind of got used to it the first time in covering the things that most people want to know. So the first one was done by Joan Prowse in Toronto, and it's called Buffy St. Maria Multimedia Life. But in the case of each documentary, there's an awful lot that you can't say. Why is that? Well,

Well, because there's only an hour and 48 minutes. I understand. And so there's a lot that you have to leave out. Yeah, there's a lot that gets left out. For instance, they didn't say very much about the Creative Word Teaching Project. They didn't tell very much about my actual life as a child. I mean, they mentioned one...

sad thing, but they didn't mention any of the happy things that happened as a child. They didn't go into very much about my kind of identity problems. You know, when you don't know who you are, either as an adopted child or a child born on the wrong side of the blanket, or you don't exactly know who you are or where you came from. Well, let's talk about that. I wanted

talk about that. I mean, that is the beginning. You're doing a documentary and you hit all those markers of career highs and stars that you met and television shows you made appearances on and those types of things that, oh, that's what the people want to know.

okay, let's take that opportunity. Buffy as a child, identity, being born on a reservation in Saskatchewan. But you don't know. You don't know that you were born on a reservation in Saskatchewan. I've read all kinds of things about myself. I've

read that my parents were killed in an automobile accident. I don't know who said that or why, but I don't know. People tend to fill in the blanks, I think, when they don't know. And journalists only have so much column space and so things get left out. Also, I think there's also been a big confusion about my relationship to my pipot family, who are my second adopted family.

I was adopted into PIPOCs, but I think some people think that I was adopted out of PIPOCs. So I don't truly know where I was born. I don't know. But when you're adopted, your papers are assigned by the court and sealed. And so you don't really know. And I think there are a lot of

So certainly in the case of indigenous people who were adopted away either during the 60s school pool, it went way back earlier than just the 60s. Yes. There are a lot of kids who have been adopted into a Protestant home or a Catholic home or a Jewish home and who have grown up that way, not really knowing very much because the people who adopted them didn't know very much. So I was raised with a confused identity. I didn't know where I came from. I was told that I could not

be indigenous. But on the other hand, on the same day, I was told that I could not be a musician for the same reasons. The reasons were that the people making these assumptions didn't have the facts, and so they didn't know. They thought that if you could not read European notation, you couldn't be a musician. You were going to be shunned and shamed and not allowed in music class, not allowed to be in band. You weren't allowed to be in chorus.

because you couldn't read European notation. I want to mention something because I mentioned this to Chet Atkins, okay? Chet Atkins got in touch with my first record company and asked would I like to come to Nashville and make a record with himself and his colleagues. Chet Atkins! Oh my goodness!

I had been told that Chet Atkins had six fingers. I mean, that's how well he played. Chet Atkins is a major, major jazz musician, country musician, pop musician. Incredible. So I asked him one day, I said, Chet, sometimes the boys in the band give me the business because they can read music and I can't. And he said, you know what I say when somebody asks me if I can read music? And I said, no, Chet, what? And he said,

Not enough to hurt my playing. So I grew up in a climate where both indigeneity and musicianship were not seen through my own eyes. You know, it was through the eyes of the system and not knowing anything.

And so when you're a musician like that or an indigenous person like that, as you learn things, as you learn more and you learn as a little kid, when you get a little bigger, you can ask big kid questions. You find out that the world is not like you maybe thought it was.

It's a little bit different. And my mom, my adoptive mom, who was wonderful, by the way, and she was real smart and real funny. And, you know, if I get anything going for me, it's because she taught me how. Were you adopted as an infant, Buffy, or were you? Yeah. You were just an infant. Yes. Yeah. So my mom told me that, you know, although her family were of Mi'kmaq descent, she had always been told that.

I mean, where did that leave me? Did that mean that I too was part Megamind? Maybe. Because they're part white. Does that mean, what about the adopted? Does that mean that I'm part white too? I mean, I didn't know what I was.

Imagine yourself in that position. You don't really know. You do the best you can. You seek. And my sweet mom, she said, you know, we don't know much about this, but when you grow up, you can go and find out. So that kind of became...

Something to look forward to. And very much part of a musician's journey, I would imagine, would have been, and I'm just presuming here, that identity had to have played into the songs that you wrote, the things that you drew from. When I listen to your music, I hear the echoes of the past.

And I hear the hope of the future. I remember being in a very small basement suite apartment and listening to Brie, My Heart at Wounded Knee. And it was so ahead of its time for me. I didn't have a record deal yet. I didn't have any of that. I really have to make this comment to you of how timeless your productions are, how timeless your voice is, how timeless this music is.

thrusts itself into everything that's happening today with such ease and such grace. And your voice is so uncompromising. It is like nobody else's voice. When you sing two notes, I know it's Buffy St. Marie.

And that maybe your journey into identity has been a very powerful motivator. I just feel it. I really do. I feel your legacy and that looking back into the past for who you are, why you're here, where you belong.

Which brings me to your song, Up Where We Belong, and I want to talk about that too. Can I tell you something about Bury My Heart at One? Please. Oh, please. That kind of song. What I was trying to do, you know, thank you for all those lovely things you said, and I didn't want to stop you in the middle. No. Some of my...

Some of my songs are definitely things that I can claim to be about myself. Like, until it's time for you to go, I know what happened. Universal Soldier, I know exactly what I was going for, right? I knew those things. Now, Universal Soldier and Until It's Time For You To Go, one is a love song and the other is a protest song about something that affects the entire global world. Yes. They are not indigenous songs, but they were written by me.

On the other hand, something like Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee or Now That the Buffalo's Gone, which is about the building of Kinsua Dam in upper New York State and the eviction of the Seneca Nation so they could flood that area and somebody could make a fortune. Or My Country Tis of Thy People, You're Dying. These are not songs particularly about me. These are songs where I, as a writer myself,

The same writer who wrote Until It's Time for You to Go and Universal Soldier. I'm trying to spotlight other people. I'm trying to spotlight their work. I'm trying to spotlight their situation. Storytelling. Kind of, yeah, but not necessarily autobiography. Right.

So as a writer, I can do several different things. And some writers write in a certain way all the time, God bless them, like Motown. You buy a Motown album and you know that each song is going to have a lot in common with the one before. But I'm a different kind of writer. I don't come from a writer community. I'm really a one-off person.

Like, you know, like a lot of natural musicians are. I didn't learn it in school. It wasn't refined at Berkeley College of Music or somewhere where they teach you production and stuff. It's all really raw and natural.

And if I can jump the tracks for a second, you know, I've been wishing and wishing. Yeah, please. So maybe you can help with it. I wish that the Junos and the Grammys, you know how at the end they always have like a two-minute in memoriam where we celebrate the people who have passed during the previous year? I wish we had a two-minute...

picture show of all the natural musicians who can't read music maybe because like me they're dyslexic in music I'd be in there I'll be in it well so would chad atkins I don't read a note I have a no I have no idea yep so west montgomery he used to turn you know chad atkins and west montgomery great jazz players

But, you know, when you ask Chet Atkins about reading music, he says, not enough to hurt my playing, you know. I love that. I love that. I do, too. I do, too. So, you know, Eric Clapton and Elvis Presley and Fanny

Fats Domino and Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger and just about anybody you can name as a pop or rock and roll or street or contemporary musician, we get there by a different part of the brain that I think is really important. And some songs I think come from, I think that when you're working on a song, I mean, you as a writer wouldn't know, when you're working on a song, sometimes the inspiration comes from one part of the brain.

And if somebody interrupts you then or the phone rings or something and you have to switch to the other side of the brain, you'll never hear that song again, right? Because you've switched to the other side of your brain. And it's the same thing, I think, sometimes when I'm writing a song, I'm on the inspiration side of human consciousness.

But when it comes to being an editor and turning that song into something that can be understood by somebody else, oh, that's the other side of the brain, just as important. That's what refines things. That's what edits it and makes it make sense to other people too.

So I kind of have this student and teacher thing going all the time. And some of my songs are really written more as personal autobiographical information. Others, I'm really trying to spotlight somebody else or the work of somebody else or just almost be like a news journalist. Just I mean, my country tears of thy people. You're dying is just an irrefutable list of facts. Yeah, it's not about me.

It's about the subject. Do you find that sometimes as much as things have seemed to change, that they have remained the same? A lot of these social issues that you were writing about, like you said, shining a light onto these ordinary people doing extraordinary things. How do you feel about where we're at now and what people are writing about now? A lot of it seems like, yeah, there's a bit of noise going on. I mean, pop music has always...

been kind of fun and this party atmosphere. But then there was people like yourself, and there's so many writers out there that write about important things. And do you think that there are those artists out there in this climate writing about important issues that are happening in the 2020s? Or has that time come and gone?

Oh, no, I think they are. I think maybe they're not writing it like Bob Dylan or me or Joni. You know, we're not, it's not like that. It's certainly there in hip hop, but kind of a, maybe a narrower focus. Maybe they're not, maybe hip hop is not focusing so much as much as we'd like on indigenous issues, but all the indigenous hip hop artists certainly are. Some of the indigenous artists are writing, let's say content rich songs.

material, whatever it's about, might be positive, might be combative, might be historical, whatever they're writing about, they're there. They might be writing posts online, but people are expressing themselves. Maybe us allsters are not seeing it in the same way that somebody 18 is going to see it, but it's happening. Another thing, I always say the good news about the bad news is that more people know about it.

You know, and you're asking about do I think things have changed? And I think, yeah, good news about the bad news. More people know now. When I wrote My Country Changes Thy People, You're Dying,

Nobody believed it. I mean, in the first place, the record business thought I was crazy and ought to just stick to until it's time for you to go. And if I was going to sing about indigenous stuff, for God's sakes, put on an Indian costume. So we'll know where you're going. I mean, it was just so. Wow. This was 55 years ago. It's a long time ago. Things have changed a lot. You know, that, that attitude is that's just old fashioned, but yeah,

The good news about the bad news, more people know about it. They do. I mean, I was on Sesame Street for a long time. I loved it. I loved all your stuff on Sesame Street. What I learned on Sesame Street is, you know what? There's always a new crop of five-year-olds. So even though, even though,

We might think that it's a terrible thing that my country, tis of thy people, you're dying. Nobody wanted to know about it 50 years ago when they should have been helping, right? No, you don't even go there because people come across information when they come across it. They do.

And as a writer, I think every writer or even every singer, every artist, you know, there are waves. You get opportunities for the spotlight to fall upon you. And then it goes somewhere else and nobody wants to know about you for a while. And so you do something else. And it's those do something else times.

that really inform you so that you'll be ready if that spotlight comes across again and you get another opportunity to help with something or to say something or to be something or to be somewhere.

So we shouldn't get discouraged when, you know, Mr. and Mrs. Media are not paying attention to us. They're paying attention to somebody else. Relax, you know, do something. Do something with that time. Don't just sit there and say, oh, where'd the spotlight go? No, it's changing all the time. The world is changing all the time. And so are we. So I think that sometimes it feels as though we're spinning our wheels, but we're not because people...

New people are discovering old information. Believe me, my country, just as thy people you're dying, is much better known now than it was when it first came out. And I mean, even though J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI might have sat on it and tried to make it go away, there is a website called creeliteracy.org that has the song not only in English and not only annotated as to what it's about line by line in English, but it's also there in Cree.

Thanks to the work of Solomon Ratt and Arden Ogg, who run a website called creeliteracy.org. So see, the world stays the same, but to get new opportunities to have it make sense to new people in new ways. And we need to be comfortable with that, I think. I wanted to ask you about

how the industry has changed. And it's kind of on the heels of what you just said, you know, things are evolving and, you know, you have the spotlight on you for, you know, for a certain time and then it goes away and then it comes back inevitably. But streaming services, the way people are ingesting music and how they're getting their music. I see lots of pros and cons. I mean, the fact that you can,

touch a button and really have access to millions and millions and millions of titles. There is the downside that artists are not being paid properly. They're still trying to figure out how to monetize

streaming, but how do you think that has been? I mean, your music used to be, you go out and buy a Buffy St. Marie cassette or an album or, you know, and then it was CDs, of course. And now, you know, those things really have changed for a virtual audience.

computer file that we're all trying to figure out how to use most days. But how do you feel about that? Well, I'm just glad people can get music. Yeah. I think it's terrific. And what I liked most about the 60s was

is that a whole lot of people, because of the climate, you know, yeah, there were hippies around, yeah, but the whole climate of students having discovered our brains and we're not going to somebody's war, instead we're going to have music festivals, you know, it was a rare moment in history. We weren't getting then either. Nobody was paying us. Yeah. I mean, why?

I mean, when have musicians ever been paid? Your listeners might have the idea that maybe the record company gave me airplane tickets or hotel rooms or something to support me while I was going around doing concerts. Never! They did. Maybe they did to Paul Simon or Crosby, Stills and Nash or other musicians.

groups who had super duper, super duper managers. I mean, David Geffen was not to be messed with, right? But most of us, and I'm not even going to say most of us women, most of us indigenous people, no, most of us artists, we didn't get that kind of support. Nobody was giving me airplane tickets. That came out of my singing money. Even my foundation, that came out of my singing money. So my...

to up-and-coming songwriters is just hang on to your publishing. Keep your publishing. It's the only thing that I ever did right because I'm terrible at business. I don't know if that's true. No, I had to learn the hard way, Jane. I wrote a song called Universal Soldier and I gave away the publishing rights for a dollar to some guy who just happened to be there when the highwaymen were trying to put my song on their...

new album and they were coming off a number one hit, Michael, Roll the Boat Ashore. So I had this great opportunity, but I was so green.

I was so green to show business. I had a manager who happened to be there that night and he knew this guy, but nobody's protected me. I mean, I was a nobody. And even after my name was well known, I never had like, I just didn't have, I just, I'm trying to give your audience the idea of what it's like to be just a songwriter there all by yourself.

I did have a lawyer who gave me good advice. And he said, set up your own publishing company. And I did. But it was only after I made the mistake with Universal Soldier. Consequently, when Elvis Presley's people came to me and said that he was about to record my song until it's time for you to go. I mean, a whole lot of people had already recorded that song. It was already a standard, according to Chet Atkins.

Yep, it sure is. I mean, Barbra Streisand had recorded it, Neil Diamond had recorded it, Bobby Darin had recorded it, Sonny and shit. So when Elvis Presley's people came to me, and I was a huge Elvis Presley fan, and I was a teenager, oh, we should talk about it. I said no. And the reason why I said no is because Elvis didn't write it, I wrote it. And so I was sticking up for other songwriters as well as myself. Did they want the publishing?

Oh, yeah.

That took a lot of bravery. I mean, that's what I mean about you. You had so much for someone who was a singer-songwriter out in the world by yourself, financing yourself, making these decisions. Yes, making mistakes along the way. But to say to Elvis Presley at the time, who you admired greatly, no, I'm not giving up my publishing. And by the way, it wasn't the Colonel on the phone. When the phone rang, it was somebody I already knew named Ferlin.

I said, "Hi, Ferlin, what's going on?" He said, "Elvis just recorded your song and we're going to have to have some of that publishing money, honey." So I never... They called again and again and again. And Elvis actually recorded the song nine times without my ever having given up any of the publishing because he hadn't written it and I had.

That's what happened. That's what happened. But it happened because of Universal Soldier. And a lot of people will say that I was blacklisted because of Universal Soldier, but I've never believed that. They keep writing it, but I still don't believe it. I don't think... Because...

Donovan recorded Universal Soldier, Glen Campbell recorded Universal Soldier. Most people thought that Donovan had written it, but neither Donovan or Glen Campbell never got into any trouble because of Universal Soldier. The only person who got into any trouble was me. So I think that it had to do with sticking up for indigenous issues.

in my song and on TV, you know, I debated a congressman on TV. So, you know, I was really trying to spotlight indigenous issues when I was, you know, really young and green. Where did you get that bravado from? There wasn't any bravado. It's just that this, no, I forget where it was, California or somewhere. Somebody told me that this guy, this congressman was sticking up with a bunch of other congressmen to abrogate, to break every treaty in congressional archives.

And this happens every now and then. And a lot of us knew that this happens every now and then. The average public would not know. But my friends were from the National Indian Youth Council, from the American Indian Movement. Everybody knew that this happens from time to time, that a congressman will try to break every treaty in congressional archives. And I knew what was going on. And somebody said, well, somebody's got to. So I went and stuck up for it. They asked me, would I stick up for it? So I did.

And ahead of time, I worked with other Indigenous people to make sure that I had the facts straight. And it wasn't bravado at all. It had to be done. This guy was going to go on television and say things that were terrible. But that still takes courage. That still takes courage for a young Indigenous woman to speak truth and to speak truth to power.

I just know that there's a lot of women, Indigenous or otherwise, that would never be able to gather themselves into a place of being that brave. I find it exceptional.

But that's your activism. That's another part of your brain and your soul and your body. I see people every day on television doing courageous things. So I always say that they were courageous. They might not say they were courageous. And I don't feel particularly courageous. I was more afraid of what this guy could do than I was afraid of what they could do to me because it never even occurred to me that they could do anything to me. I didn't know.

So maybe he was right and I was wrong, but not about the issue. Can you talk about your activism a little bit? Because I don't think I've ever, I mean, your music, some of it is, like you said, it is about activism. It is about shouting out into the world of, you know, what's just and what's right and what needs to be done. But then there's this activism part of you.

This would be a perfect time to talk about your beautiful foundation, Nahiwan. Am I saying that right, Buffy? We are pretty close. Nahiwan. Nahiwan. Nahiwan. It means, it kind of means speak Cree or talk Cree, but what it really means is be your culture. Now you've set up this foundation and it's a mission to help children of all backgrounds.

By improving their education. And this is very, very dear to your heart. And I'd love to hear more about that from you. How you set it up, where you got the idea from, and why you think it's important. Well...

In 19, probably '68 maybe, I was in California. Actually, I was getting ready to do the Virginian. But that's another story. I set up the Nahiwan Foundation primarily as a scholarship foundation because I was in a position that most of my peers were not in. I mean, my show business peers, my indigenous peers, whoever.

I was in a position that most young people are not in. I had airplane tickets.

to interesting places. If I would go to Stockholm, then I'd use those airplane tickets. And, you know, the next week or two, I'd be way up north, 30 degrees above the Arctic Circle with Sami people who I knew through Sami news. You were getting around. I was getting around. And my MO was to use these show business airplane tickets to take me to indigenous areas where I could learn and maybe help.

And so a lot of us were doing that, only most people didn't have the, they just didn't have the ability to travel as widely as I did. Exactly. So I had found out in my travels how hard it was for an indigenous student, say in South Dakota, to negotiate the path between high school and college.

I mean, in the cities, there are guidance counselors and guidance fairs and job fairs and college fairs and all this stuff. No, you don't have that when you come from a rural area. So I started a scholarship foundation and I won an Academy Award in the 80s, but the

thing that I'm most proud of, I only found out about it in the thousand somethings, I found out that two of my earliest scholarship recipients had gone on to become the presidents and founders of tribal colleges in their own communities, including Dr. Lionel Bordeaux, who founded Cindy Gleska College in South Dakota. So it's this kind of spotlighting of other people's work

I think maybe I get credit for it, but it wasn't me who did it. And it's so amazing to find out kind of late in your life that somebody else has taken a small thing that you've done and maximized it beyond your wildest dreams. I mean, that is really, that's probably the nicest thing that ever happened to me. It's incredible what happens with altruism when you actually take the time

to put your hand out and pull somebody up and pull somebody out of their situation. The thing that I really understand is my privilege. And my family were very middle class. My dad worked in concrete his whole life. He never really made a lot of money. We did live in the country, which at the time seemed, I was just like, oh, I wish I was in the city. But I'm so grateful that we did grow up in a very rural area. I'm still out here now.

But just the idea of the feeling of grace that you must get from helping people and knowing that these people will go on to help other Buffy, other people. You never know. You never know. Well, you don't know. You hope, you hope that they do, but you've seen it. You've seen the fruits of honoring your own journey in your life to help others. Yeah. So there weren't a lot of people doing that at that time, but now there are more. So, you know, like I said, with music,

And with the opportunity to spotlight other people's issues. Sometimes you get a chance. You know, that song that I wrote called You Got to Run? You

You know, whether it's you got to run a marathon for breast cancer in your community or you got to run for office because the bozos who are running things now, they need help. Or you got to run your own life. It says whether you're a woman or whether you're a man, sometimes you get to take a stand just because you think you can or just because you know you can. You got to run. You got to run.

And for a lot of us, I think, I mean, it's squelched because of business and school and other human practices. But I think a lot of us have this enthusiasm, this drive. It's really, really good. And it's headed for the light. And it knows the difference between right and wrong. And it tries to, I think that there are a lot of people trying to do the right thing. And only a few get credit.

When I look around what we call Indian country, I see people helping in all kinds of ways. I see other people not helping too, but people change, people ripen. I think everybody's ripening all the time. Every flower, every tree, and every person, even the worst bozos can ripen and change, I think. And as for the rest of us, you know. You have more faith than me. I mean, sometimes I get so discouraged by...

seemingly bad people continuing to make bad decisions. But I know you're right. I know people are capable of change. I look at things that I've changed in my own life and things that I've left behind me and gone forward. Don't you move a muscle. We're going to be right back here with Buffy St. Marie.

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Hey, Jan Arden here, and I'm here with Buffy St. Marie. Listen, I've written down a million questions, and I know that I'm probably going to get to like three of them. So are you a religious or spiritual person? Does that play a part in Buffy St. Marie's life? Is that spirituality, that belief, that faith? Absolutely. I don't belong to a church, but I wasn't raised in any churches, so I don't hate any churches.

I didn't grow up with a prejudice for or against churches. But I was so intrigued in high school. I was so intrigued with the idea when I discovered that there were

religions and foods and music that were different from what was around me. Oh boy, I was a born multicultural person. I wanted to know more. So I wound up in college. I went in as hoping to be a veterinarian, but by a sophomore year, I had discovered chemistry and realized that what I really am is a pet lover. And I had also discovered philosophy and that actually what I really am is a philosopher. So I

I like to think and I like to read and I like to cogitate and think about stuff. So my major was oriental philosophy and religion, not because I was trying to join a church or build a church or be a church because I think churches are business, you know, but the spirituality part of it, that longing inside ourselves that knows the difference between not so good and better when it comes to treating people and how we allow ourselves to be treated, you know, that kind of moral compass that

we all kind of get when we're around five or so and we start realizing that, no, you shouldn't do this and maybe it'd be better to do that. I feel as though I have something that I think of as the Holy Spirit with me all the time. I mean, Europe knew the Father and the Son, if we're going to talk in a Christian parameter, but they didn't know the Holy Spirit. No, they didn't know the Holy Spirit. But I think indigenous people certainly did. And if you're...

talking about the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit is within that Christian parameter that we learn how to do. But that's not where it comes from. And my Cree dad, I was adopted into Paipa Reserve in Craven, Saskatchewan. And my Cree dad was a real traditional Cree speaker and a real... Spiritual isn't the right word either. That's just not a correct word for indigenous people.

approach to the divine, you know, the creator. We say the creator. And I truly believe, I go back to being a child, both indigenous and musical. And if we're made in the image of the creator, isn't that our green light for creativity?

Yes. It's good we create. It's good we rebel against old, stale, dead, inflexible stuff and come up with new stuff. That's what we're supposed to be doing all the time. That's what everybody else does. All the animals, all the plants, they keep evolving. We can too. So in a way, my religion is creativity, the creation, the creator, all together. And the closest I can get to that in Christian terms, since we're talking about North America, is

is to say that I believe that Indigenous people, me included, women included, and lots of other people who don't even know it, I think we're included in the embrace of the Holy Spirit. And that's where our inspiration comes from. What I think about first thing in the morning, last thing at night, I just feel as though I'm in the arms of the Great Mother, of the Sacred Feminine, of that part of the Creator that we think of as

the universe, mother spirit. You know, I could go on and on, but I'm talking about belief. I want to read you this David Suzuki quote, which has so much to do with what you're saying. The only people with a track record of living sustainably in place for thousands of years are indigenous people.

And despite all that has been done to get them out of the way, they are still here fighting for their land. I wanted to read that quote because before we started this interview officially, you and I talked briefly about your life in Hawaii. We've seen you and many of your friends and neighbors go through some really difficult times this past few months. And you said such an interesting thing about

And a heartbreaking thing about, you know, the fires that went through Maui and Lahaina and those lands that have been, you know, part of those indigenous people there for thousands and thousands of years. How has that been for you living in that community and watching all this stuff happen? It's been gut wrenching to watch it from here, I'll tell you. And I don't know how it is to be so close to it all.

Well, you know how your local news is. When you turn on the TV in the morning, your local news is all about your local stuff. And of course, I mean, we're just seeing it all the time because it's real and it's terrible. You guys get to see it on your international news, you know, a couple times a day. It's 24-7 here because it is truly awful. It's so sad.

You know, some cynical people look at Lahaina as either a whaler's brothel or a tourist trap or a bunch of McMansions. You know, you can get real cynical like that about Hawaii because, of course, it is a cash cow for lots of businesses. But beyond that, beyond that, the local people who have been

living on crumbs off those business tables all these years, they lost not only the land, the real estate, they lost their ancestry. They lost their burial grounds. They lost their future. They lost their present. It's just really hard. And Hawaii, we had a terrible hurricane on September 11th.

in the 90s. And I saw how people pulled together here because here you do have what we call the Aloha spirit.

And it's really why I choose to live in Hawaii. I had to choose at a certain point where I was going to live. And I was in Regina. And, you know, the reserve is on the best day, you know, it's more than an hour away and try to get to an airport in the winter in Regina. It's not all possible. So I had to have a place where I had an airport year round. And

And so I live here, but the reason why, my heart reason of living here is because at least when I arrived, the Aloha spirit was a real thing. And it's kind of the same thing that I find in indigenous communities everywhere. And the question is not...

Why are Indigenous people so different from colonialized people? I heard this question when I was 30 degrees north of the Arctic Circle in Sami land with the Sami people in Norway at an Indigenous Peoples Music Festival. Journalists from the south, from France or Germany or somewhere, they wanted to know, how come all you Indigenous people are on the same page and all of us are

We're the ones who are out of it. Then the answer came from a Sámi woman. She said, "It's because of Glorious Maximus. It's because of our butt. We sit it on the actual earth. We are nourished from Mother Nature. And the only ones who don't get it are those of you who have lost your natural humanity, which of course you could get back if you wanted to." And a lot of people understood.

But indigenous people have stuff in common all over the world. First, because we were invaded by the same group of bozos who shouldn't have been running anything.

Think of it. When were the Americas and the other indigenous places of the world, when were they being discovered in the 1400s? Who was on the thrones? They were running the Inquisition in Spain. That didn't last six months. That lasted 700 years that those people were doing that to each other. What do you think they did when they got to us? Same thing. What was the biggest business in Europe at the time? Slavery.

Who was on the throne in England? Henry VII and Henry VIII, who killed not just a few wives, but they're estimated up to, you know, 20,000 people. Why? Because they could and nobody stopped them. That's why. And who was on the throne in Eastern Europe?

A guy named Vlad Tepi, Vlad the Impaler, that was Dracula. That's what hit us. And by us, I mean indigenous people all over the world or people who don't think like that. See, here's what's different. Europeans went through it before even any people beyond Europe went through it. And Europeans have to understand it from that point of view. It's not indigenous people against white people. It's everybody against oppression. See?

But white people have not yet accepted the fact that they were so, so oppressed by the same forces that got us. So see, we're all on the same page here. It's just hard to choke down the history part of it because it's so sad. If you really want to understand it, read a book by Andres Resendez, R-E-S-E-N-D-E-Z. It's called The Other Slavery, and it's about slavery in North America.

I mean, it's hard. I mean, with missing and murder and with residential schools, everything about residential schools, it's hard to find yet another deeper layer of why it happened in the first place.

It wasn't, you whiteys. No, it was oppression that affected everybody in the 1400s and the 15, the 1600s. Did you know that in South Carolina in 1862, there were more indigenous people being exported to the slave markets of Europe, the Philippines, and the Middle East than there were Africans being imported? You don't know that because no one has told you.

Andre Resenda's book, The Other Slavery, will give you the names, dates, and serial numbers. And we'll make sure that that's in the notes of this podcast. That's exceptionally true. And I really do want to ask you this, and I think it's important. How can we speak to children, to younger generations, about the history and treatment of Indigenous people in this country? I don't even know how to approach these dark topics. Well,

what happened to Indigenous people being stolen from their lands and their families and sent to Europe. Hearing these words out of your mouth, Buffy St. Maria, is the first time I've ever heard a story like that. And why wouldn't I, as a Canadian child, be taught that, that that was happening? Do you really want to know? I do. I do want to understand it. And I do want to know how do we have these conversations that are authentic, earnest conversations

And that we go forward, you know, that word reconciliation that gets slid across a table and not really acted upon. And it's frustrating. And Sarah and I have spoken about, you know, these issues on the podcast. And she and I are so careful as to not be saying the wrong things or asking the wrong questions. And Sarah so aptly pointed out, there is no wrong questions. Ask the questions for crying out loud.

don't sit on your hands and be too ashamed or too afraid to ask the question. So yeah, I will ask that question. I was going to mention why you don't know. One of the reasons is that Queen Isabella, believe it or not, you might be mad at her now, but in a few minutes, you're going to understand something. She made indigenous slavery illegal when somebody blew the whistle and told them how horrible it was. How horrible, because it was brutal. There was nothing good about it.

Nothing good about it. And she made indigenous slavery illegal in Spain or for Spaniards to do.

But it's a long way from Spain to the Americas. And so it went underground. African slavery was legal and business guys keep records. So there's a lot of business records about African slavery. There are none because it was illegal about indigenous slavery. But André Reséndiz did his research in Spain.

And it is meaty, and it is scholarly, and there is no doubt. And Indigenous people were not only sold in the slave markets of Europe during the 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 1800s.

but also in the slave markets of the Philippines and the Middle East. And there's a couple of good books out now. I'll have to email you the titles if you're interested. There's a couple of good books out now about Indigenous people in Europe and the impact that they were having in the 15, 16, 1700s. There's even one about Indigenous people. There's a walking tour of London about Indigenous people in London. And you can see, yeah. So there's a whole

lot of very interesting information about indigenous people that very few people know. And that's kind of one of the things that the Cradle Boy Teaching Project

will hope to share. Naturally, I mean, your question about how do we talk about this with kids? This is one of the things that we want to do in the Creative Law Teaching Project. We're providing core curriculum in, for instance, in science. Science through Indigenous eyes. Oh, Indigenous people didn't have science. Yes, they did. Oh, yeah. We sure didn't. So I'm always asking people about how are we teaching kids about science?

you know, the more difficult issues of indigeneity. And there are all these celebratory, gorgeous things about indigeneity. And there are answers. I think one of, for your listeners, I think one of the best resources is going to be to go to the Downey Wenjack Fund website, Downey Wenjack Fund, that was founded by Gord Downey and his family and the family of Cheney Wenjack,

indigenous boy, the reconciliations that are mentioned through Donnie Wenjack. And if you go to Truth and Reconciliation and actually read what needs to be done, you're not going to find a lot of quickie answers, but you'll find inspiration.

And you'll find some calls to action that if you are serious and you want to help a little bit, but don't expect to change the world overnight by yourself, you know. But anything, if you can do something for one day, for instance, suppose you're driving along and there's some kids in the car or just anybody in the car and it's hockey season. I mean, how many of your fans, Dan, know that team sports were invented on this side of the water?

Very few people. You just don't hear about it. Team sports were invented on this side of the water. So if it's hockey season, football season, basketball season, baseball season, look to the Mayans. They invented team sports. Not only that, but they invented the stadium.

And the rubber ball. Europeans thought it was witchcraft. But the stadium with goalposts on either side, protective equipment like helmets and helmets with animal logos on them, knee pads, hip pads, shoulder pads.

A stadium with bleachers for the fans. I'm not kidding. There are play sets, thousands of them. Listen, I'm nuts for history. So the stuff that you're telling me right now, I do know because history is, that kind of history is, I'm fanatical about it, just reading about history. So I know a lot more than the average person about Indigenous contribution, but

to team sports and science and invention and traveling and roads and things that established civilized societies with education and schools. And it was indigenous people. It's funny how history places Europeans into the discovery of that. But fortunately for the entire planet, like you mentioned science, the importance of facts is,

So much of this stuff is coming to light now. So many things of accurate, scientific, cultural, archaeology. And I'm glad to see that, you know, people that, not deniers, but people that have been studying the archaeology of indigenous peoples are giving a lot more respect and a lot more credit to

to the people and the communities that made the things that they made.

and they're literally scribbling things out that was in books for the last 200 years being taught to children and going this is gone now because he's not the guy that discovered that it's very interesting what we've seen in so many statues being overturned so many people actually going we're not having this you cannot fly this flag we're not having the statue of this man standing in this square and what he represented and what he did to people

So it's interesting how young people are responding to the inaccuracies of history. And they're actually standing up and going, uh, uh, uh, uh.

Anyway, it is coming into light. So those things from an educational, archaeological point of view are coming to light. But I'm so grateful for Buffy St. Marie on the planet. You have been, I mean, since I was a kid, you know, I just admired your music so much. And it's funny, I knew you were this amazing indigenous singer-songwriter, but I'm going to be honest with you, when I was 14, 15, 16 and listening to you,

I thought, oh my gosh, this young woman is from Canada and she is in New York and she is in Europe and she is in Los Angeles and she's got hit songs and she's on that talk show. And from my perspective, watching that, it was so inspiring. You'll be part of my story for all my life. It was so inspiring. And I think you're one of those people that just...

I thought, I can do that too. So aside from all the things that we have been talking about today, I just wanted to share that personal story with you that

You know, in my little brain living in the prairies, I was just like, look at that girl go and out there doing something that I thought was impossible to do from Canada. And I've always wanted to tell you that I've met you like a once in a hallway very briefly at a Juno's. And I honestly, I didn't know what to say.

Like, I'm like, that's Buffy St. Marie. And I walked away and I thought, oh my God, I just didn't say what I wanted to say. I know. I think we're all like that. Me too. I get stage drunk and I saw you too. And then you just, you were walking off with your colleagues and I thought, well, maybe I'll get another chance sometime. I was.

I wanted to ask you who you were inspired by growing up and who do you think is coming up right now as young Indigenous artists that you think, you know, are going to kick ass out in this world?

two-part question first i thank you very much for saying that i inspired you i'm really really glad that i did i mean i don't even know for sure where i came from i mean i'm glad that you loved me because i was canadian i didn't know all the history i'm like oh my god she's from canada

Look at her go. But how would it have been for you growing up if you didn't really know where you came from? I don't know. It's hard. It's tricky. It gives a whole, it's another whole, it's just a constant mystery in your life and you deal with it the way that you can. I'll tell you who really changed things for me was Little Richard. Wow. And Fats Domino. Fats Domino.

And Jerry Lee Lewis. I used to go to the Alan Freed rock and roll shows. Joanne Campbell. Do you know who Joanne Campbell is? No. Oh, man. Joanne Campbell was like the very first female rocker. Oh, man. She was fantastic. And Laverne Baker as well. I used to go to the Alan Freed rock and roll shows. And Joanne Campbell was a white girl who used to, she wore like this long train and she was show business and spark.

and glamour and glitz, and she was singing something. It wasn't exactly rock and roll. It wasn't exactly doo-wop. It wasn't exactly pop, and it wasn't exactly country. It was everything at the same time. But what I saw in those Alan Freed rock and roll shows was something to aspire to. I saw people having fun and inspiring people my age, 13, and also having fun. So I always had this thing that the folkies kind of didn't have,

You know, show business is one of those businesses that I think Christian Dior's hemline concept has a lot to do with. Christian Dior, I think, he's credited with being one of the first guys to say, we're going to change the hemline every so often so that the user, women, will feel out of date.

if they don't have our latest project. So that's why we kept changing hemlines. Where did you get your first guitar? I got my first guitar from a pawn shop in Massachusetts, and I didn't know how to tune it. So I tuned it in. I thought you were supposed to tune it just for the song. So I would tune it different for the song.

And I learned, you know, I used to buy song magazines and play all the, you know, Everly Brothers, Fats Domino, even like the Castro sisters and the DeJohn sisters, those duo girls. I thought that music was really a lot of fun. And I wasn't thinking really of writing music about anything.

It was just fine. It was fun to dance to. And it was in my head like any other natural musician. So, you know, I don't think any of us knows where it comes from, but I certainly was inspired to want to have my songs do something. And so when I, well, they did that when I entered show business, though, I, I knew I couldn't be Joanne Campbell or, or little Richard or Elvis Presley or, or any of my idols. So I didn't have any courage at all. I just got on the stage and,

because as a student you could, I was a guitar player, so you could play in an open mic night. And I thought that I didn't have any courage at all when it came to being a singer. I didn't think I was a very good singer, but I knew that the songs that I was writing

were interesting and I thought people would like them, whether they were love songs or songs about something serious, which you could do like Universal in the 60s. So whether they were indigenous or war and peace or love songs or whatever, I thought that people would like to hear the songs. I thought when I was going to make a record, I thought I would only make one. I didn't know I would ever have a career.

So it's really been hit or miss for me, you know, when there's an opportunity to say something that I think makes sense, I do. And if it's quiet for a while, I don't worry about it. I just do other things. I have a real life as well as a show business life, and I'm not traveling or touring at all. I'm officially retired. So I'm only now working on the Naheewon Foundation, Downey Wenjack, other places where maybe I can help. Well, and doing this with us has been incredible.

How could you have ever imagined the career that took hold of you winning an Oscar? I mean, that had to have been so bizarre. And when they called your name and called the song and Jennifer Warren's, of course, is one of my all time favorites as well.

Yeah, I've actually had a chance to speak to her once many, several years ago, but I don't know what that must have felt like. Could you have ever imagined winning an Oscar? No.

I never could have imagined that. Do you have it in your house? Is it somewhere? It's somewhere. Right now, I think it's at the Music Museum. No, it was at the Smithsonian for quite... Oh, it's at the Smithsonian. It went back to the Smithsonian. Yes, it was at the Music Museum and it was in New York at the Smithsonian as well. Is there a moment, Buffy, in the last six decades that defines what you've done? Could it even possibly come down to that?

Is there a moment that just remains as such a special thing in your heart, or is it just a string of lights? Is it just a string of lights? No, no. When I think about the highlight of my life, it was when I was in Bismarck, North Dakota, at a tribal college meeting, and I found out that these children,

Two scholarship recipients had gone on to become the presidents of tribal colleges, and one of them danced me around the arena at their powwow and honored me. That was really the nicest thing that ever happened to me so far as, you know, summation of my career and what I wanted to do. I mean, somebody else picked up my little contribution and maximized it. I mean, how many people get to have that happen in their lives?

But on the other hand, like with my Academy Award, I had somebody try to tell a relative of mine that I shouldn't have that Academy Award because I was a poser. And I only got that Academy Award because I was pretending to be an Indian. I said, what? Yeah.

I was married to Jack Nietzsche. He was scoring the movie and I wrote the melody. So, you know, there's all kinds of things in this world and you do the best you can. And sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. Sometimes you give away the publishing and sometimes you don't. And sometimes you get to meet your idol. Hi, Jan. Hi.

This has been so magical today. And I just, I feel like you and I could sit and have a conversation that would last well into the wee hours of the morning. It's just been an honor speaking to you. I think our listeners are going to take away so many gems and so many things that they can hang on to in these troubled times. These are troubled times and people feel helpless,

They feel like they don't know how to go forward and change things. But, you know, your life has been triumphs and it's been tragedies and it's been stumbling along and not knowing where you came from and not always knowing where you're going. But you ended up in a place that you do call home. And I feel like you do know who Buffy St. Marie is now.

And the legacy, what you leave behind you is astonishing. And what you have in front of you is going to be nothing but delightful to watch it unfold. I hope I get a chance to meet you sometime. We'll put the air tag on your Oscar. And if it does travel back to you, I'll just say, follow the Oscar, follow the Oscar. Really?

Thank you for talking to us today. It's just been an absolute privilege and honor, and I'm glad I got a redo. I would rather have had this moment to have a long conversation with you than the two minutes that I had in a goddamn hallway in some arena somewhere where I didn't know what to say. And I'm usually not at a loss for words, you know? But I'm here and doing what I'm doing because of women exactly like you, Buffy St. Marie, who just...

Not only did you blaze a trail, but you had a flamethrower in front of you and behind you and you just widened it and you did so many genres of music. That was another thing that always was so, I'm like, I don't have to do or be one thing.

Buffy St. Marie can do this and that and protest songs and love songs and write for all these people and Glen Campbell's cutting this. And that one song can take on other lives. Like each artist that cut these songs made their own way through it. You taught me that, like just from a songwriter's point of view of,

Of letting go of your creations and like, no, this artist is going to discover what they're going to discover in that song and letting it fly and letting it go. And I think that's been truly such a gift that you've had to create those soundscapes and those lyrics for people to make their own.

Like Universal Soldier felt so different coming out of your heart than it did Donovan. Like I've listened to a lot of these different versions and I'm like, is that even the same fucking song? Like so incredible. Turning down Elvis, people just like, no, you know, you can't have my publishing Elvis Presley. I'm sorry, but you can't have it. Jan, next time, can we do this in person? I'm going to interview you. I would love it.

I'm going to hold you to it. And thank you so much. Oh, thanks. Well, what an amazing conversation that was with Buffy St. Marie, an absolute idol of mine. Buffy St. Marie has also lended her voice to A Day to Listen. It's a program really amplifying Indigenous voices that's going to be airing on 500 radio stations this weekend. 500 folks.

And we've got a lot more info in the show notes. That's for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. You're not going to want to miss that. Buffy St. Marie, she's got a lot to say about it. She's got a lot of sage wisdom. She's lived it, folks. And she has a lot of valuable things to say about how we can learn and how we can go forward and how we can participate in healing. So,

Don't miss that. Listen, hit subscribe. You can find the Jan Arden podcast on all your favorite streamers, iHeartRadio, or anywhere you get your podcasts. Give us some stars. Give us five stars. It helps people find us. Give us six stars, even though you can only give us five stars. We will see you next week. Thanks to all our listeners. Take care of yourselves. Toon Media. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.