Celebrated singer and songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie is still in doubt about her origins in a new statement issued in advance of a Canadian documentary that explores her ever-shifting Native identity claims.

“I don’t know where I’m from, who my birth parents are, or how I ended up a misfit in a typical White, Christian New England town,” Sainte-Marie said in a video posted on social media on Thursday.

The video was accompanied by a written statement, also shared by Sainte-Marie on social media. In it, she said her mother told her numerous stories during her upbringing in Massachusetts, including the one about her supposedly being adopted.

“My mother told me many things, including that I was adopted and that I was Native, but there was no documentation as was common for Indigenous children born in the 1940’s,” Sainte-Marie said.

According to Sainte-Marie, her mother eventually told a different story. As reported on Indianz.Com on Wednesday, the award-winning performer suggests that she may have been the product of an out-of-wedlock relationship.

“Later in my life, as an adult, she told me some things I have never shared out of respect for her that I hate sharing now, including that I may have been born on ‘the wrong side of the blanket,'” Sainte-Marie said in the statement, repeating a story she told ShoShona Kish, an Anishinaabe artist, during a podcast that aired on National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada on September 30.

“This was her story to tell, not mine,” Sainte-Marie said.

Sainte-Marie was born “Beverley Jean Santamaria” on February 20, 1941, in Massachusetts, as reported by Indianz.Com two days ago. The information comes from her official birth certificate, a document that receives even more extensive scrutiny by CBC News.

In a story published online on Friday morning, CBC News reports significant details about the document. Sainte-Marie’s official birth certificate was given a number of “49” that could not have been altered or adjusted at any time because of the nature of the chronological numbering system used in Massachusetts.

CBC went to the town of Stoneham, where Sainte-Marie was born, to examine the original birth record. The report notes that the document is stored in a secure vault.

“I can say absolutely with 100 per cent certainty that this is the original birth certificate,” town clerk Maria Sagarino told CBC, repeating the birth date and the name of the hospital that Indianz.Com reported on Wednesday.

Titled “Making an Icon,” the documentary about Sainte-Marie aires on the The Fifth Estate program on CBC News. The show description does not mention the subject’s name.

“An icon’s claims to Indigenous ancestry are being called into question by family members and an investigation that included genealogical documentation, historical research and personal accounts,” the description reads.

The documentary airs at 9pm Eastern on Friday. A spokesperson for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s news division told Indianz.Com that “CBC TV and the CBC Gem streaming platform are geolocked to Canada” — meaning that audiences in the United States can’t tune in live.

However, the spokesperson noted that the documentary will be posted on YouTube at youtube.com/c/cbcfifth. Anyone will be able to watch “Making an Icon” on the video streaming platform.

Who is the real Buffy Sainte-Marie? (CBC October 27, 2023)

Buffy Sainte-Marie speaks out regarding questions of Cree ancestry (APTN October 26, 2023)