I found this statement interesting. SUPER easy way to determine her race...DNA testing.

"No one, including Canada and its governments, the Indian Act, institutions, media or any person anywhere can deny our family’s inherent right to determine who is a member of our family and community," the statement signed by Debra and Ntawnis Piapot said. "Buffy is our family. We chose her and she chose us. We claim her as a member of our family and all of our family members are from the Piapot First Nation. To us, that holds far more weight than any paper documentation or colonial record keeping ever could."

'I am proud of my Indigenous-American identity': Buffy Sainte-Marie responds to allegations about ancestry.....Singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie has responded to questions about her Indigenous ancestry that are expected to be raised in a CBC report airing this week.
"I have always struggled to answer questions about who I am," Sainte-Marie, 82, said in a statement released Thursday. "Through that research what became clear, and what I’ve always been honest about, is that I don’t know where I’m from or who my birth parents were, and I will never know."
Questions about Sainte-Marie's Indigenous ancestry are expected to be central to an upcoming instalment of CBC's news documentary show The Fifth Estate.
"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," a description for an episode that airs Friday explains.In a written statement to CTV News, Chuck Thompson, head of public affairs with the CBC, said, "Respectfully, we don't comment on stories that have yet to air. Tomorrow, the Fifth Estate will present 'Making an Icon,' a documentary about Buffy Sainte-Marie which goes into great detail regarding genealogical documentation, historical research and personal accounts."Sainte-Marie said Thursday that the allegations are "deeply hurtful."
"I am proud of my Indigenous-American identity, and the deep ties I have to Canada and my Piapot family," Sainte-Marie said. "My Indigenous identity is rooted in a deep connection to a community which has had a profound role in shaping my life and my work."
Sainte-Marie's website describes her(opens in a new tab) as a "Cree singer-songwriter" who "is 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."
According to her website, Sainte-Marie was adopted and raised in Maine and Massachusetts by a "visibly white couple."
"As a child, Buffy’s adoptive mother self-identified as part Mi’kmaq but knew little about Indigenous culture," the website says, referring to the northeastern First Nations people. "She encouraged Buffy to find things out for herself when she grew up."...In her statement Thursday, Sainte-Marie said she learned about her Indigenous ancestry from her own research and via her mother, who told her that she may have been born out of wedlock.
"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. "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's website lists her as "the first Indigenous person ever to win an Oscar" for the 1982 hit song "Up Where We Belong" from the film An Officer and a Gentleman. Other notable songs from her six-decade career include "Now That the Buffalo are Gone," "Cod'ine" and "Universal Soldier," which was covered by Donovan and Glen Campbell. She is also noted for her activism on anti-war and Indigenous issues, which allegedly caused her to be blacklisted by the FBI.
Sainte-Marie's powerful 1964 debut album "It's My Way" cemented her status in the burgeoning folk music scene of the 1960s. Her last studio album "Medicine Songs" was released in 2017.
In August, Sainte-Marie announced that she would be retiring from live performances, citing health concerns and physical challenges.
"I have made the difficult decision to pull out of all scheduled performances in the foreseeable future," Sainte-Marie said in an Aug. 3 statement(opens in a new tab). "Arthritic hands and a recent shoulder injury have made it no longer possible to perform to my standard."
In a podcast appearance earlier this year, Sainte-Marie explained that she was adopted "into" the Piapot family from the Piapot First Nation in Saskatchewan, and not adopted out of the Cree community.
In a statement, the Piapot family called the questions about Sainte-Marie's ancestry "hurtful, ignorant, colonial – and racist."
"No one, including Canada and its governments, the Indian Act, institutions, media or any person anywhere can deny our family’s inherent right to determine who is a member of our family and community," the statement signed by Debra and Ntawnis Piapot said. "Buffy is our family. We chose her and she chose us. We claim her as a member of our family and all of our family members are from the Piapot First Nation. To us, that holds far more weight than any paper documentation or colonial record keeping ever could."
Sainte-Marie also released an affidavit from her former lawyer Delia Opekokew, who looked into her indigenous identity.
The affidavit says Opekokew collected "oral history evidence" that Sainte-Marie "was born north of Piapot to a single woman who could not care for her, and that she gave Buffy as a baby to an American family who happened to be in the Piapot area."
"There was consistency in the witnesses to Buffy Sainte-Marie's identity," Opekokew wrote. "I have no doubt that Buffy Sainte-Marie is an Indigenous woman with community accountability through her Piapot family in Saskatchewan."
Sainte-Marie herself said that she was adopted into the Piapot family as a young adult "in accordance with Cree law and customs."
"While these questions have hurt me, I know they will also hurt those I love. My family. My friends. And all those who have seen themselves in my story," Sainte-Marie said Thursday. "All I can say is what I know to be true: I know who I love, I know who loves me. And I know who claims me.".....CTV...news....