INDIANS9 PROBLEMS IN SONG

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30643, 8 January 1965, Page 2

INDIANS 9 PROBLEMS IN SONG

(N Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) TORONO (Canada), The dark-haired Indian girl sang from her heart about love, loneliness, drug addiction—and her audience in Toronto would not let her leave the stage.

It marked one more triumph for 22-year-old Buffy (formerly Beverley) SainteMarie in her efforts to spread the word about Red Indian problems in North America.

The attractive, universityeducated girl intended to become a teacher until she taught herself to sing and play a guitar three years ago. Now she composes songs, lectures about the plight of “my people,” and writes for several Indian newspapers. Miss Sainte-Marie sings folk songs, old Indian tunes, classics, and even rock ’n’ roll. She was once offered a film role as “a sexy Indian girl,” but turned it down because she says that she does not want to exploit her racial background in that way. The full-blooded Indian sings clearly, tapping her foot in time to the music which

she produces from her guitar or from a feathered Indian instrument resembling a long bow.

The instrument is strung with catgut and fitted with a soundbox. It helps as background to her highly emotional delivery which sometimes falls just short of a scream.

She was born in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan and adopted as a baby by a part-white Indian family living in Massachusetts. At university, she read for a degree in Oriental philosophy and elementary education. During this time she began to sing. Untrained musically, she says that she tunes her guitar “different from anyone else—-

about 30 different tunings—which gives it a unique sound.”

Speaking about her people she says: “In order to survive in cities, the Indian is faced with giving up what he considers to be important. The people are poor, poorly educated and not ready for city life. More important, they do not want it. They do not want to annihilate themselves in a melting pot.” A highlight of her life came two years ago when she was adopted by the Plains Cree, a tribe of her own people in the Qu’Appelle Valley “where some of the finest Indian singers are produced.” The adoption, a rarity among the Indians, took place at a pow-wow at Manitolin Island

at which 23 Indian tribes from Canada were represented. “My adoption means everything in the world to me,” she says. “I love these people. Although I grew up in a non-Indian community and lived there most of my life, I felt right away that I had always belonged with the Cree.

“My father, Emile Piapet, who is the son of Chief Piapet of the Piapet reserve, is giving me all the songs which are sacred to him, hoping that I shall carry them on.”