Buffy Sainte-Marie is a Native Canadian-American folk singer-songwriter, composer, actress, educator and activist.
She was born in 1941 on the Piapot 75 reserve in the Qu'Appelle Valley, Saskatchewan, Canada.She was abandoned as an infant and was then adopted by Albert and Winifred Sainte-Marie, a Wakefield, Massachusetts couple of Mi'kmaq descent.She attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, earning degrees in teaching and Oriental philosophy.
In 1964, on a return trip to the Piapot Cree reserve in Canada for a powwow, she was welcomed and (in a Cree Nation context) adopted by the youngest son of Chief Piapot, Emile Piapot and his wife, Clara Starblanket Piapot, who added to Sainte-Marie's cultural value and place in Native culture.