Buffy St Marie

It's not like they don't address the point your lawyer relative made; they quote BSM's own lawyer saying the same thing (and the clerk then talks about why she doesn't believe it applies in this case). I agree perhaps they could have talked to someone else though.

One thing I find odd re-reading that section is that it seems to conflate a few possible meanings of ‘original birth certificate’. The Stoneham clerk says:

“This is the original that came from the hospital,” said Sagarino, who has worked at the Stoneham town hall for more than 20 years. “There’s no refuting this because it’s in my custody from my files in my vault.”

That establishes that this is definitely the certificate that originally came to Stoneham town hall from the hospital (not a later substitution, say), so in that sense, it’s the original birth certificate. But that seems compatible with the information on the birth certificate having been falsified when it was first written.

But then in pointing to the certificate numbering and lack of adoption records, the clerk says that there’s “100 per cent certainty that this is the original birth certificate.” The conclusion there is that this birth certificate is original in the sense that BSM was truly born in Massachusetts on Feb. 20, and this is the birth certificate signed at her birth. These seem like two very different meanings, and the article doesn't try to disentangle them.

I do agree that there could have been more to say in this section. For instance, it's hard to know exactly how much independent weight to give to the record numbering. Like, from BSM's point of view, if you assume that the birth certificate doesn't reflect her actual birth parents and birth location, then it doesn't seem like a huge stretch to think that the birth date on the certificate is also false, i.e. they just entered the date the certificate was written (and that this accounts for the record being at #49). That's something a historical expert might have helped with - whether this is plausible given adoption practices at the time.

Would they have written it at 3:15am though? Or just made up a time of birth? (I'm honestly asking, and I suppose these are questions that could be addressed if the issue was dug into further.)

is it really so hard to believe that BSM's mom told her that she was adopted, or that she was the product of an affair with an indigenous man, and so Buffy felt like an alien in her own family, then found solace and identity in the indigenous community after leaving home, culminating in the Piapot adoption? self-mythologizing aside, why are we certain that the foundational deception, if that's what it is, lies with her and not e.g. with her mother?

i'm not invested in any particular outcome, mind you, and ultimately if the indigenous community decides she's got to go, i'm certainly not going to argue with that.

but at the very least it seems like we should give BSM the chance to respond before utterly dismissing her? idk.

again, not saying these things because i need BSM to be indigenous. if she's a fraud then she can go fuck herself. but it's just weird how a bunch of non-native ppl suddenly become experts on ancestry and indigenous identity whenever stuff like this happens. i'm just saying that it seems confusing

Well she did respond

By the way (just to be clear), I'm not personally making any judgment on whether her indigenous identity should or shouldn't be accepted by the community, based on all the factors of her life. In fact seems like the best-case scenario (for everyone) would be that it were still able to be accepted.

okay i must have missed her response somehow?

https://pitchfork.com/news/buffy-sainte-marie-defends-indigenous-heritage-ahead-of-investigative-report/

i did see that. i meant a response, which usually comes after something

Well she got ahead of it.

(her lawyers also respond on her behalf in the article, and she declined to be interviewed for it.)

I’m going to listen to this today:

https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com/episodes/how-we-tell-buffy-sainte-maries-story-matters-explained-by-a-60s-scoop-survivor

Would they have written it at 3:15am though? Or just made up a time of birth? (I'm honestly asking, and I suppose these are questions that could be addressed if the issue was dug into further.)

― Phair · Jagger/Richards · Carl Perkins (morrisp), Wednesday, November 8, 2023 11:44 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

You didn’t know that after a kid is born the parents can make up whatever time of birth they want? All of mine were born at 4:20 on June 9th.

some interesting discussion here but ultimately imho the inference doesn’t rely on any single piece of evidence (ie birth certificate) that is alone dispositive, sufficient or necessary for the conclusion that BSM pretended. rather it’s all of the evidence taken together that makes it basically incontrovertible. the lawyerly tactic (i mean this non pejoratively) of trying to sow doubt by unraveling the weakest points of the argument won’t really work, there are just too many things that all line up and point in the same direction, can’t all be coincidences

having said that, i haven’t seen anyone address the fact that the numbers on the birth certificate line up sequentially with other births and therefore aren’t consistent with adoption. so i think the certificate is more of a smoking gun than some want to admit

I do agree that there could have been more to say in this section. For instance, it's hard to know exactly how much independent weight to give to the record numbering. Like, from BSM's point of view, if you assume that the birth certificate doesn't reflect her actual birth parents and birth location, then it doesn't seem like a huge stretch to think that the birth date on the certificate is also false, i.e. they just entered the date the certificate was written (and that this accounts for the record being at #49). That's something a historical expert might have helped with - whether this is plausible given adoption practices at the time.

― jmm

what i meant more was has anyone found a historical expert offering evidence that the contrary interpretation is correct? if so i haven’t seen it. the birth record specifies that her parents stayed in the hospital for 3 hours and that she was born at 3:15am. not clear why they would fill something in for those field if it were an adoption

@ flopson, to be clear, I wasn't trying to "sow doubt" as to point out that the particular lack-of-follow-up regarding the singular assertions made by the Stoneham town hall clerk was, broadly, hurtful to adoptees, as the things that were being expressed were by-no-means conclusive. I remain convinced by the article and doc that some manner of deception was at play, for sure. Personally, and my relative agrees, the presence of a "birth hospital" and "delivering doctor" (the same hospital and doctor that had delivered BSM's sister) on the birth certificate effectively leaves us both sufficiently convinced that "BSM was not adopted, as she has claimed"; but again, I don't know for sure if this, too, was standard practice in the issuing of birth certificates for adopted children.

To be clear, I don't think she was adopted either. I think the mass of evidence points this way, and to make the contrary work basically means explaining away all the evidence.

sorry didn’t mean to imply that that’s what you were doing or that that was your motive. unfortunate choice of word on my part. all i meant the sum of evidence is much greater than its parts here

(xp)

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