songwriter, musician, composer, visual artist, educator, pacifist, and social activist. Throughout her career in all of these areas, her work has focused on issues of indigenous peoples of the Americas. Her singing and writing repertoire also includes subjects of love, war, religion, and mysticism.
In 1997, she founded the Cradleboard Teaching Project, an educational curriculum devoted to better understanding Native Americans. She has won recognition and many awards and honours for both her music and her work in education and social activism.
Buffy Sainte-Marie was born in 1941 on the Piapot Plains Cree First Nation Reserve in the Qu'Appelle Valley, Saskatchewan, Canada. She was later adopted, growing up in Massachusetts, with parents Albert and Winifred Sainte-Marie. She attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, earning degrees in teaching and Oriental philosophy and graduating in the top ten of her class. She went on to earn a Ph.D in Fine Art from the University of Massachusetts.
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, who added to Sainte-Marie's cultural value of, and place in, native culture.
In 1968, she married surfing teacher Dewain Bugbee of Hawaii; they divorced in 1971. She married Sheldon Wolfchild from Minnesota in 1975; they have a son, Dakota "Cody" Starblanket Wolfchild. That union also ended in divorce. She married her co-writer for "Up Where We Belong," Jack Nitzsche, on March 19, 1982. He died from a heart attack on August 25, 2000. As of 2007, she lives in Hawaii.
Although not a Bahá'í herself, she became an active friend of the Bahá'í Faith by the mid-1970s when she is said to have appeared in the 1973 Third National Bahá'í Youth Conference at the Oklahoma State Fairgrounds, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and has continued to appear at concerts, conferences and conventions of that religion since then. In 1992, she appeared in the musical event prelude to the Bahá'í World Congress, a double concert "Live Unity: The Sound of the World" in 1992 with video broadcast and documentary. In the video documentary of the event Sainte-Marie is seen on the Dini Petty Show explaining the Bahá'í teaching of progressive revelation. She also appears in the 1985 video "Mona With The Children" by Douglas John Cameron. However, while she supports a universal sense of religion, she does not subscribe to any particular religion.
Sainte-Marie claimed in a 2008 interview at the National Museum of the American Indian that she had been blacklisted by American radio stations and that she, along with Native Americans and other native people in the Red Power movements, were put out of business in the 1970s.
In a 1999 interview at Diné College with a staff writer with the Indian Country Today, Sainte-Marie said "I found out 10 years later, in the 1980s, that President Lyndon B. Johnson had been writing letters on White House stationery praising radio stations for suppressing my music" and "In the 1970s, not only was the protest movement put out of business, but the Native American movement was attacked."
As a result of this blacklisting led by (among others) Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, and Nashville disc jockey Ralph Emery (following the release of I'm Gonna Be a Country Girl Again), Sainte-Marie said "I was put out of business in the United States".
Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee
Buffy Sainte-Marie Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Now, he don't know much about the issue
So he picks up the phone and he asks advice from
The senator out in Indian country
A darling of the energy companies who are
Ripping off what's left of the reservations
Huh
I don't know who to thank
Don't stand between the reservation
And the corporate banks
They send in federal tanks
It isn't nice but it's reality
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee
Deep in the Earth
Cover me with pretty lies
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee
Huh
They got these energy companies that want the land
And they've got churches by the dozen who want to
Guide our hands
And sign Mother Earth over to pollution, war and greed
Get rich
Get rich quick
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee
Deep in the Earth
Cover me with pretty lies
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee
We got the federal marshals
We got the covert spies
We got the liars by the fire
We got the FBI's
They lie in court and get nailed
And still Peltier goes off to jail
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee
Deep in the Earth
Cover me with pretty lies
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee
Huh
My girlfriend Annie Mae talked about uranium
Her head was filled with bullets and her body dumped
The FBI cut off her hands
And told us she'd died of exposure
Loo, loo loo
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee
Deep in the Earth
Cover me with pretty lies
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee
Huh
We had the Gold Rush wars
Aw, didn't we learn to crawl and still our history gets
Written in a liar's scrawl
They tell ya, "Honey you can still be an Indian down at the "Y" on Saturday nights"
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee
Deep in the Earth
Cover me with pretty lies
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee
Huh
The song "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" by Buffy Sainte-Marie is about the ongoing struggles and injustices experienced by Native Americans. The first verse of the song talks about a congressman who is not well-informed on issues facing Native Americans, so he seeks advice from a senator who is supported by energy companies that are taking advantage of reservations. It reveals the corrupt system that often fails to address the urgent needs and concerns of marginalized communities.
The next verse highlights a grim reality that Native Americans face, which is exploitation by corporations and the government. The lyrics mention that federal tanks are sent in to protect businesses interests, and the apathetic stance taken by policy-makers when it comes to protecting natural resources and the rights of the Native people. The chorus of the song is poignant, as Buffy Sainte-Marie begs to be buried at Wounded Knee, a place in South Dakota where the United States Army massacred hundreds of Lakota Sioux during the Indian Wars of the late 1800s.
The song also touches on the deaths of Native American activists, including Annie Mae Pictou Aquash and Leonard Peltier, who were both involved in the American Indian Movement during the 1970s. The song's lyrics are a rallying cry for justice, acknowledging the atrocities that have been inflicted on the Indigenous peoples of America, and a call to action for change.
Line by Line Meaning
Indian legislation on the desk of a do-right congressman
The song begins with the image of a legislation pending before a morally upright Congressman that concerns Indian people, who the Congressman is assumed to have very little knowledge of.
Now, he don't know much about the issue
The Congressman in question is already revealing his lack of knowledge about Indian nation issues.
So he picks up the phone and he asks advice from
The Congressman contacts a senator from Indian Country for advice on the legislation.
The senator out in Indian country
The Congressman’s phone call is to a senator who represents Indian people.
A darling of the energy companies who are...
This senator has a strong relationship with energy firms that are heavily involved in causing devastation to Indian reservations.
Ripping off what's left of the reservations
The energy firms in question are taking resources from Indian reservations and exploiting the people living there.
I learned a safety rule
I don't know who to thank
Don't stand between the reservation
And the corporate banks
They send in federal tanks
It isn't nice but it's reality
The singer declares that she has learned a safety rule - Native Americans should not stand between corporate banks and the reservation, because it can lead to violent consequences.
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee
Deep in the Earth
Cover me with pretty lies
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee
The singer demands to be buried at Wounded Knee, the infamous site where in 1890 hundreds of Sioux people were massacred, and to be covered with the lies told about their murders for over a century.
They got these energy companies that want the land
And they've got churches by the dozen who want to
Guide our hands
There are energy companies that seek control over the land occupied by Native Americans, while religious institutions seek to exert control over these indigenous people.
And sign Mother Earth over to pollution, war and greed
Get rich
Get rich quick
Both groups of oppressors are only interested in exploiting Mother Earth and exploiting the people living on reservations to get rich quick.
We got the federal marshals
We got the covert spies
We got the liars by the fire
We got the FBI's
They lie in court and get nailed
And still Peltier goes off to jail
The government has deployed police and intelligence agencies to suppress dissenting voices and activists who advocate for Native American rights. Leonard Peltier, a Native American activist, was falsely accused of murder and imprisoned due to these illegitimate methods of government repression.
My girlfriend Annie Mae talked about uranium
Her head was filled with bullets and her body dumped
The FBI cut off her hands
And told us she'd died of exposure
Annie Mae Aquash, a member of the Indigenous People's Movement was murdered and her body went missing. She is widely suspected to have been assassinated by FBI agents for her activism. When her body was eventually recovered on a reservation, her hands had been cut off.
We had the Gold Rush wars
Aw, didn't we learn to crawl and still our history gets
Written in a liar's scrawl
They tell ya, "Honey you can still be an Indian down at the "Y" on Saturday nights"
The history of America is a history of war with indigenous people, with every episode covered up and defamed. The culture of Native Americans is commercialized, marginalized, and made into a caricature by outsiders.
Lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Written by: Buffy Sainte Marie
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@billsomody6928
Buffy is a truth teller! Love you, Buffy!
@JaneAKelley
The way the First Nations people were treated in America should be the shame of our nation. And even though Buffy sang this song some 40 or 50 years ago, it's unfortunately still very relevant today.
@MsXizan
The Maori went through the same thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kwIkF6LFDc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLtBZd_8yUw same song but with lyrics on the screen)
@johnkuipers8625
Let's support the people who are supporting mother EARTH
@julianlavalley7454
I wish I could tell her she helped me with my native pride.
@russellkeenan3763
When I was in 4th grade I had a hippie for a teacher . He turned us on to Buffy . Donovan too . Great guy .
@lah6739
Love Buffy! Her new music is even more amazing: The War Racket; Sky Walker; You Gotta Run and so much more. May you live a long and healthy life Buffy. We need you and your music more than ever.
@mzanaya8636
The Spirit of Truth is STRONG in Buffy. The passion of her music , her integrity are lethal to the global 1%. They control ALL media but they don’t control us....SHARE all her music with everyone you know. Santa Ana California March 2020
@juliahamilton6389
And let's support the people who are protesting the pipeline on sacred North Dakota!
@suzieparis6821
And they left a mess that cost 38million to clean up..