About
the Founder of the Nihewan Foundation
Buffy Sainte-Marie
The Nihewan Foundation was created in 1969
by a young songwriter with a teachers degree and a lot of
money.
Buffy
Sainte-Marie earned her own degree in Oriental Philosophy from the
University of Massachusetts, later received a teaching degree, and
eventually a Ph.D in Fine Arts. Expecting to continue her studies
and eventually teach on a reservation, in 1962 she took a break
from study to try her luck at singing professionally the songs that
had made her a familiar face at off-campus coffee houses. This resulted
in the fortune which funded and founded the Nihewan Foundation for
American Indian Education. Traveling all over the US, Canada and
Europe, within eighteen months she became famous for her songs of
love and conscience, like "Universal Soldier" and "Until
It's Time for You to Go", which has been recorded by over 200
artists in 16 different languages. She was Billboard's Best New
Artist following the release of her first record in 1964 and unlike
other folk musicians of the time, also experimented with electronic
music, creating the first totally electronic quadraphonic vocal
album in 1968. During the Sixties Buffy Sainte-Marie established
her unique way of life, combining concerts in big cities with experience
in grassroots Indian communities and becoming a bridge between cultures.
Buffy founded the Nihewan Foundation for American Indian Education
on the basis of her love of teaching, her belief in Native American
potential, and her newly found financial success in the music industry.
Performing in Asia, Australia, New
Zealand and throughout Scandinavia, Buffy Sainte-Marie used her
airplane tickets to combine glamourous city concerts with side trips
to indigenous communities where she would both teach and learn.
Thus, between 1964 and 1969 she discovered that the challenges facing
Native American people were mirrored throughout the world wherever
colonialism had marginalized indigenous peoples. The universality
of her songs not only inspired worldwide folk/pop audiences but
also provided a sense of unity to people of many backgrounds who
wished to improve race relations in their own countries. During
this time she traveled internationally and shared the stage with
Marlon Brando, Peter Ustinov, Danny Kaye, Dinah Shore and Harry
Belafonte, performing concerts for UNICEF, Save the Children, and
the High Commission for Refugees.
Returning from abroad, she found that her
records had become hard to find in the United States, but not in
Canada. Her American concerts would sold out but top television
programs like the Tonight Show asked her not to perform Universal
Soldier, Now that the Buffalos Gone or others of her strongest
and most requested concert material, and to refrain from talking
about Native American issues. Ten years later, radio broadcasters
would apologize to her for having gone along with a blacklisting
campaign during the Johnson administration to suppress the music
of Buffy Sainte-Marie, Eartha Kitt, Taj Mahal and others. Oblivious
to the circumstances at the time, she continued to write and record,
and concentrated her travels on Indian reservations, showing up
occasionally for splendid concerts at Lincoln Center in New York
and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, where, years later
she would receive her Academy Award.
In 1976 her son was born and she quit recording,
having released 14 albums, all of which were interlaced by songs
reflecting Native American realities in an era otherwise marked
by stereotyping. At the time, Buffy Sainte-Maries songs were
a very effective way of teaching, and reached millions of young
adults with hard to find information. For five years she appeared
as a semi-regular on "Sesame Street", working in episodes
dealing with breast feeding, sibling rivalry, and Native American
culture. She brought Big Bird and friends to Taos Pueblo reservation,
and taught The Count how to count in Cree. The personal mandate
she chose to bring to the Native American episodes was the basic
message that "Indians exist". Her message reached children
and their care givers of all races in 73 countries of the world
three times a day and, according to Native American teachers battling
virtual invisibility in school systems, was an educational triumph.
In the 1980s she won an Academy Award Oscar
for the song Up Where We Belong from An Officer and
a Gentleman; continued to experiment with electronics and music
computers in film scoring; and to do occasional concerts in Canada,
Europe and Indian Country to support her family. At home she expanded
her use of computers to digital art. Her huge digital paintings
were among the first large scale digital works to be exhibited in
museums and galleries in North America, beginning with the Glenbow
Museum in Calgary. In the late 80s and throughout the 90s, she taught
digital art and music as Adjunct Professor of Fine Arts at Saskatchewan
Indian Federated College in Regina; at York University in Toronto
where she still serves as an Adjunct Professor; and at the Evergreen
State College in Washington State where she taught electronic music,
digital art and Native American studies as an Evans Chair Scholar.
Her revolutionary Ensign Records comeback album, Coincidence
and Likely Stories was way ahead of its time in 1991,
recorded at home on her Macintosh, then sent via modem over the
phone lines, bounced off the satellite to go onto tape in London,
England. During this time her Nihewan Foundation continued quietly
to fund college scholarships and also expanded to serve grade school
children and teachers by creating Native American curriculum and
the prototype for what would later become the Cradleboard Teaching
Project.
A teacher before she ever started singing,
Buffy Sainte-Marie has continually used her talents in art, music
and cutting edge technology to educate both onstage and in the classroom.
In 1998, Sainte-Marie was presented with the Louis T. Delgado Award
as Native American Philanthropist of the Year by Native Americans
in Philanthropy. In 1999, she was the recipient of the American
Indian College Fund's Lifetime Achievement Award. In Ottawa,
she was named an Officer in the Order of Canada which is the highest
civilian honor that country can bestow.
Her recent CD Up Where We Belong
, recorded for EMI Canada, includes new recordings of her most requested
songs and won a JUNO in the Music of Aboriginal Canada category.
The accompanying CBC television concert earned her a Gemini Award
for Best Performance in a Variety Special. She served on
First Lady Hillary Clintons committee to Save Americas
Treasures. Presently she serves on a national committee dedicated
to in-service learning for children called Learning InDeed
which is chaired by Senator John Glenn. Buffy Sainte-Marie now combines
concert travels with Cradleboard Teacher Training workshops and
presentations.
©2001 Nihewan
Foundation
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