This I didn't know . . . "This we know" by Ted Perry and not Chief Seattle

This I didn't know . . . 

Although this is not new information, it was new to me and brought to my attention by fellow musician and "musical provacateur," Carl Oser.  Carl wrote in his choral program notes to This we know by Ron Jeffers,

"According to multiple sources, the text was written by screenwriter Ted Perry for the 1972 environmental film Home produced by the Southern Baptist Radio and Television Commission. Though Perry originally wrote the words as an overdub for the film, the director of the film presented the narration in a way to suggest that they were delivered by Chief Seattle as part of an 1859 speech. Since the publication of this documentary, these words have been continuously misattributed to Chief Seattle. . . ."

What are a few of those sources? 

• The New York Times, "Chief's Speech of 1854 Given New Meaning (and Words)," by Timothy Egan, April 21, 1992
• Snopes, "Chief Seattle Speech," September, 26, 2007
•  The Seattle Times, "Myth-Quoted: Words of Chief Seattle Were Eloquent – But Not His,” by Ross Anderson, July 1, 1991

Please check out this blog as well for a background to the "speech."
 
Oh, and Carl's choral ensemble's performance of the piece must also be noted:

"In this performance we hope to illuminate and interrogate the context that makes this misattribution possible. This performance will feature the choir singing through the song in English, then in Pig Latin, and finally in Signed English. The aim of these different textual contexts is to raise some big questions very quickly— Do these languages betray the composer’s intent? If this text is a work of fiction anyway, is it okay to challenge the boundaries of language? Does the beauty of the music transcend any textual interference? The list goes on…

"I am hopeful that this performance will invite you to consider what we think we know—and why we think we know it."

Carl also provided the link to the library record of an existing copy of the documentary at Utah State University.

Thanks, Carl for giving me permission to share your program notes and your sources.