The story: A look at the history of the Nez Perce people and their language.
Related story: Words a bridge to past, hereafter

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

When Chief Joseph said he would "fight no more forever" at the battle of Bear Paw, he gave up his rifle, but not his way of life or his claim to his ancestral land. Today, nearly 130 years after the last great battle of the Nez Perce War, decendants of the Joseph's band continue his struggle to preserve the old ways. Excerpt from Spokesman-Review writer Kevin Graman's Nez Perce story on Sunday.

This video was a challenging one to produce in such a short amount of time. What started out as a simple video story on a Nez Perce Culture and Language Program on the Colville Indian Reservation, turned into a history lesson spanning over a hundred years. With the help of historical photographs provided the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and our own newspaper’s archive, I did my best to create a visual narrative of the journey of the Chief Joseph’s band who were forced from Oregon’s Wallowa Valley by white settlers and the U.S. military in the late 1870’s. Spokesman-Review writer Kevin Graman wrote and narrated the voice-overs. His wonderful deep voice and words really make the story come alive.

My only wish was to have been able to videotape some of the Nez Perce historical sites in Oregon, Idaho and Montana. I think this is one story I would like to continue working on over time. The haunting flute music in the video was provided by my friends at Soundings of the Planet. Please check out their website Click here

Kevin, Colin: Thanks for the great work.

-geoff

Hello, I am an enrolled Colville member going to school in Florida. I was glad to see the work you did. Being so far away from home and new to many things, I wish I would have learned more about my people as a child. So many of my friends here ask questions, some I cannot answer, but most I answer to the best of my ability. Thank you again for your work.

good story good work.

The link for the music is www.soundings.com.

Your url leaves out an S.

Fixed! Thanks for the heads up Kelly.
colin

The video player for this story is different than the quicktime player that you usually use on your site.

It reminds me a lot of a player I've seen on one of the video sharing sites ... But I forget the name. Which one? How did it come about that you decided to switch?

Hi Angela,
This video was compressed as a FLV (Flash) file using Sorenson Squeeze. I am transitioning all my video work to Flash for several reasons. First the file size compared to Quicktime is about a third less even after going to a 480 px wide player. Second I am trying to make sure that people will by able to access the video without having go through the long upgrade download that Quicktime puts people through. Finally, I now only have to make one version of the file. No more low and high band. This will allow our web team to easily link to file through our web database to any related story to come along in the future.

I am curious as to whether the video played all right for people outside our region. If it stuttered let me know. I am still working on compression settings.

Wonderful job.
Is there any possiblity of using this for some work we are developing, for Public Health in Okanogan County
Paul Waterstrat
Okanogan Public Health

You have outdone yourself again Colin, great job. My Family lives in Florida and will move to the Mead area in 2009. I really enjoy the work that you do, my Family gets to learn so much before we move out there. Thank you for our mini Pacific Northwest history lessons.

I'd like to hear more about HOW the Chief Joseph Band of Nez Perce came to make the Colville Reservation their permanent home.
I am a direct descendent of Chief Moses, the one who made it possible for the Nez Perce to come back to the Northwest.
Good video though!!

My apologies for failing to mention Chief Moses, who invited the Joseph Band to the Colville Reservation, and Gen. Oliver Otis Howard, who "invited" the band to leave the Wallowa. In an effort to be concise, I excluded many conspicuous characters in the events of 1877, but ignoring these two borders on laconic.

URL is my
"Memories of the Homeland of the Nez Perce".

Good video! I wish that it were longer!