Corbin Harney (March 24, 1920 – July 10, 2007) was an elder and
spiritual leader
Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...
of the Newe (
Western Shoshone Western Shoshone comprise several Shoshone tribes that are indigenous to the Great Basin and have lands identified in the Treaty of Ruby Valley 1863. They resided in Idaho, Nevada, California, and Utah. The tribes are very closely related cultur ...
) people. Harney reportedly inspired the creation in 1994 of the
Shundahai Network, which works for
environmental justice
Environmental justice is a social movement to address the unfair exposure of poor and marginalized communities to harms from hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses.Schlosberg, David. (2007) ''Defining Environmental Justic ...
and
nuclear disarmament
Nuclear may refer to:
Physics
Relating to the nucleus of the atom:
*Nuclear engineering
*Nuclear physics
*Nuclear power
*Nuclear reactor
*Nuclear weapon
*Nuclear medicine
*Radiation therapy
*Nuclear warfare
Mathematics
* Nuclear space
* Nuclea ...
. The Shundahai Network plays a key role in organizing
non-violent
Nonviolence is the personal practice of not causing harm to others under any condition. It may come from the belief that hurting people, animals and/or the environment is unnecessary to achieve an outcome and it may refer to a general philosoph ...
civil disobedience aimed at bringing about the closure of the
Nevada Test Site
The Nevada National Security Site (N2S2 or NNSS), known as the Nevada Test Site (NTS) until 2010, is a United States Department of Energy (DOE) reservation located in southeastern Nye County, Nevada, about 65 miles (105 km) northwest of the ...
, used for testing nuclear weapons, which is located on Western Shoshone land.
Early life
Harney's formal education ended when he ran away from Indian boarding school at the age of nine. He felt that his schoolmates were mistreated by their teachers
Beginning in 1957, he worked with medicine women of
Battle Mountain, Nevada, running the
Sundance Ceremony and sweat lodges as well as helping sick people. As a
medicine person, he also worked steadily to preserve and protect the sacred sites and
burial grounds of his people. He was raised to view all life as
sacred
Sacred describes something that is dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a deity; is considered worthy of spiritual respect or devotion; or inspires awe or reverence among believers. The property is often ascribed to objects ( ...
.
Work and activism
Harney devoted his life to working to save the land on which his people have survived for thousands of years.
The
United States Government
The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a feder ...
has exploded more than 1,000
nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bom ...
s at the
Nevada Test Site
The Nevada National Security Site (N2S2 or NNSS), known as the Nevada Test Site (NTS) until 2010, is a United States Department of Energy (DOE) reservation located in southeastern Nye County, Nevada, about 65 miles (105 km) northwest of the ...
, which is located on Western Shoshone land from the
Treaty of Ruby Valley (1863)
The Treaty of Ruby Valley was a treaty signed with the Western Shoshone in 1863, giving certain rights to the United States in the Nevada Territory. The Western Shoshone did not cede land under this treaty but agreed to allow the US the "right to t ...
.
Harney spent most of his time travelling around the world spreading a message about the dangers of
nuclear energy
Nuclear energy may refer to:
*Nuclear power, the use of sustained nuclear fission or nuclear fusion to generate heat and electricity
* Nuclear binding energy, the energy needed to fuse or split a nucleus of an atom
*Nuclear potential energy
...
and nuclear weapons .
In 1989, Harney visited the former Soviet hydrogen bomb testing site in
Semipalatinsk
Semey ( kk, Семей, Semei, سەمەي; cyrl, Семей ), until 2007 known as Semipalatinsk (russian: Семипала́тинск) and in 1917–1920 as Alash-kala ( kk, Алаш-қала, ''Alaş-qala''), is a city in eastern Kazakhst ...
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
.
He reported that he saw victims of the radiation in hospitals that he visited, people who lived close to the Russian nuclear test site.
Harney talked about the
contamination
Contamination is the presence of a constituent, impurity, or some other undesirable element that spoils, corrupts, infects, makes unfit, or makes inferior a material, physical body, natural environment, workplace, etc.
Types of contamination
...
of water in his writings and speeches. He said:" I didn't really understand what I was told until I went to
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
in Russia
Kazakhstan is where Russia tested hydrogen bombs for many years.
Over there I saw water that looks like clean water, but people can't drink it because it is contaminated with radiation ...
e
nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...
put all the living things here for us to take care of, not to destroy them."
In 1994 he founded the
Shundahai Network ("shundahai" translates to "peace and harmony with all creation") where he remained as board chair until his death. In 2003 received the International
Nuclear Free Future Solutions award.
Harney's experiences with victims of the nuclear weapons testing, particularly the "
Downwinders
Downwinders were individuals and communities in the intermountain area between the Cascade and Rocky Mountain ranges primarily in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah but also in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho who were exposed to radioactive contam ...
" of the Western United States, gave credibility to his words. Downwinders refers to the US citizens that were downwind from the atomic bomb tests in Nevada. Harney was a keynote speaker at the Atomic and Hydrogen Bomb Conference in 2001, in
Nagasaki, Japan
is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyūshū. Nagasaki Prefecture has a population of 1,314,078 (1 June 2020) and has a geographic area of 4,130 km2 (1,594 sq mi). Nagasaki Prefecture borders Saga Prefecture to the northeast.
Naga ...
, where he was able to speak with still-recovering survivors of the testing (in the Marshall Islands, and other South Pacific atolls) or use (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) of
nuclear weapons.
He was also the founder and director of Poo Ha Bah, a traditional healing center in
Tecopa, California.
"I have established Poo-Ha-Bah for all the people. Poo-Ha-Bah in my language is a very important word--it's talking about Doctor Water. My people have always traveled for many miles to get into different kinds of healing waters."
Trained from childhood in the traditional Newe ways of
medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...
and
spirituality (the two are not viewed separately), Harney noted the
extinction
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...
of
medicinal plants due to the
toxins of mining, and the disappearance of many birds and other animals that once roamed the Newe homelands.
Harney completed arrangements for the publication of his second book, "The Nature Way", shortly before his death. In this book he shares the traditional knowledge of his people, the Newe.
Together with Harney in the defense of Western Shoshone lands were the sisters,
Mary Dann and Carrie Dann
The Dann Sisters, Mary Dann (1923–2005) and Carrie Dann (1932–2021), were Western Shoshone elders who were spiritual leaders, ranchers, and cultural, spiritual rights and land rights activists. They challenged the federal government over uses ...
who contested the government's use of their land in a case that went to the US Supreme Court.
Harney died of
cancer
Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...
which had
metastasized
Metastasis is a pathogenic agent's spread from an initial or primary site to a different or secondary site within the host's body; the term is typically used when referring to metastasis by a cancerous tumor. The newly pathological sites, then, ...
into his bones.(
Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma
Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), also known as non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, is a group of hematological malignancy, blood cancers that includes all types of lymphomas except Hodgkin lymphomas. Symptoms include lymphadenopathy, enlarged lymph nodes, fever ...
)
Film
''Broken Treaty at Battle Mountain,''
released in 1975, Joel Freedman a MacArthur Foundation Film selection narrated by Robert Redford 60 minutes. This film documents The Western Shoshone of Nevadas fight to preserve 24,000 acres to save their pinon trees needed for food and traditional practices.
''Newe Segobia is not for sale. The Struggle for Western Shoshone Land'' 1993 documentary by Jesse Drew
''To Protect Mother Earth,''1989. Joel Freedman documentary won the
CINE Golden Eagle
Ciné film or cine film is the term commonly used in the UK and historically in the US to refer to the 8 mm, Super 8, 9.5 mm, and 16 mm motion picture film formats used for home movies. It is not normally used to refer ...
award
as well as a best short film award at the 1990 Chicago film festival.
''American Outrage'' (2008) produced by Gage films;
Mary and Carrie Dann, sisters, are two women of the Western Shoshone tribe in Nevada who challenged the US government for land rights and the case goes to the US Supreme Court.
Books
Harney, Corbin ''The Nature Way'' 2009 University of Nevada Press, Reno
Harney, Corbin ''The way it is: one water-one air-one mother earth'' 1995 Blue Dolphin Pub. Nevada City CA
Fradkin, Philip. ''Fallout an American Nuclear Tragedy'' 1989 Johnson Books, Colorado
References
External links
Corbin Harney featured on PBS's "Circle of Stories"Shundahai Network website*
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20060614132734/http://shoshone.us/corbin-harney-shoshone-medicine-a19.html Profile of Corbin Harney on Shoshone-specific culture/language sitebr>
Reminiscence of Corbin Harneyby
David Rovics
David Stefan Rovics (born April 10, 1967) is an American indie singer/songwriter. His music concerns topical subjects such as the 2003 Iraq war, anti-globalization, anarchism, and social justice issues. Rovics has been an outspoken critic of ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harney, Corbin
1920 births
2007 deaths
Shoshone people
American animists
American environmentalists
Deaths from prostate cancer
Native American activists
Religious figures of the indigenous peoples of North America
People from Petaluma, California
American anti–nuclear weapons activists
Nonviolence advocates
Deaths from cancer in California
People from Owyhee County, Idaho
Activists from California
20th-century Native Americans
21st-century Native Americans