Western Shoshone Elder - Corbin Harney

Pray for the Water, Pray for the Land:

An Interview with Western Shoshone Elder Corbin Harney

by, Timothy White

Corbin Harney is an elder and spiritual leader of the Newe Sogobia or Western Shoshone Nation, a people indigenous to the Great Basin region of Nevada, Utah, Idaho, and California. He is probably best-known for his tireless work as an opponent of nuclear testing and as a defender of Native sacred sites and burial grounds. He is also a well-respected medicine man, who works closely with Shoshone medicine women Eunice Silva and Florence Vega of Battle Mountain, Nevada, helping them run Sun Dances, sweat lodges, and doctoring sick people.
As a spiritual leader concerned about the well-being of his people, Corbin was thrust into a public leadership role during the 1980s when his people joined forces with numerous anti-nuclear groups to stop nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site, located on traditional Shoshone lands.

Corbin's leadership was instrumental in persuading the U.S. government to agree to a nuclear test moratorium at the Nevada Test Site.

Having seen the terrible consequences of nuclear pollution in Nevada, Kazakhstan, and other parts of the world, Corbin has dedicated his life to warning people everywhere of the dangers of nuclear pollution. Recently, Corbin has been traveling across the country educating people about Department of Energy plans to ship nuclear waste across this country to Yucca Mountain, Nevada, on his people's traditional lands (see page 4 this issue).
The following interview, conducted over several sessions during one of Corbin's recent visits to northern California, explores his insights into the ecospiritual crisis facing us today. His message is remarkably simple: life on this planet is in serious danger, and if we want to save ourselves from total destruction, we must learn to use the most powerful healing tool available to us-the power of prayer.

Timothy White: Can you start by telling us a little about how you became a healer and spiritual lender?

Corbin Harney: Well, I don't really like to talk about myself too much, or to say I'm this type of healer or that. I don't want people to say he's a such-and-such or a so and-so; I just pray for people. But since you asked, I will say a little about my background, how I came to be who I am.

I was told as a child that I was born with a spiritual power. My forefathers had the power to heal the sick, my grandma had the healing power, and my mother had it at one time, so I guess it's in my blood. My uncle was an Indian

healer, and I used to follow him around as he doctored people. People relied on him, because when he doctored them, they got well.

For a time, I tried to avoid doing what my uncle and the other Indian doctors used to do. I was ashamed to do those things, but my uncle told me, "Someday you're going to have to do it. If you don't do it, you're going to get sick."

At the time, I didn't understand what he meant. Later I learned that if you're gifted-if spirit is in your blood-you can't get away from it. Twice I got sick and I went to see a White doctor, but he didn't know what was wrong with me. Then I went to an Indian doctor, and he told me exactly what was wrong with me. He told me it was my own doing, that it was because I was trying to get away from doctoring. From then on, I understood that those of us who are healers have to keep the spiritual power strong, and that we can't avoid or misuse our gift.

Part of my gift, my healing work, working to stop nuclear pollution. For years I've been traveling around the world, talking about stopping nuclear testing. I've started traveling and talking about nuclear waste dumps that they are putting on Indian lands.

I never was a very good talker, but something behind me keeps pushing me to keep putting the message out there to the people. I can't stop talking about it because I am concerned for the young people and for living things. I've seen what has happened to people in Nevada since the government started nuclear testing on Shoshone land at Mercury. I've also seen some of the of places around the world that have It contaminated with nuclear radiation doesn't last too long around nuclear IN

For many years, I've been saying that we have to take care of the water. We have to keep the water clean for all the living things, not just the human beings. Everything is connected. Everything uses "IT". I don't care what it is: rocks, trees, and everything uses water.

People have stopped thanking the water, and it is becoming polluted through this country. In some areas, the tap water is already so bad that the authorities telling people to boil their water or n through filters. Good clean hater it ready getting scarce.

One morning several years ago, I was praying to the water, and the spirit of the water told me, "Pretty soon, I'm going look like clean Water, but no one is going to use me." Now I didn't really understand what I was told until I went to Kazakhstan two years ago. Kazakhstan is where Russia tested nuclear bombs for many years.

Corbin leads a group of protesters in song and prayer at the Nevada Test Site.

Over there, I saw water that looks like clean water, but people can't drink it because it is contaminated with radiation. You can't filter the radiation out of water, and it doesn't even do any good to boil it. In one area of Kazakhstan, they're shooting the water with laser beams trying to get the radiation out, but they still can't.

When I went to Kazakhstan, my hosts took me to visit the children's hospital there. I saw one girl, about thirteen years old, who was lying there covered With a sheet. She was looking at me, so I thought she was lying on her back, but when the nurse pulled the sheet off her, I saw that she was lying on her stomach. She had been born with her head horned the wrong way. I saw other kids who were missing an ear or an eye. I remember one kid, about five years old, who had one eye that was bigger than a cup. He kept hanging on to me as I went from room to room, but he was happy.

These young people were always smiling, but it's sad to see things like that happen to young kids.

In Kazakhstan, they know that the nuclear radiation is making them sick, but they can't leave their land. One person told me, "It's the land where we were born and where we have always lived. Besides, we don't have money to go anywhere. We can only wait and die right here."

If the United States Department of Energy-the DOE- gets its way, the same

thing could happen here in this country. Recently, I went to a DOE hearing in Las Vegas because I heard the government is planning to ship nuclear waste onto my people's land at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.

For a number of years, government officials have been telling my people that they had scrapped their plans to put nuclear waste on Yucca Mountain. They said they didn't even have enough money to finish the study of it-but I guess they found the money somehow.

When I went to the hearing in Las Vegas, the DOE announced that they're going to start shipping thousands and thousands-maybe millions-of tons of nuclear waste from all over the world to Yucca Mountain Some Americans may think that they don't need to worry-that Yucca Mountain, Nevada, is a long way away from them-but Yucca Mountain isn't the only part of the country that is in danger.

In order to get the nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, the DOE is going to haul it there over your highways and railroads, through your frontyards or backyards.

NOW I know the idea of hauling nuclear waste all over the country sounds crazy, but anyone can go into any DOE office around the country and find out what the government is planning to do. The DOE plans are not secret anymore. The government is going to be hauling nuclear waste-on our highways, on our rails, or in the air-across forty-three states.

At the meeting in Las Vegas, the DOE assured us that they don't plan to have any accidents, but we all know that accidents can happen According to the DOE's own figures, if an accident does happen, it's going to contaminate everyone in a five-hundred-mile radius. The water in an entire region could become useless. Some people think they will be able to buy filtered water in bottles at the supen1larkets but he will they know if the water-really safe? We know they can't filter radioactive material out of the water.

We have already seen what happened when Chernobvl blew up-it took thou- sands of lives, and it wasn't even a large plant. Some people died right away, a lot more suffered for a few years before they died, and the radiation from Chernobyl will continue taking lives today as it blows over other lands. Some people say that the radiation from Chernobyl is already falling on parts of the United States today, but our government is not telling us.

For years, I have been trying to tell people that we've got to stop nuclear testing and that we've got to stop producing nuclear waste, because we can never get away from it. Once we produce nuclear waste, it's there for 250,000 years or maybe longer. The problem with nuclear waste is that it doesn't stay in one area, wind and water can carry it from one end of the country to the other, and all around the globe. So if any accident ever happen while they're transporting nuclear waste everyone is going to suffer.

Recently, when I u as visiting Oregon, saw w hat happens when water is polluted with radioactive materials. The Columbia River has been contaminated by leaks from the Hanford Nuclear Plant, and now the big fish have sores all over them. The government is warning people not to eat the big fish from the Columbia. They say is OK to eat the little ones, but after seeing the sores on one big fish, I don't want to eat any fish out of that river.

We've been using too many chemicals in the air and on the land, and it's getting

into the rivers and into the oceans. We'd beginning to see the animals in the ocean

come onto the shores to die. That shouldn't be happening. I think they're trying to tell us that they know the pollution and sickness is coming from us, the human race.

White: One reason many Americans are so careless about polluting the land is that we're raised in a scientific culture that teaches us that the earth and rocks are dead. Instead of teaching us to respect the spirit of the land, Western science has tried to teach us that spirit doesn't even exist.

Harney: Everything has spirit -I don't care what it is. The spirits exist all right, but the

problem is that when we lose our faith in spirits, the spirits lose their faith in us. When we talk and sing to the spirits around us, it keeps them healthy, and then they keep us healthy. That's why Indian people are always singing to the plants, trees, flowers, dogs, cats-to whatever is out there.

For thousands of years, my people have said, "We've got to take care of what we have, if we want to keep living c n it If we don't take care of what we have, then someday we'll wake up and it will be gone" What they meant by "taking care of it" is that we have to pray for it, to thank it for taking care of us. My people survived on this land for thousands and thousands of years by taking care of what they were given.

At one time, the deer told my people, "If you take care of me, I'll take care of you. If you're hungry, I'll feed you. You can take my life, but make sure you tell me why you're taking it. When you do take my life, use every bit of me, don't throw anything away. That way, I can be waiting for you whenever you need something from me ". My people used to hunt game with their medicine power; they didn't need guns, or even bows and arrows And we used every hit of what we took, so the Mother Earth was clean.

My people say that at one time, everything on this Earth had a medicine power. Most of our Indian foods weren't just foods; they were medicines that kept us health and strong,

The chokecherry used to be a very important food for many Indian peoples, but it was also a medicine. Chokecherries can clean your blood, clean your kidney, clean your eyesight then we stopped eating choke cherries and stopped thanking them, and now they have begun to die out. In some areas, the chokecherries are totally gone. In other parts, they have no meat on them; they're just shells. When they are gone, what are we going to do?

Rabbits used to provide to us with medicines too. My people used to eat a lot of rabbits, and we got medicines through them because they used to eat certain kinds of medicine plants to stay healthy. Now, because of all the chemicals we use, many of the medicine plants that the rabbits used to eat are gone. The rabbits are getting scarcer and those I see are not very healthy. Now they can't take care of us any longer.

Wherever I go, I tell people we have to get back to our spiritual wan of life. We were all spiritual people at one time. We used to come together at regular gatherings and ceremonies, to pray together. We took care of our springs, we took care of our foods, and they took care of us.

But then we got away from our spiritual ways, and today we see that all living things are beginning to suffer from it the birds and the animals are beginning to get sickly,

The military continues to test nuclear bombs on Western Shoshone lands. PHOTO

and their lives are getting shorter. The trees and flowers are all getting sickly. And people are getting sickly all across this country. If we don't take care of everything on this planet, everything is going to suffer.

White: Part of the problem is that, for centuries, our pseudo-scientific culture has taught us that it is superstitious folly to believe in the spirit of things. How can we help people relate again to the spirit of the water, and the spirit of the trees?

Harney: It's easy. Water likes to talk to us. All you have to do is go sit by a creek somewhere, and it'll start singing to you. If you listen carefully, you can hear a voice in it. Of course, it helps to sing songs and pray to the water first Our songs and prayers make the water spirit feel better, then it does a better job.

It's also important to go out and start talking to the trees If you start drumming in the forests, pretty soon you'll see the limbs of the trees begin moving with the rhythm of the drum that's the spirit of the tree. It's important to drum to the water, to the wind, to the land, if we want to survive.

Here are a couple experiments that can show that spirit exists in everything, and that prayer strengthens the spirit.

Buy two plants that are alike. Put one in one corner of your house, and put the other in another corner. Give them both the same amount of water, and sunlight, but then, every day for several weeks, sing and talk to one of the plants, and ignore the other. The plant that you sing to will grow better than the one that you never sing to. That's the spirit of the plant showing you it likes your singing and talking.

You can do a similar experiment with water. Put the same amount of water in two glasses. Put one glass in one corner of your house and the other glass in another corner. Sing and pray to the water in one glass, and ignore the water in the other glass. The water that you never talk to or sing to will get stale within 30 days. But the one that you talk to, you sing to, and you pray over will stay clean and stronger for much longer. That's the water's spirit responding to your spirit. That's an experiment that anyone can try and that anyone can understand. Try that, then you'll know that the spirit of water is real.

White: Does it matter to the plants and water which language you use to pray and sing?

Harney: Any language works, because we were all put here on the Earth to take care of each other and to pray for each other.

I always tell people, "Don't do it my way, do it your on n way " I tell everyone to pray how they've been taught to pray. At one time, your forefathers prayed for the land and for the water, but they got away from it.

Wherever we, the people, unite ourselves to pray, we still have good trees,

good plants. When we sing songs to the flowers, they're going to enjoy themselves and continue to grow. We have to keep the flowers strong because some creatures survive on the flowers, and other creatures survive on them. That's why at our Nevada Test Site gatherings, I sing five songs every morning, over and over again.

White: Some recent scientific studies have shown that prayer promotes healing. When people pray for one group of patients, but not the other group, the group being prayed for heals much faster.

Unfortunately, most people today don't have the patience to stop and pray every day for a month over a glass of water or over a plant. If they don't see results right away, they may get bored and give up.

Harney: It's important to remember that the good things take time, that they happen one step at a time.

My people say, "It takes a long time for a good thing to come about. But a bad thing can happen right now."

We never have to ask for bad things to happen. Bad things happen all by them selves, all the time. In contrast, it takes a lot of steps to make something good happen. That's why we have to keep on asking for good things to happen. That's why we have to get back to a spiritual way of life.

We have to pray to the water that we drink and thank it for providing us with healing energy, with cleansing energy. We have to thank the food, or it will get weak. We have to thank the animals even if we're vegetarians now because they kept us alive during the ice ages. Without animals, we humans would have never survived. Even vegetarians have to pray for the vegetables growing on Mother Earth, because today the vegetables are getting weaker and weaker all the time.

And it's not just the traditional Native foods that are getting weak. For many years I've been saying there's going to be a shortage of good food around the world. NOW it's already beginning to happen. Today most of the foods that we buy at the supermarkets are contaminated and getting weaker. I know that farmers have to work hard to make a living, but when they start using chemicals, the food gets bad.

Even if the foods are grown without chemicals, some stores spray chemicals on them to keep them fresh. Some people can't handle all the chemicals that have been sprayed on our foods. When we eat the chemicals, we become sick. We are beginning to see more young people getting cancer at an early age.

White: One problem today is that people are cut off from Mother Earth and nature. When people buy food from supermarkets and get their water from taps, they stop appreciating where it came from and they forget to thank the plants, the animals, the water, and the land. How do we teach each other and our children to take care of what we have?

Harney: Well, we can start by getting the moms and dads to make time for the

younger generation. We need to get young people out onto the land and show them how important it is for all of us to take care of it, so that it will take care of us. This is something that anyone can do.

We can start teaching the very young that everything on this planet has a purpose and a power. The flowers are important; they were put here for a purpose; they will take care of us if we can take care of them. It's the same with animals: when we take care of them, they'll take care of us.

If we don't take better care of them, they won't be able to take care of us.

Trees are put here for a purpose; trees have special powers. When it gets hot, people start looking for a nice tree with lots of nice shade. That's part of its power, but there are other powers within trees that give you energy. If you sit under a tree or lie there daydreaming, the tree will give you energy. If you pray under a tree, the tree will give your prayers energy. That's

why my people protect the trees. Before we chop down a tree-especially a green one-we have to tell the tree the reason why we're chopping it down, why we're taking its life.

Look what is happening to the hills in California today-people are so busy cutting the forests that they don't take time to talk to the trees-to say thank you. Now, the trees are getting weak and can't take care of us. Now when it rains, the topsoil runs off to the bottom. That's why we need to ask good things for the trees.

I think one reason we have so many problems today is that our parents never took us out and taught us what the Earth is about. Our parents forgot to tell us that all the living things out there are very important to all of us. And I'm not just talking about Whites.

A lot of us Indians have been riding down the White man's road, because it's very easy and convenient. All you've got to do is push buttons and the coffee is made. It is easy and co?1venie?1t to go into the supermarkets and get whatever food we want. It is easy and ci7nve?1ient for the corporations Kit put chemicals in our foods.

It is also easy and convenient to tell a lie. The White man's wan is east and convenient, but when we break the rules set down by nature itself, we start having problems.

We're destroying the forest, we're destroying our water, we're destroying our air, and our Mother Earth is beginning to suffer. If we let this continue, we're not going to survive. This is something we really have to think about. It's going to hard to change this, but it can be done - it has to be done.

White: I've heard some Native prophecies that say if we continue to pollute and mistreat the earth that it will shake us off like a dog shakes off fleas. Do your people have any similar prophecies?

Harney: A long time ago, When 1 was a boy, I heard our old people talk about what was going to happen to us if we didn't take care of the Earth. Way back in 1927, when I was seven years old, my grandma used to say that a purification was going to start in June 1994, and that the earth would come to a flip-flop in 1998.

When I was growing up in Nevada, we used to live in tents. Ten or twelve of us used to sleep in the same one-room tent, so I couldn't help but hear everything that the old people talked about in the evenings. I remember that my grandma and the other old people used to talk a lot about what was going to happen to the land. They used to say, "Water can take our lives; air can shut us off; the Mother can move; she can swallow us up."

I'm not sure why I paid attention to what the old people were saying about

those things. To begin with, I never believed in them. I'm one of those persons who doesn't believe in anything until I see it. Now that I have witnessed some of the things that they were talking about, I wish I had listened better. I only remember some of what they said about what was going to happen.

At one time, the water said, "If you don't take care of me, I can take life." Now I see the water around the globe is really mad at us for what We've been doing to it. We've seen how the ocean can take a huge ship and tear it apart.

At one time, the air said, "If you don't appreciate what I'm here for, then I can shut you off." We've seen airplanes fall from the sky without any explanation. The government thinks that the engines might have gone haywire, but they can't figure out what really happened. Maybe the air just shut them off.

I remember that my grandma used to say that the Earth will start moving in 1994. Well, we've started to see the land moving all over the World. It hasn't hit hard here yet, but it will.

Way back in 1927, I didn't know what they meant when they said that the Earth would come to a flip-flop in 1998. I still don't know for sure, but everything is sure beginning to flip flop and change directions. We're beginning to see strange weather here and there, not just in our area. We see hurricanes and tornadoes happening where the! never were before.

In some places where it used to rain, it is bone dry.

One night recently, something told me, "The Earth is going to darken" I didn't understand What that meant, so the next night, I asked the question, "What do you mean that it's going to darkens'' The only answer I received was, "I already said it."

I'm still not sure what that means, but then I remember that the old people used to say, " Ashes will come from within the Mother herself." Recently we have seen more and more volcanoes around the world erupting and putting ashes between the earth and sky.

Some scientists say that two times before the earth was darkened by volcanic explosions. My people also say that flip-flops have happened two times before when people stopped living by the natural law, and it can happen again. We try to make human rules, but those rules don't work with nature. My people used to say some people will survive the flip-flop. They say that those people who really believe in what they are doing, who really pray together to save what we have, may survive. There will be twelve in one bunch over here, twelve more over there, and other bunches of twelve here and there. Those people will have to start life all over again, but they will have to return to natural law if they want to survive.

Maybe nature is trying to show us, that life can change. Or maybe Nature is warning us, giving us time to get together in groups: twelve here, twelve there. Either way, we need to get back to a spiritual way of life.

White: Shamans in many parts of the world have been saying that there is a need to teach Whites about Shamanism and other Native spiritual ways. Recently, however, some Native Americans have been saying that Whites shouldn't be allowed to practice Native Spiritual ways. What do you think?

Harney: We `all have to get back to a spiritual way of life, what I call Traditional Native Ways. By traditional Native Ways, I mean taking care of the earth, taking of living things, and taking care of each other. Getting back to Native ways is the only way that we are going to survive.

I keep telling people that we all live on the same Mother Earth. We all breathe the same air and use the same water - all around the globe. We've got to stop saying I'm different from you and you're different from others - We're all one people on one earth.

Native Americans can't take care of this land all by themselves. Everybody has been polluting it, and everyone has to pitch in and make things better. If we don't all get back to Native Ways, we Will continue destroying things - then no one will be able to survive at all. If we don't all start working together to clean up the planet soon, there won't be anyone left to clean up our messes tomorrow.

If we don't take care of Mother Earth, what are we going to do? I don't think we're going to find another Mommy out there in space. I think this is the only Mommy we've got, So we've all got to take care of her today So that future generations can have clean water, clean food, and a clean Mother Earth.

White: One of your central messages is that we have to work together in order to save the planet. Why is it that whenever people link hands and start working for the good of all, someone usually comes along and disrupts the cooperation? How can we overcome such disruptive forces?

Harney: Well, Native peoples have a lot of experience with people interrupting our way of life. Whenever someone tries to divide us, we figure it's probably the government trying to conquer us.

But we also have a saying: "If you're doing something good, a bad thing will come right in and try to interrupt what you're doing." A good thing can overcome a bad thing, but it takes time. It takes a step at a time.

One way you can overcome any interruption is by stepping back. If someone interrupts you - even if you think you you're in the right just take a step back and take another look at what you're doing If you see that what you are doing is good, then you can go forward again, one step at a time. But if you don't step back, and you happen to be going is the wrong direction, then where will you end up?

Some people think they're doing good by going around and interrupting others, but that's wrong. If these people keep on interrupting others even if they're right and the others are wrong pretty soon they'll find themselves out there by themselves-alone. Even if you're absolutely sure that you're right,

interrupting others is not a very good way to teach anyone.

White: Even Native spiritual people seem to have a hard time getting together. For example, some people who follow the Peyote Way have problems with those who follow the Sun Dance Way, and some Sun dance people have problems with those who follow the Peyote Way. Both groups follow good spiritual paths, yet they can't get along and work together. Why is that?

Harney: My people have a story that explains why people are always disagreeing.

My people say that, at the beginning of creation, Coyote and Wolf were making decisions about what kind of life we should have on Earth. Coyote was always disagreeing With Wolf. Whatever Wolf said, Coyote always said something different. Wolf wanted the trees to be all alike, but Coyote said no, they should be different.

He wanted some trees to have stickers, and other ones to be poisonous.

When Porcupine said, "I'm going to be good to all my neighbors," Wolf said, "That's good, Porcupine should be harmless like everyone else." But Coyote argued that Porcupine should have protection so that no one could harm him; so Coyote put quills on him so that we can't touch him.

Wolf said that we should all be alike, we should grow alike, and we shotild all talk the same language. But Coyote said no, that we should be different and speak different languages. That's why, millions of years ago, the birds, the trees, and everything on this Earth used to speak the same language. Today, they still talk to each other, only some of us can hear them, and some of us can't.

My people say the reason people can't agree on anything is because we were put on this Earth by Wolf and Coyote. They made the rules and regulations for everyone at the beginning of creation. That's why humans will always disagree On everything. Even if people believe in the same thing, they'd still disagree about it.

White: In your book, you say that it is important for people to tape songs and photograph ceremonies in order to get the word out to people. However, there are some Native Americans who say that we shouldn't write books about medicine ways, that it is wrong to photograph Native ceremonies, and that we shouldn't talk about shamanic practices because people might misuse or abuse them.

Harney: Some Indians today say that we should never let the White man photograph our spiritual ceremonies, that it could hurt the ceremonies. Others say that people have been photographing our sweats and Sun Dances since way back in 1927, and they're as strong today as ever. This is one area where Coyote and Wolf disagreed.

Some of my own people used to say, "Don't tell a White man anything, don't show him anything." But we changed our thinking about cameras, because we had to stop nuclear testing on our lands. In my part of the country, we saw that nuclear radiation was making our lives short. I've seen children being born without eyes, without ears, even without heads. I've seen a cat born with eight legs; I've seen cats born with just two legs. I've seen a lot of humans die of cancers caused by the radiation. It's horrible to see those things.

For years, I have been talking about the dangers of nuclear pollution, but I guess people didn't want to believe my mouth - then they saw those things on film, and they believed it. That's why in the 1980's I began to ask people to start using their cameras and tape recorders at the Nevada Test Site.

Now my people have seen that cameras are the best way we have to put our message out to the eyes and ears of the people. We want people around the world to know we're doing something about nuclear pollution, and that they can do something about it also.

I think it is also important that people see that our Native Ways work. If Indian people only talk to ourselves about the Native Ways, we'll never stop the pollution and destruction on this planet. If we try to hide our Native Ways behind the bush all the time, a lot of people may never learn to take care of the plants and animals on this planet. That's why we have to start coming out and educating the public about our Native Ways, so we can learn to work together. How else are people going to know that our Native Spiritual Ways work, that they are worth doing?

There are other times when I am working on someone who is sick, and I can't come out in front of everyone and tell everyone what kind of sickness I am working on. That's between the spirit and myself, and I can't just talk about it. That's why I ask the people I am working on to be patient and try to understand what I'm singing about Maybe after a few days I can talk about it to the individual, but I can't talk about it during the ceremony.

But I never worry about my songs or ceremonies being put on film. I let people photograph me - even if I'm praying for somebody - because in my experience, miracles can happen no matter what. I also know that if the spirits don't want a song or ceremony taped, they can shut the machines off. I've seen that happen three or four times: people will be making a film and it comes out blank.

Sometimes, people tape my songs and try to learn them , but it is very hard for people to pick them up. At the Nevada Test Site, I sing the same five songs every morning. I have one song that I sing to the wind, the rocks, and the lizards. A lot of people have taped that song to learn it, but they can't pick it up. I don't know why: maybe it's because that song was given to me by the Creator.

Another reason people have difficulty picking up my songs is because I sing songs differently for different situations, according to what the spirit tells me to do. The song may sound like a song I've sung before, but I have to sing it the way spirit tells me to sing it.

White: You seem to work a lot directly with spirit. Is there a danger that some people might watch you and start thinking, "If its ok for Corbin to change his songs or rituals, why can't I change the songs or rituals?

Harney: What I do depends entirely on the spirit. If I sang a song differently just to be different, it wouldn't work. If the spirit tells me to sing songs differently and I don't do it, then the spirit will tell me, "You didn't do what I told you to do."

The spirits can sometimes be pretty rugged and mean. If the Bear spirit tells you to do something different from the others, you better do it. If you don't do as he asks you to do, he can be pretty mean. I know, I've gotten slapped around by the Bear Spirit several times.

White: Are you ever concerned that some people may try to copy your external actions without really understanding what's going on with your spirits?

Harney: I've seen a lot of phony spiritual leaders who may have copied someone's ceremony, but they don't have a connection with spirit. I guess people don't realize how dangerous it is to try to copy someone else's medicine. If they don’t know what they're doing, they can get hurt or they can get sick.

I was told early in my life, "Don't copy someone else's song. Have your own song." I don't use someone else's songs. That's why my songs are different from the ones my uncle sang. I've worked with a lot of Indian doctors over the years, and they've each got different songs for different purposes. They would never copy another person's medicine song.

It may be OK to share some types of Native songs, such as Peyote songs or Sun Dance songs, but people should still take the time to learn the songs and know what they are singing about.

Not too long ago, I was in Riverside and they had sixteen drummers singing different Indian songs. They sounded pretty good. After they finished singing, I went over and asked them if they understood what they were singing about. Out of the sixteen, only one drummer knew what the songs were connected to. The other fifteen said they had just picked up the songs, but they didn't know what the songs meant.

There are a lot of people who try to make money teaching about Sweats or Sun Dances, or other good things, and they don't really know what they're doing. You can't pick something good and try to teach it right away. It takes time to learn a good thing really well; it must be done one step at a time.

If someone teaches something without really understanding it, they could easily make a mistake and mislead the public. If people try to copy those people and teach others, they can mislead others. It doesn't take long for a bad thing to get started; it can happen very quickly. Sooner or later, the good thing will amount to nothing. People will waste all that time trying to learn something, and in that happens, it could be dangerous for our Native ways.

White: Over the last decade, I have heard many rumors accusing this or that medicine person of being plastic medicine men. In some cases, the accusations may be true. But I've also seen some legitimate medicine people, like yourself, under attack. How can the average person tell the difference between legitimate criticisms and unfounded rumors?

Harney: A quick way to tell a plastic medicine men is that they're always asking for money and your plastic credit cards. I have heard that there are persons traveling around the world today saying they are Sun Dance leaders, but they're charging people $600.00 a head just to attend the Sun Dance. That isn't a Sun Dance leader; that's someone who is making money. I have heard there was a woman who was charging other women $100 just to attend a sweat. That isn't a sweat leader; that's someone who is making money.

I've also heard of medicine people being criticized for not doing a ceremony according to the way others do it. I know, I've been criticized several times for not doing my ceremonies the way my people used to do them. It's true that I do them differently, but I have to do them the way my spirit tells me, not how my people did a long time ago.

One time when I was a little boy, I saw a kind of sickness on a person that my uncle was working on. I tried to tell my uncle what I saw, but he told me right then, "That's your way of looking at him; that's your experience. But, by God, don't tell me your experience, because my experience might be different from yours. You're going to be going through something different, so keep it to yourself."

That's why my uncle had his ways of doctoring, and then I got my way. The important thing is that we have to take care of these medicine ways or they'll disappear. For thousands and thousands of years, my people had to rely on the medicines that the Creator gave us, so we took good care of them.

At one time, the rocks had voices and they talked to us. Maybe some of you have heard or talked to a rock. The rocks told us, "If you take care of me, I'll take care of you." That's why my people were able to use rocks to heal sicknesses and our pains. We knew that if we asked for help, the rocks would keep their word.

Even today, we use rocks in our sweat lodges, and they still heal our bad feelings and sicknesses. And I still tell people who have pains to go out and get a rock. Pray to it before you move it and tell it how you intend to use it. Wrasp it up in cloth and then put it where your pain is - the rock will take the pain out of you. It's good medicine.

But if we want the rocks to keep on healing us, we, the people, have to thank them, and we have to ask them to help us before we move them from the earth. The rock spirits need to be kept strong, or they won't be able to take away our sicknesses.

At one time, we were very respectful about the plant medicines. We were taught that the medicine plants can take sickness from us, if we ask them to. We were taught to take care of the medicine plants and to talk to those plants so that they stay healthy. We were taught to clean up before we touched any kind of food or medicine plant.

A lot of books used to say Indian people were a little crazy because they took baths before hunting foods or getting medicines. We cleansed ourselves so we wouldn't dirty the plants. We didn't go to one plant and harvest every bit of it. We didn't misuse the plant medicines that we took. We wanted to keep the plants healthy, because we knew we had to work together.

My people always said, "Take care of those medicines, because you never know when you're going to have to rely on them someday." But then, my people started going to the government hospitals and they stopped using Native medicines. My people stopped praying and giving thanks to the medicines, and I have already seen many good medicines that we used to rely on begin to disappear. Our chemicals are wiping them out.

I've been told we're going to be needing our traditional medicines again pretty soon. In Riverside California, they won't even let you into the hospital unless you have good insurance or you can put up lots of money. One Indian woman told me she had to put up $4500 dollars to get into the hospital. They told her that she would get the money back in ninety days, if she proved she was an Indian. When she asked for her money back in ninety days, they told her she couldn't have it back, that she didn't qualify to be an Indian.

Pretty soon it won'[t matter if you're Indian or not-Indian, we'll all be in the same boat. How many people today have $5,000 to put up each time they go to the hospital? What are we going to do when we can no longer afford to go to hospitals or to see a doctor?

We may have to rely on our traditional medicines. We had better start talking to the older people who still know what kinds of medicine are out there. We had better start praying again for everything out there so that the medicines will be strong. When we harvest our foods, we need to ask that food to be strong medicine for us. We have to pray to all the living things; we all have to ask that they continue to give us our strength. We have to go back to the spiritual way of life.

But the situation isn't hopeless. My people used to say, "Don't give up hope - a miracle can happen, if we keep asking for good things." But we have to ask, because spirit isn't going to give us what we need unless we ask. Our prayers can't be answered until they are asked. But if we ask for good things, our prayers can be answered. I know, I've seen the power of prayer at work.

I've just come from Boise, Idaho, where we've been fighting to protect a sacred burial site and spiritual ground. A house developer was planning to build a bunch of million-dollar homes on this ridge near the state prison overlooking Boise. We became aware of the plans through a newspaper article, and a few of us said that we can't let that happen because it is our spiritual ground and our burial site. There's a little park there where the Indian people go to bathe and heal in the hot water.

So we started meeting with people, and every time we met, we gathered strength. Some people remembered that people had been buried there, and other people from the museum remembered some history about the site. We finally got the city council leaders and the news media to go out there and look at the site. Then everyone saw that it would ruin the beauty of that area if the developer built homes on that ridge.

Pretty soon, people started donating money to help the Indian people buy the developer out. They raised the $70,000 down needed to buy the land. Then I suggested to the Indians in Boise that it would be good to put the land into a park so that everyone can use it, and they agreed. Now the county commissioners and the city council thought that was a good idea, and they're raising the rest of the money because they say they were the ones who made the mistake of approving the development plans in the first place.

Now, while we were trying to protect the land from development, people started gathering and praying at the burial site and the spiritual ground. After several years, good things started happening there. Last year I saw the flowers start growing on the hill there. A spring that was dry for forty-one years is now flowing again. The birds are coming back, even in the center of Boise.

I've also seen the power of prayer working at Rock Creek, forty miles north of Battle Mountain. Some of your readers may remember that my people were struggling to stop the county from constructing a recreational reservoir over our sacred lands at Rock Creek. The county commissioners finally gave up on building the Rock Creek reservoir, saying it was because we gave them too much hassle.

But maybe it happened because we've been praying there and blessing the land for the last eight years. I've seen the willows and flowers start coming back, and I've seen a lot of frogs and other animals come back to the area. Last year, the medicine plants started coming back strong again.

When we started praying at the Nevada Test Site in the 1980's, the land there was dying. Even the lizards and ants were black. Over the years, thousands and thousands of people have gathered there to put an end to nuclear testing. We kept coming together and praying together, and pretty soon they stopped the testing. In 1988, President Bush signed a moratorium on nuclear testing. Today, the flowers and animals are coming back to life in that part of the country.

So I have seen our power as a people work in three different locations - at the Nevada Test Site in 1988; at Boise, Idaho and at Rock Creek. When you point it out people say that it is true. Our prayers are powerful if we put them together. That's why I know we can stop the government from putting the nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. That's why I know we can stop the government from transporting nuclear waste all across the country.

Timothy White is the editor of Shaman's Drum. He may be contacted c/o

Shaman's Drum, P.O.

Box 430, Willits, CA 95490.

Corbin Harney may be contacted c/o Chapel

of St. Francis, Shundahai Network,

P.O. Box 1255,

Nevada City, CA 95959.