Corbin Harney (March 24, 1920 – July 10, 2007) was an elder and spiritual leader of the Newe (Western Shoshone) people. Harney reportedly inspired the creation in 1994 of the Shundahai Network, which works for environmental justice and nuclear disarmament. The Shundahai Network plays a key role in organizing non-violent civil disobedience aimed at bringing about the closure of the Nevada Test Site, 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. 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 has exploded more than 1,000 nuclear weapons at the Nevada Test Site, which is located on Western Shoshone land from the Treaty of Ruby Valley (1863). Harney spent most of his time travelling around the world spreading a message about the dangers of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons . In 1989, Harney visited the former Soviet hydrogen bomb testing site in Semipalatinsk Kazakhstan. 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 of water in his writings and speeches. He said:" I didn't really understand what I was told until I went to Kazakhstan 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 ... [t]he nature 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" of