Corbett Mack: The Life of a Northern Paiute - Softcover

Hittman, Michael

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9780874179156: Corbett Mack: The Life of a Northern Paiute

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0874179157 ISBN 13: 9780874179156

Publisher: University of Nevada Press, 2013

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Corbett Mack (1892–1974), was a Northern Paiute of mixed ancestry, caught between Native American and white worlds. A generation before, his tribe had brought forth the prophet Wovoka, whose Ghost Dance swept the Indian world in the 1890s. Mack’s world was a harsh and bitter place after the last Native American uprisings had been brutally crushed; a life of servitude to white farmers and addiction to opium. Hittman uses Mack’s own words to retell his story, an uncompromising account of a traumatized life that typified his generation, yet nonetheless made meaningful through the perseverance of Paiute cultural traditions.

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From the Back Cover:

This is the compelling yet disturbing story of Corbett Mack (1892-1974), an opiate addict who was a member of the Nuumuu (Numa), or Northern Paiute. The Northern Paiute are best known as the people who produced Wovoka, the Ghost Dance prophet whose revitalistic teachings swept the Indian world in the 1890s. Mack is from the generation following the collapse of the Ghost Dance religion, a generation of Nomogweta or "half breeds" (also called "stolen children") - Paiute of mixed ancestry who were raised in an increasingly bicultural world and who fell into virtual peonage to white (often Italian) potato farmers. Around the turn of the century, the use of opium became widespread among the Paiute, adopted from equally victimized Chinese laborers with whom they worked closely in the fields. The story of Corbett Mack is an uncompromising account of a harsh and sometimes traumatic life that was typical of an entire generation of Paiute. It was a life born out of the turmoil and humiliation of an Indian boarding school, troubled by opiate addiction, bound to constant labor in the fields, yet nonetheless made meaningful through the perseverance of Paiute cultural traditions.

About the Author:

Michael Hittman is professor emeritus at Long Island University, Brooklyn, New York, and the author of Great Basin Indians: An Encyclopedic History.

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