Books with author Russell Johnson

This book begins the explanation of how traditional American Indian thought and philosophy were integral to day-to-day matrilineal life. The civilization of the American Indian was predicated on the people's relationships with every form of life, from the perspective of close-knit family communities. This introduction partially explains why indigenous people the world over never overpopulate their environment or destroy the lands where they live. This is the only philosophy that can stop the worldwide ongoing rape by the patriarchs.

In the last months before leaving to join the Ancestors, Russell Means felt the need to record in permanent written form many of the beliefs and traditions that he was taught as a boy and as a young leader of the American Indian Movement. Russell believed that this knowledge was in danger of being lost forever. His teachers were Traditional Indians, many of whom were born in the 19th century. These Elders were born into a different time and world, when traditional Lakotah freedoms and complete sovereignty were a personal memory for many. Co-written by Bayard Johnson (author of "Damned Right"), "Clouds" takes the reader on a journey into the intriguing and little-understood belief system and world view shared by many American Indians and other indigenous people around the world. The American Indian way of living has almost nothing in common with the patriarchal philosophies and religions of Europe and Asia, and this book helps explain the violent clash of cultures that continues to erupt between indigenous and industrial societies whenever they come into contact anywhere in the world. Few Lakotah of our time heard the true account of their people's beliefs directly from Elders who were born free, whose earliest memories pre-dated the fencing of the Plains and the imprisonment of the Lakotah people and culture. Russell Means was one of these. As a young leader of the American Indian Movement, which helped resuscitate Indian nations throughout the hemisphere, Russell had the privilege of learning traditional Lakotah ways and knowledge from Elders who were steeped in these ancient teachings. It was Russell's intent to pass on this timeless and timely wisdom to a world starved for balance and truth. This book is a concise and comprehensive encapsulation of the Traditional Lakotah world view. The Elders who gave Russell these cultural insights and values were never educated in the white man’s systems. The words are those of an Indian telling his own people’s story, not those of an anthropologist striving to understand an alien culture and belief system. Much of this information is available nowhere else. The knowledge is broken down into numerous categories, beginning with the Ancestors and the Matrilineal system common to most indigenous people around the world, and concluding with perspectives relating to the future. The book also contains drawings done by Russell Means, a renowned artist. European and Euro-derivative societies have never clearly understood the fundamental ontological and cosmological beliefs of the American Indians, nor those of other Indigenous societies, and this lack of understanding has led to centuries of misunderstanding, disrespect, genocide, and oppression. The knowledge in this book can help correct this tragedy. Industrial societies have an opportunity to become familiar with an almost diametrically opposed belief system which has never led mass populations into sociopathic practices like genocide and destruction of their own environment.

It is one of the least commonly known facts about the Civil War: there were many, many free negroes living in slaveholding states before the Emancipation Proclamation. This monograph on that surprising reality, originally published in 1913, draws on such firsthand documents as court records, contemporary literature and newspaper accounts, and other sources to create the first such portrait of this nearly forgotten chapter of African-American history. From the various origins of the "free negro" classes to their legal and social statuses-regarding everything from their right of travel to their relationship with their enslaved fellows-this "should supply some of the facts upon which the history of the negro race in the United States must be based," wrote author JOHN HENDERSON RUSSELL (b. 1884) in his preface.

• The record of a spiritual journey through an extraordinary land, and of the devoted pilgrims who seek to climb Mount Kailas.• Two Americans recount their experiences during the sacred pilgrimage to one of the most remote places on Earth.• With more than 100 color photographs that capture the awe-inspiring landscape and the tireless determination of the pilgrims.In a remote corner of western Tibet, in one of the highest, most pristine places on Earth, rises a sublime snow-clad pyramid of rock and snow--Mount Kailas. To Hindu and Buddhist pilgrims this 22,028-foot mountain is the throne of the gods, the "Navel of the Earth," the place where the divine takes earthly form. For more than a thousand years these pilgrims have journeyed here to pay homage to the mountain's mystery, circumambulating it in an ancient ritual of devotion that continues to the present day. Spinning prayer wheels, chanting mantras, and prostrating themselves at shrines, the pilgrims make the arduous climb toward the physical and emotional high point of the journey, the lofty pass known as the Dolma La. With spectacular color photography and vivid travel writing, Tibet's Sacred Mountain provides a stunning account of this awe-inspiring landscape, and of the variety, vitality, and sheer determination of the pilgrims who venture there. Both photographer Russell Johnson and writer Kerry Moran have made the difficult pilgrimage around the mountain several times. Tibet's Sacred Mountain is the record of their inspiring journey that opens a window on a magical land of pure light and dazzling color where the temporal and the eternal unite and where every feature of the landscape holds its own divinity.

More genius is displayed in this work than we have seen in any other single volume since the publication of Childe Harold. Although entirely different in form, it is, like that magnificent poem, a discursive philosophical essay; but, while Byron cast his glowing thoughts in the mould of Spenser, our anonymous author has clothed his ideas in the nervous prose of the best old English writers. Unfortunately, at the same time that he emulates the power of his prototypes, he does not abate a jot of the prolixity which has caused their works to be less frequently read than they are quoted. Precious literary fragments, like samples of rich ore, are seen and admired, but mankind in general are too busy or too idle to explore the mines from which such brilliant specimens are extracted....

More genius is displayed in this work than we have seen in any other single volume since the publication of Childe Harold. Although entirely different in form, it is, like that magnificent poem, a discursive philosophical essay; but, while Byron cast his glowing thoughts in the mould of Spenser, our anonymous author has clothed his ideas in the nervous prose of the best old English writers. Unfortunately, at the same time that he emulates the power of his prototypes, he does not abate a jot of the prolixity which has caused their works to be less frequently read than they are quoted. Precious literary fragments, like samples of rich ore, are seen and admired, but mankind in general are too busy or too idle to explore the mines from which such brilliant specimens are extracted....

More genius is displayed in this work than we have seen in any other single volume since the publication of Childe Harold. Although entirely different in form, it is, like that magnificent poem, a discursive philosophical essay; but, while Byron cast his glowing thoughts in the mould of Spenser, our anonymous author has clothed his ideas in the nervous prose of the best old English writers. Unfortunately, at the same time that he emulates the power of his prototypes, he does not abate a jot of the prolixity which has caused their works to be less frequently read than they are quoted. Precious literary fragments, like samples of rich ore, are seen and admired, but mankind in general are too busy or too idle to explore the mines from which such brilliant specimens are extracted....