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Introduction A Study of Ancient Animation: by Charles William Johnson Two people who were extremely influential in forming my thinking were my grandmother, Concepción del Valle Romo, on my mother’s side of the family, and my step-grandfather, Philip Joseph Paschal, on my father’s side of the family. My grandmother, I called “Abuelita Conchita”, and my grandfather, I called “Pops”. My grandmother taught me how to organize my thought process. My grandfather taught me how to speak, and not to speak when necessary. My grandmother “Moms”, Flora Langford, on my father’s side of the family taught me “kindness”. My grandfather on my mother’s side of the family mainly taught me what not to do in life, as he abandoned my mother at her birth. My dad’s dad did the same, as he abandoned him and his family when he was a very young boy. I never knew either of these two grandfathers. Abuelita Conchita’s parents were indigenous peoples from the state of Oaxaca in Mexico. And, Pops always told me that he was part Cherokee. Although now that I look back on his picture and his teachings, I imagine that he was far more Cherokee than just a small part. The thing that always struck me as significant and caused wonderment in me as a little boy and then a young man, before Abuelita Conchita and Pops passed away, was the manner in which they both saw life and the words of expression that they would have about whatever happened in life. Abuelita Conchita was extremely demanding in having me think straight. I could never vary from the path. She always knew how to interpret any event in life. And, as I would experience the same things as she did, as I stayed with her in her home in Mexico for various years, I would always marvel at how she would interpret reality. No matter what happened, I would think one way, and then be totally surprised at the way she saw what had happened. She would wag her index finger on her right hand at me and say, “No, no chiquito, not like that”. Ever since she has left this world in 1964, I have missed her insight to life enormously. I miss her today as though she had only left us yesterday. And with Pops, my memories are similar. But, the way in which Pops would teach me was simply by remaining quiet, sure that I would find the right answer to any situation that would appear. Pops taught me the value of seeing correctly and simply observing and accepting reality, knowing how to confront it. I never ever heard Pops curse or become angry, ever. And, the only regret that I have is that one day as a small boy I must have done something to have perturbed him, because he said to me, “Dern, Brother.” With that I knew that I had strayed. It never happened again; it only happened that one time. I am writing about Abuelita Conchita and Pops simply to be consequential with their teachings. When I was a young boy watching cowboy-and-indian movies on the television, I always found myself rooting for the Indians. All of my friends in school rooted for the cowboys. We are taught in such a way as to take sides. Today, I root for the cowboys and indians, for everyone, as everyone should. But, we are a divided people on this earth. And this has been taught to me by reality over the years. In my family I was taught to accept everyone. In fact, even though my two grandfathers caused much pain to their children, by leaving them and abandoning them, I was taught to accept my grandfathers. The fact that now, after so many years dedicated to studying “sociology” and “politics”, and writing about societal and political themes, hoping to construct a better world for us all, I have been writing about our past, about ancient artwork, to me is totally consequential. At first, twelve years ago when I began studying the ancients full-time, many of my friends, family members and colleagues thought that my studies in ancient artwork were some kind of sign of a late mid-life crisis. All along these studies, to me at least, have been consequential with the striving to know reality as my Abuelita Conchita and Pops taught it to me, along with my other close family members, my mother and dad, Moms and Granny and Gramps, and especially my Uncle Don, my dad’s brother, and my Tio Henrique, all of whom no longer walk with us. My Tio Jorge and Tio Juan also were two of my teachers; all of these people taught me how to watch the movie of life. When I stopped writing about “politics” in 1988, I had finally carried forward an idea that caused me to begin my studies in political science. Upon beginning my studies of international relations, a fellow student of mine rhetorically asked me, “But, I thought you said that you hated politics?” The implication being, if I hated politics, why was I starting to study it, after having finished a master’s in Oriental Studies, which had been more geared towards the study of art. I answered, “Because I am going to learn how to eliminate politics”. Although I was innocent back then, I was being rhetorical myself. I always thought, from the very beginning, that politics was a waste of time. I always cited E.E. Cummins’ poem: “A politician is an ars upon which no man has sat”. After having studied and written theoretically about politics for so long, around that time I began working with the World Council of Indigenous Peoples, whose headquarters was in Ottawa, Canada, as an adviser to the President of the WCIP, Mr. Donald Rojas. And, while working with the WCIP, my perception of the indigenous peoples of the world was reinforced. I had always admired the way in which I was taught by the manner in which they saw things and how they expressed their ideas. One has only to read words from the Native American Indians, such as those of Chief Seattle, to know that something powerful exists in this world: and that is human thought. Every word spoken by our forefathers and foremothers bursts with wisdom, spoken in a low voice, not trying to convince anyone of anything, but simply stating how things are. That was what Abuelita Conchita and Pops always taught me when they spoke, or didn’t speak, they simply said it like it was, but in a way that touched the inner depths of my mind. My mind was never the same after they spoke; I always learned something, I always saw things differently, even if it was just telling me something mundane, like clean your room. I knew that I could always trust their judgment, and put faith in the words that they spoke. And, as with many of the words spoken by our forefathers and foremothers, I always wanted to hear more, I wanted to know how they would look at things, how they would interpret it. And, that need to know still exists today, even though they are not here, but every time I need to think about something, I wonder how they would have thought about it and what they would have said. One can relate to this certainly by understanding how, when even an actor in a Hollywood movie, like Chief Dan George, says a few words in the movie Little Big Man, the audience is left hanging, wanting more, wanting to hear his interpretation and words about life and what is happening to the people in the movie, as though that were the real world. Were our forefathers and foremothers here to tell us how to see things, and tell us what to do. And, they are, they are here among us, in the way we think, in the effort that we make to know reality as they knew it. But, they are also here in their artwork that has been left behind, as an inheritance to us. It is impossible for us to do it exactly as they would have done it, to think exactly as they did, but our efforts constantly approach that striving in thought and deed. At a certain stage in my studies about the political and social sciences, I reached the plateau of knowing that there is only one reality that consists of spacetime/motion. And, therefore, there can be only one way of thought, the right path, that which is in relation to spacetime/motion. After that discovery, I set about trying to find who thought and wrote according to spacetime/motion. I concluded that no political thinker did so; no sociologist; no scientist, not even Albert Einstein. The closest person, whom I found, came to that plateau was Francis Bacon. But such a discovery was politically unacceptable for the twentieth century in which I lived then. My suspicion was that the Native American Indians thought like this. And, along with my work in the WCIP, I found myself suddenly studying once again the ancient artwork. My relationship with Daniel Manrique of Tepito Arte Acá and Gabriel Macotelo, two Mexican artists, led me to research even further the ancient artwork. Gabriel, one day, asked me what did the ziggurats means. I am still answering that question today, after twelve years of additional study and thousands upon thousands of analytical drawings of the ancient artwork from around the world. And, as I have come to study the ancient artwork in greater detail, my teaching received from Abuelita Conchita and Pops has served as the backbone to all of these analyses and feelings. In his front room of his house in New Orleans, Pops had two prints hanging. One was of “The End of the Trail”, a Native American Indian on horseback slouched over as in defeat with the weight of the world and history on his shoulders. The other was of the “Lone Wolf”, a solitary figure on a snow-covered mountain overlooking a human settlement in the distance. Both of these prints remain in my bedroom today, having accompanied me on this long journey. It is only now that I come to fully realize the thoughts that may have been harbored in Pops’ heart and mind. He never told me anything about his Indian past, but now as I view these two prints once again, I know what was in his heart, possibly what he was thinking. The only thing I remember Pops really talking about was his experience in World War I, and how as a young boy on a farm in Arkansas, suddenly he had been recruited into the war and was within a few days fighting in the trenches in France. And, then I remember Pops became sad and quiet as bad memories had been awakened. He only spoke to me about that once as far as I can remember. Mainly, Pops and I would sit out on the back-porch and just sit in our rockers, not saying much. That was some powerful teaching, only back then I was not completely aware of it all. Now, after having studied the ancient artwork in greater detail for these past twelve years, all of my teachers have come into play. But, the silence reflected in the ancient artwork has also been a formidable lesson. From my studies of Zen Buddhism and the value of silence, or the relation of silence, better, to the silence taught to me by Pops, I was able to listen to the ancients in their artwork. That is what one notices the most when visiting an ancient monumental site, the silence. One of the greatest feelings of silence is to stand on top of one of the great pyramids of the world, like the Pyramid of the Sun of Teotihuacan, or one of the Pyramids of Tajin, and listen to the silence. To stand in front of a sculpture in Palenque or a wall painting in Bonampak and listen to the silence issuing from that artwork is one of the most powerful teaching tools that I have ever experienced. So much so, that even today, after visiting Tajin in 1967 and standing on top of one of the pyramid’s there, even today I can still hear that silence, I can relive the feeling that I got from standing there on top of that pyramid with the jungle all around. The silence of walking amongst the structures in Yaxchilan still accompanies me till this day. The same silence occurred while I walked among the monuments at Monte Alban, and Copilco, and other pyramidal sites. And, as I sit at my desk and gaze upon the pictures of other monumental sites and artwork from other cultures from around the world, that same silence prevails. And, every time I sit, viewing a picture of a piece of ancient artwork or a monumental structure, the thought races through my mind: “show me what it is that you wish that I see”. The ancient artwork is there for all to see; it represents a conscious design. But, it is up to each one of us to know how to view the ancients’ designs. The ancients have bequeathed us innumerable instances of their own teachings, for us to learn. Many people today do not even look their way, totally ignoring the past and the remnants of that past. But also many look their way and gaze upon the work of the ancients. In this work I am showing you what I see. In a sense, I have discovered nothing; I am merely illustrating what I perceive. The ancients have placed these works before us for all to see; and it is up to us whether we look or not. What follows here is what I have looked at in my studies. No doubt, others will look at the ancient artwork and see something different. That is an essential part of the learning and teaching process. In a very real sense, it is impossible to exhaust the potential meanings of the ancient artwork --- for they are placed there for us to explore our mind, to get to know ourselves, to discover ourselves. That is probably the best we can expect from this learning process. Many scholars today search for and then declare the singular meaning of a particular piece of ancient artwork. Scholars love discovering things and then telling everyone that they discovered it. With that practice, they love declaring that their discovery represents the meaning, the only meaning possible for that particular piece of artwork. This contemporary practice would appear to contradict the ancient artwork. From my studies, I get the feeling that the ancient artwork represents an open-ended system, whose potential meanings are inexhaustible, as unending as the unending number of viewers who contemplate it. Each individual learns an individual meaning from the ancient artwork. There is no singular meaning of anything. Everything is related and relational. Just as there are no monuments built in the name of Abuelita Conchita or Pops, their teachings continue today and tomorrow. The teaching/learning process of human beings has many levels. The ancient artwork is one level; the word of mouth (the oral history as scholars like to call it) is another level. Each level has its place and reason for being. Fortunately, the monumental sites still exist in many parts of the world. And, fortunately, many of us are able to have contact with our foreparents, foregrandparents and foregreat-grandparents and be able to listen to them. In my mind, the ancients thought in accordance with spacetime/movement. The artwork teaches us that. And, in order to perceive this idea, one needs to think accordingly, according to space, time and motion. We all do it; but we are not all aware of this fact. All that I have done is simply ask myself what are the space-coordinates, time-coordinates and coordinates of movement in the ancient artwork at all levels, moments and relations possible. With that, the animations of the ancients open up to me. Other students of the ancients, have followed their own path, in no given order, such as Carl P. Munck, Krsanna Duran, Carlos Milla Villena, Mario E. Osorio Olazábal, John Mini Jim Branson, Joseph Turbeville, Dereck A. Skane, Joe Piskac, Alfonso Rubino, Yod Zain, Hugh Harleston, Jr., Maurice Cotterell, Will Hart, De Eugen Stasson, Vigor Berg, among many, many others. They have all followed a similar procedure in their analyses. But, what follows here are my individual answers. In my mind, there is no singular, correct answer ---just individual answers that each one of us seeks and finds. The singular teaching however is learning how to think according to spacetime/motion. The paleoanimation artists assist us in that quest. A comparison of the past and the present causes some scholars to enthrone one and disparage the other. Anyone who knows how the characteristics of spacetime/motion, knows that it is impossible to compare time or assign one moment more value than another moment. Each moment exists as it is. It is impossible to compare the work of the ancients against the work of our contemporaries, and then conclude that one is better or worse than the other. This is a meaningless task. The two works exist in different time frames, as all things do, and therefore are incomparable as such. However, assigning value to one thing while devaluing another is something that we are accustomed to doing in our societies today. It is difficult to gaze upon an ancient piece of artwork and simply gaze upon it, without construing all kinds of mental pictures of value and worth. Such practices of assigning comparative values cause many scholars to defend the ancients against today’s world, or, at the other extreme, defend contemporary societies against the past. There are those who state that all that which has gone before is ‘good’, and all that exists today is ‘bad’. Likewise, there are those who state the opposite that all that has gone before is ‘bad’ and all that exists today is ‘good’ ---although, the latter may employ the word ‘progress’. These and other positions of extreme views confirm the absence of thought according to spacetime/motion. We are all taught to think along these opposing terms of thought; it is difficult to avoid such pitfalls in an analysis of the past. Generally, we rather enjoy thinking that humankind is moving ahead along the road of progress, avoiding the apparent “savagery” of the past. Many of today’s scholars swear by the fact that it is impossible for the ancients to have had the knowledge as is reflected in some of the monumental designs of their pyramids that populate the world still today. Others swear that it is impossible for the ancients to have quarried and sculpted stones, some of such unimaginable dimensions that weigh hundreds of tons. They contend that someone else must have done this, not the limited, unknowing homo sapiens of the past. Different positions have arisen from such views. One set of scholars tells us that the ancients knew nothing, and were mere technicians, artisans without any kind of theoretical knowledge. Another set tells us that the ancients were omni-cognoscente, all-knowing, fully theoretical in their mental capabilities. While, still other groups tell us that the ancients must have obtained their knowledge from an extra-terrestrial race. Anyone who brandishes this last thesis is simply labeled a ‘nut’. And, the thing is that such an interpretation, firstly, detracts from the ancients themselves, as though they were incapable of producing their own knowledge and had to have inherited it from someone else. They see no historical evidence that would explain how the “savages” who chipped stone arrowheads and spearheads in order to hunt and kill animals to stay alive, could have transformed into those ancient peoples who quarried stones weighing tons and piled them one upon another into pyramidal structures like the Great Pyramid of Giza based on theoretical and practical engineering skills ---abstracted skills for which there exists no historical background knowledge of or about. Secondly, with that interpretation one is faced with having to accept the un-established, and even frightful idea to some that life on other planets existed back then---and possibly still exists today. In our world today, it is unacceptable to many to pose the idea that the ancients, our forefathers and foremothers, did not produce their own knowledge. Yet, when one studies the ancient artwork, and the math and the geometry behind the ancient artwork, all pre-conceived ideas quickly dissipate. A lesson to be learned from this, in my mind, is that we must respect everyone, every culture, every being on Earth, every society, and every individual. The ancients knew much, just how much is for us to unravel. We observe them in their ancient artwork paying homage to others and like them we must be likewise humble in our endeavors. And, I mean this in the sense that we must teach ourselves to be respectful of others. Possibly with that we may learn the quiet ways of the Native American Indians, and one day we may be able to speak the words of wisdom of our forefathers and foremothers, once again. Once we observe the teachings of the ancient artwork, and see the animations of the ancients, we may be more disposed to considering ideas that until now have been lost over time. The Earth/matriX Paleoanimation Research presents animations of the ancient artwork, which are not products of our own concept of movement, but rather represents an attempt to discern the movement designed and encoded into those ancient masterpieces by the original artists who created them. In this sense, we did not discover anything ---rather we only attempt to uncover what has gone before. There is no pretension on our part to be creative, but to be as discerning and faithful as possible as to the original intention of the particular art piece being examined by us. Obviously, we may err, and if we do, we do so out of a conscious and profound respect for the past artwork and its visible purpose. Earth/matriX Animation Studios
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