SACRIFICE [Professors say Gibson's Apocalypto is biased against Mayan bloodletting]

Newsweek ^ | December 5, 2006 | Newsweek

[freedomdefender]

Let's get right to the point, shall we? About halfway through Mel Gibson's movie "Apocalypto," which opens this week, viewers are treated to a stomach-turning scene of human sacrifice, set in a Mayan city around 1500. It's not revealing too much to say that the movie's hero is captured by a gang of marauders, bound, marched through the jungle, painted blue, and forced to the top of a pyramid where heads roll.

In a smaller version of the outrage and skepticism that preceded the opening of "The Passion of the Christ"—is it historically accurate? is it anti-Semitic?—scholars who study the ancient Maya are concerned that Gibson's film will distort the great civilization and demean its descendents, six million of whom still live in Central America. Yes, the Maya sacrificed humans to the gods, but these rituals were part of a complex worldview: the Maya believed that their bodies, their blood, were created by the gods and that they occasionally needed to repay this debt with human life. "The gods need you," explains David Carrasco, professor of religious history at Harvard. "They depend on human life for their own existence, there's this kind of reciprocity." In sacrifice, he adds, the people are becoming like gods. Based on the trailer, Carrasco believes that Gibson has made the Maya into "Slashers," and their society a "Hypermasculine fantasy."

[Antoninus]

In fact, another factor in their loss to the Spanish was that their battle tactics stressed capture of the enemy rather than killing them in order that they could be sacrificed. This gave the Spanish an advantage having no inclination to do anything but kill the enemy in battle.

Uh, you are aware that without the assistance of the Aztecs' enemies from Texcoco and other subject peoples, the Spanish wouldn't have had a prayer, even with their guns, horses, armor, etc. There simply weren't enough of them.

[chesley]

You know, I always liked "Kumbayah" when we sang it at church socials and camps and such.

How did the Libs get to claim it? And why don't they know what it means?

[fish hawk]

The original Valentines Day. I heart you.

[leilani]

Mayans aren't extinct. There are many Mayans still very much alive all over the Yucatan peninsula, the western highlands of Guatemala & beyond & even here in the United States.

Maya peoples living in the more remote areas of the Y. peninsula were spared the ravages of diseases like smallpox & typhus brought by the europeans (which did wipe out the Aztecs) because of their isolation.

I can report firsthand that some Maya, at least some of the ones with whom I acquainted in TX, do indeed still engage in sacrifices. But these days they're are more on the order of the 'saving their money and going without luxuries so their kids can go to college' kind. ;-)

[longtermmemmory]

Newsweak and PMSNBC combined.

The scholar set have always pushed the noble peaceful savage myth. The Mayans were savages. They had a blood religion, they made human sacrifice.

MSM trying to sugar coat in order to protect tourism and europeans are bad for stopping the humane human sacrifices.

[Dixie Yooper]

It's always been my understanding that the Mayans were extinct hundreds of years before the Spaniards set foot in the new world. Any natives that were found there were ones that migrated in after the Mayans were gone.

[fortunecookie]

BTTT!!! You beat me to it, and said it better than I had planned.

[Dixie Yooper]

FYI

Origins of Mexico

---

Ancient Native American civilizations--including those of the MAYA, OLMEC, ZAPOTEC, MIXTEC, TOLTEC, and AZTEC--flourished there for centuries before the Spanish conquest in the 16th century. The Pyramid of the Sun, built in the 2nd century AD, dominates the landscape of the ancient city of Teotihuacan in Mexico. Teotihuacan was the first true city in Mesoamerica, at its peak (AD c.600) it housed more than 100,000 people.
After the Maya, after the Toltec, came the Aztec. The Aztecs emerged in the Valley of Mexico, or Anahuac as it was called by its peoples, around the 14th century. Aztec legends tell of seven Nahua tribes who pillaged and plundered a divided Mexico after the Mayan civilization had all but faded, dispossessing and enslaving the previous inhabitants. These tribes were known as the Chichimecas by the natives, a word originally meaning barbarians.

The Valley soon became crowded, and the Nahua waged many years of petty tribal warfare against each other. One tribe, called the Acolhuas of Texcoco, eventually emerged above all the rest. The tribe's chieftains ruled over the Valley, building palaces and carefully preserving what remained of the Toltec culture and knowledge. Yet early in the 15th century, the Acolhuas were, in turn, conquered by the Tepanec, a rival Nahua tribe. This reign proved to be so tyrannous, however, that the other tribes were forced to combine their strengths to defeat the Tepanec. The Acolhuas took advantage of the power vacuum thus created, and once more gained power in Anahuac. Yet this victory was short lived.

After having wandered as outcasts and mercenaries through the territories in the southwestern corner of the Valley, the Aztecs, the last of the seven tribes to enter Anahuac, finally found a home on two islands in the middle of Lake Texcoco. There, in 1325, they built the city of Tenochtitlan. They had been guided to this spot by their deity, Huitzilopochtli, who had told them to settle where they should find an eagle standing on a nopal and devouring a serpent.

After the war between the Acolhuas and the Tepanec, the Aztec gained their independence. They then swept in and conquered the other tribes of the Valley, asserting their authority through their considerable military ability and strength. The tribe began to expand its domain in every direction, making sacrificial victims of the peoples they conquered. By the end of the 15th century, the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan had become very rich and had grown to a population of around one hundred thousand.

[gdc314]

from the article: Although a few Mayan murals do illustrate the capture and even torture of prisoners, none depicts decapitation. "That is wrong. It's just plain wrong,"

His statement is just plain BS, I've been to the Mayan sites and the carvings clearly show people getting their heads cut off...blood was shown spewing forth represented by snakes.

[chesley]

In sacrifice, he adds, the people are becoming like gods. Based on the trailer, Carrasco believes that Gibson has made the Maya into "Slashers," and their society a "Hypermasculine fantasy."

I just notied this last statement. Isn't this fellow aware that human sacrifices tend to take place in societies that worship goddesses?

[Ciexyz]

I'm looking forward to seeing Gibson's film. I'll be in the theater this weekend.

[freedomdefender]

Then I spring the trap by noting that what has to be understood is that, bad as the Spanish were by our standards, the Indians of Mexico horrified even them. The carnage shocked even the scourge of Europe. Game, set, match.

How do you multiculti friends respond? Do they get angry at being flummoxed by you?

[freedomdefender]

Those chosen to be sacrificed generally believed it to be a high honor as well at least with the Mayas.

Actually, weren't they drugged so they couldn't protest?

[freedomdefender]

sacrifices tend to take place in societies that worship goddesses?

Interesting.

[TexanToTheCore]

I think waht Mel is doing is exposing this culture to the light of day. And it doesn't look good. I expect to see him do the same with other cultures that have been PC'd into nice guys when in fact, they were awful people.

That is my take on it. This is a destruction of PC.

[Miss Marple]

I have seen The Patriot, Braveheart, and all of the Lethal Weapon movies, as well as all of the Mad Max movies.

I never got around to seeing The Passion because my husband didn't want to go, and now I am pretty sure I am glad I missed it.

My decision has NOTHING to do with Gibson's political opinions, but rather the feeling that he is sinking deeper into mental illness, and I don't care to support it.

[freedomdefender]

LoL... liberals have no shame... (Eddie Murphy laugh)...

True, but this is an example of liberals having no sense.

[Antoninus]

My decision has NOTHING to do with Gibson's political opinions, but rather the feeling that he is sinking deeper into mental illness, and I don't care to support it.

Well, to be honest, that's a pretty rash statement to make considering you admit you haven't even seen his last two movies.

That said, alcohol addiction is a mental illness. And the man is doubtlessly "crazy" on some level over and above that. But then again, so were a lot of artistic geniuses...

[TexanToTheCore]

I will add that the contrast between the sacifice of humans to the Mayan gods stands in stark contrast to the sacrife of Jesus, the Son of God.

I think Mel is building a case for Jesus. A really good case.

[KC_Conspirator]

This PC crap drives me crazy! I know the evidence you are talkign about - that some central and southwest American people were engaged in cannibalism. Now, we have to deny that massive human sacrifice never occurred? Thats contrary to all fact. Part of my ancestry derives from Picts and Celts? Am I to allowed to deny the facts that they practiced human sacrifice?