[AnalogReigns]

Actually, Apocalypto conflated pre-Columbian cultures in central America...and was not intended to be specific to any particular group. The Mayans, for example, which it appeared to most closely picture, had pretty well collapsed as a civilization well before the 1400s. None-the-less ALL of the pre-Christian natives of the Americas were pretty horrendously brutal, in certain areas of life. The MOST brutal were the most organized/civilized nations, of Central and South America, where human-sacrifice (as showed in Gibson's movie) was routine. One Spanish conquistador records in his memoirs how at a distance they thought a pyramid had a red carpet down its steps....but when they got up close they discovered it was just the (many gallons of) blood of the thousands of sacrificial victims that ran down the stairs making a permanent blood stain. When the utter barbarity of the native groups is known, European attitudes of bigotry at the time....are more understandable.

[gleeaikin]

Then again if I had to choose between having my heart cut out versus being burned to death by the Inquisition, I think I might have chosed the Aztec way, much quicker death. Naturally, some other cultures barbaric measures are much worse than your own.