Apocalypto: Mel Gibson's new movie depicts pre-Christian civilization in Central America. But is it accurate?

Here's a thought: instead of rehashing Mel Gibson's Jew-bashing rants when L.A. cops got him on a DUI in July, let's stick to his movie. Apocalypto brings out what's unique and gripping in Gibson as a director.

--Rolling Stone

It's not often that Rolling Stone and THE NEW AMERICAN agree, but this time Rolling Stone got it right. Rather than psychoanalyzing Gibson under the facade of a movie review, or using a movie review to demonstrate one's ignorance of history, let's recognize Apocalypto for what it is: a gripping film with a message for our civilization.

Violent? Certainly, although some reviewers who object to Gibson's violence are remarkably tolerant of violence in politically correct movies. Gory? You bet. Apocalypto is definitely not for children, and I hesitate to recommend it for adults. But the movie portrays a society obsessed with blood, and I'm not sure Gibson could have gotten his message across without it.

Mayan Civilization

The movie's message is set forth at the beginning with a statement from historian Will Durant: "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within."

Long before the Inca and Aztec empires arose, the dense jungles of the Yucatan, as well as Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize, had already hidden from view a remarkable empire. The Maya civilization may have begun around 1800 B.C., developed a writing system about the time Rome was rising to power, entered a golden age while Rome was entering its decline, continued to enjoy that golden age until around 900 A.D., declined for the next two centuries, and then suddenly and mysteriously collapsed around 1100 A.D. The magnificent temples at Copan and Tikal, the great palaces of Palenque and Xpuhil, the observatory at Chichen Itza, and hundreds of other sites, demonstrate a culture unequaled by anything in the Western Hemisphere at that time, and equaled by few if any anywhere in the world.

The Maya had a mathematical system more advanced than anything known in Europe at that time, and they developed (or inherited) a calendar far more accurate than any calendar of the Old World. Their advanced mathematics also had religious significance, as the Maya practiced astrology and numerology. Michael D. Coe, professor of anthropology and curator of the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University, says Maya mathematics and astronomy had reached a level comparable to that of the ancient Babylonians and surpassing in some respects that of the Egyptians. The Maya calendar is so precise that, as a result of recent archaeological discoveries, we are able to pinpoint the reigns of various Maya kings to the exact day! For example, Pacal the Great ruled the City of Palenque for 68 years; he was born March 23, 603 A.D.; he became king at age 12 on July 26, 615 A.D.; and he reigned until his death at age 80 on August 28, 683 A.D.

The Maya were deeply religious. A central feature of their worldview was the concept of a vital force that separated living from nonliving matter. They called it ik, and it seems similar to the Oriental ki or chi. While this ik power inhabited all things, some objects like the sun, moon, and stars were deities with anthropomorphic qualities.

They also believed human society is a microcosm of the universe; what happens on Earth affects the course of the heavens, and what happens in the heavens affects events on Earth. "As above, so below; as below, so above," as occultists are fond of saying. The universe was engulfed in a cosmic struggle between the forces of good and the forces of evil, and a primary mission of the Maya was to aid the forces of good, particularly the sun god, in their battle against the forces of evil. Linda Schele and Mary Ellen Miller, in The Blood of Kings: Dynasty and Ritual in Maya Art, write:

   For the Maya, the world was a complex
   and awesome place, alive with
   sacred power. This power was part of
   the landscape, of the fabric of space
   and time, of things both living and
   inanimate and of the forces of nature
   --storms, wind, smoke, mist, rain,
   earth, sky and water. Sacred beings
   moved between the three levels of
   the cosmos, the Overworld which is
   the heavens, the Middleworld where
   humans live and the Underworld of
   Xibalba, the source of disease and
   death. The king acted as a transformer
   through whom in ritual acts,
   the unspeakable power of the supernatural
   passed into the lives of mortal
   men and their works.

Another feature of Maya thought was reciprocity. As David Carrasco, professor of history and religions at the University of Colorado, explains, "In the Maya world, as in many religious traditions, humans and gods have a relationship based on some form of mutual care and nurturance. The gods create humans, who are therefore in their debt. The ongoing existence of human life depends on the generous gifts of life, which the gods continue to dispense through children, germination, rain, sunshine, the supply of animals, and objects of power. But the gods are also dependent beings, at least in the Maya world. They depend on humans to care, nurture, acknowledge, and renew their powers."

One way the Maya aided the sun god and the forces of good was to engage in wars of subjugation against the surrounding nations. Restoring order on Earth helped to restore order in the heavens. Coe says simply, "The Maya were obsessed with war. The Annals of the Cakchiquels and the Popel Vuh speak of little but intertribal conflict among the highlanders, while the sixteen states of Yucatan were constantly battling with each other over boundaries and lineage honor."

Human Sacrifice

Another form of divine service was sacrifice to the sun god, and the sacrifice needed most was human blood. Students of the Maya have been reluctant to acknowledge that this highly civilized empire practiced human sacrifice. For generations the conventional wisdom was that the Maya, unlike the Aztecs, were peaceful. But as more archaeological evidence was uncovered and more inscriptions were translated, they conceded that the Maya did practice some human sacrifice, but only in later years and probably at the behest of the Toltecs. As the mystery of the Maya unfolds, the evidence increasingly forces us to conclude that human sacrifice was endemic to Mayan society even in the early stages and that it was much more common than was previously thought, though it may never have reached the level of a holocaust as it did with the Aztecs.

In theory at least, becoming a sacrifice to the sun god was considered a high honor and privilege, and at first only nobles could be sacrificed. The victim sacrificed to the sun god supposedly did not descend to the underworld but rather ascended directly to the heavens to become a star god. Apparently this incentive did not produce enough willing victims, so as time went on, the Maya increasingly used prisoners of war for divine sacrifices, and wars therefore increased. As Robert Sharer, professor of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, explains:

   Maya religion was probably the major
   ideological justification for the Maya
   political, military, and economic institutions.
   By building temples, for
   example, the rulers enhanced their
   own prestige and authority to rule,
   and created social unification. The
   use of war to obtain captives for sacrifices
   probably overlapped nicely
   with a ruler's desire to militarily
   "decapitate" neighboring polities to
   obtain economic tribute and eventually
   to expand his territory. Building
   pyramidical structures also probably
   reinforced and reminded the people
   of their place in the pyramidal hierarchy
   and structure of society....

      Both the Classic Maya and Zapotec
   systems linked politics, religion,
   economics, and social organization.
   Both systems required the effort of
   the masses to be harnessed in large
   community building projects related
   to religion and politics and justified
   wars against neighboring groups in
   cosmological terms that required
   human sacrifices to keep the universe
   in balance and food abundant.

But a blood sacrifice to the gods did not always require the death of the victim. Bloodletting was a ceremonial act that gave reciprocity to the gods and accompanied a rite of passage for the blood giver. These rites of passage included birth, puberty, marriage, becoming a warrior or priest, death, and life after death. Just as caves could be passageways to and from Xibalba, so a sacrificial wound could be a passage through which gods could enter the world. Carrasco describes bloodletting as the "mortar of Maya life" because it integrated the levels of the cosmos and various social groups into a sense of wholeness. Bloodletting was practiced at the dedication of buildings and monuments, the birth of children, marriage ceremonies, public events, and rites of passage. Male and female blood were each thought to have special significance, and blood from the genitals was thought especially potent. Those who gave blood often cut themselves in special patterns that somehow gave the sacrifice greater potency. Many of the characters in Apocalypto have patterns of scars on their bodies, the result of ritual bloodletting. By giving blood, the Maya engaged in world-centering and world-renewing; that is, they helped to stabilize the cosmos and give it new life. As the priest/king declares to his subjects in Apocalypto, "With your blood you renew the world from age to age."

What caused the sudden Maya collapse around 1100 A.D.? One theory is that the rural peasants revolted against the ruling urban aristocrats and exterminated them, and then, not knowing how to run the cities, they abandoned them. Others suggest famine, epidemic, economic collapse, or foreign invasion. We really don't know.

But the seeds of decay were present much earlier: centralization of government power, totalitarian rule, slavery, bloodletting, human sacrifice, cannibalism, and perhaps above all, a remarkable indifference to human suffering. Again we are reminded of Durant's warning: "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within."

Through Gibson's Lens

Some historians have challenged the accuracy of Apocalypto. Vanderbilt University Professor Annabeth Headrick objects that the movie presents the Maya as cruel savages, failing to recognize the great accomplishments of the Maya civilization. I think she is mistaken. The opening quote from Durant speaks of a "great civilization," but the movie is set in the 1500s, four centuries after the Maya collapse.

The dramatic scene of the human sacrifices atop the pyramids may be anachronistic. The cities apparently were abandoned around 1100 A.D. The movie shows the city in a state of disrepair, and it might be possible that tribal rulers and priests periodically returned to the city to use the pyramids and temples for human sacrifice and other ceremonies. As the priests, wearing their hideous but accurate masks, perform human sacrifices atop the pyramids, they are interrupted by a solar eclipse. A few centuries earlier, the Maya could have predicted that eclipse right to the minute.

Pouncing upon any possible inaccuracy in Apocalypto, the critics reveal their double standard. The term "inaccuracy" is reserved for conservative filmmakers. Those who produce left-leaning movies don't make mistakes; they engage in "poetic license." Consider Kingdom of Heaven with its myriad falsehoods, all of which have the effect of making Saladin and the Muslims seem peaceful and noble, and making the Crusaders, especially the Templars, look bad. Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune described this movie as "a gargantuan epic, a historical adventure-drama of overwhelming visual grandeur."

In Apocalypto, the characters are more multi-dimensional than characters in many other films. Even after they have reverted to primitivism, the Maya are presented as very human. The young men tease each other in macho ribald ways, much as young men do today (though admittedly, eating tapir testicles goes a little beyond swallowing goldfish). Husbands and wives, parents and children display tender affection for each other, even as they are indifferent to the suffering of strangers. They show courage and loyalty as they risk their lives for one another.

No, Gibson does not present the Maya as an inferior race. Even in their degenerate state, they are people much like us. Or more to the point, we are much like them. This is the central message of Gibson's film. The signs of degeneracy that destroyed the Maya are working in us: centralized government power, erosion of individual freedom, indifference to human life, abundance of human sacrifice (for us, innocent unborn babies), even the external signs of semi-nudity, body piercing, and tattoos.

The closing scene of Apocalypto--the appearance of the Spanish galleons with their Templar crosses, and the conquistadors and missionaries coming ashore--represents the hope for modern America as well as the hope for the Maya: the deliverance of God through His Son Jesus Christ. Some will object that Christianity destroyed the Maya and Aztec way of life. But Christianity brought an end to human sacrifice and cannibalism, laid the foundations for constitutional self-government, and, where followed, brought the moral teachings of Jesus Christ. I suspect few Maya would want to go back to the old ways, especially not as a peasant or sacrificial victim.

And those who believe in the objective truth of the Gospel also believe that Christianity brought salvation from sin through the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ on the Cross. Oh yes--and eternal life.

John Eidsmoe, Senior Staff Attorney for the Alabama Supreme Court, is the author of Columbus and Cortez: Conquerors for Christ.