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Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
Well, as many of us know, Gibson's new movie Apocalypto comes out in theaters this friday. While it certainly isn't a religous movie, or at least a Christian one for the Christmas season, it certainly is brutal and still holds religious themes specifically about the ancient Mayans of southern Mexico and the Yucatan whose civilization spanned over a 1500 years. The Mayans developed advanced mathematics and a calendar so sophisticated that it is still more accurate than our modern calendar by a certain percentage!



However there was a darker side to their culture. Like many Native Americans of the Central American region, the Mayans believed mankind owed a blood debt to their gods for they believe thier gods used their own blood to create the world and mankind. Usually blood sacrifices in Mayan culture were more mild in comparison with their neighbors but Gibson's movie is said to take place during the decline of the Mayan city-states where the priests incurred more brutal sacrifices with a greater number of victims.



I am very interested in seeing this historical based movie, for I believe it is the first one of its kind that takes place in ancient American civilization (unless anyone knows of others like it). However, I can't help but get the feeling that Gibson whether wittingly or not is using this movie to deomonize this ancient culture. As a way of somehow saying, "It's a good thing the Europeans came and converted these heathens!" I don't know. We probably wouldn't know who he'll demonize unless he's drunk, and definitley if they're Jewish! LOL



[ 09. December 2006, 08:08 PM: Message edited by: Horus_Den_1 ]
 

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Posted by tk101 (Member # 12361) on :
 
I think more movies of this calibur should be made. It seemslu like an interesting scenario. I wonder what he will use to "end" the Mayians...
 

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Posted by Underpants Man (Member # 3735) on :
 
Has anyone other than me noticed a trend with recent jungle movies and creepy indigenous children? First King Kong has that Melanesian girl who bites Carl Denham/Jack Black, than Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest has that Amerindian boy with the knife and fork. Now in this movie we have this little boy who whispers those strange words.
 

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Posted by Yonis (Member # 7684) on :
 

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Djehuti:
The Mayans developed advanced mathematics and a calendar so sophisticated that it is still more accurate than our modern calendar by a certain percentage !

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Then why isn't it used instead?
 

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Posted by Myra Wysinger (Member # 10126) on :
 
Video: "Apocalypto" Exaggerates Maya Violence, Expert Says

Find out how the movie Apocalypto's take on the mysterious collapse of Maya civilization stretches far beyond the truth.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/12/061208-apocalypto.html


An artist's rendering shows the ancient Maya trading city of El Mirador rising from the dense Guatemalan jungle.


 

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Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
 
The people in the movie were generally very accurately depicted using native american actors.

Here are some murals of ancient Mayans from national geographic from the ancient site Bonampak:




Modern maya (Guatemala):






More modern maya:
http://www.heinlein-mediaconsult.com/ars_archaeologica/Welt_der_Maya/Guatemala/Mundo_Maya/mundo_maya.html
 

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Posted by Myra Wysinger (Member # 10126) on :
 
Latest Mayan Discovery 2005



This 30-by-3-foot long mural was painted around the year 100 B.C. A detail from a sacred Maya mural at San Bartolo - the earliest known Maya painting, depicting the birth of the cosmos and the divine right of a king - shows the son of the corn god, patron of kings, floating with a pair of birds tied to his woven hunting basket, letting blood and offering a sacrificed turkey before one of five cosmic trees.

The first part of the mural illustrates the Maya creation story. Four deities represent the creation of water, land, sky and paradise. At the center, the maize god crowns himself king. Archaeologists said they were having trouble deciphering the glyphs of the much earlier Mayan script.

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Posted by Supercar (Member # 6477) on :
 

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Originally posted by Djehuti:

However, I can't help but get the feeling that Gibson whether wittingly or not is using this movie to deomonize this ancient culture. As a way of somehow saying, "It's a good thing the Europeans came and converted these heathens!" I don't know. We probably wouldn't know who he'll demonize unless he's drunk, and definitley if they're Jewish! LOL

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...in which case, it would be interesting to produce a movie of Europeans, particularly the Northern ones, that places time at about when the Mayan complex came about. Producers certainly wouldn't want to use Greco-Roman sources as a guidance, for a movie about 'contemporaneous' Europeans to their north.
 

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Posted by Evergreen (Member # 12192) on :
 

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Originally posted by Djehuti:
However, I can't help but get the feeling that Gibson whether wittingly or not is using this to deomonize this ancient culture. As a way of somehow saying, "It's a good thing the Europeans came and converted these heathens!"

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Through the interpreter, Valverde delivered the "Requirement," indicating that Atahuallpa and his people must convert to Christianity, and if he refused he would be considered an enemy of the Church and of Spain. Atahuallpa refused the Spanish presence in his land by saying he would "be no man's tributary".

"Be advised that I, being free, do not have to pay tribute to anyone, nor do I believe there is a king greater than I. However, I will have the pleasure to be the friend of your emperor, since he should be a great prince to send his armies throughout the world. But this Pope does not interest me; much less will I obey him, I being in the kingdom of my father and our religion being good and I and my subjects are happy. However, despite my being a son of Huayna Capac I cannot discuss anything so wise and old. The Christ that you speak of died, the Sun and Moon never die, besides how do you know your god created the world?"[1]

The Spanish envoys returned to Pizarro, who prepared a surprise attack against Atahuallpa's army in what became the Battle of Cajamarca on November 16, 1532.
According to Spanish law, Atahuallpa’s refusal of the Requirement allowed the Spanish to officially declare war on the Inca people. When Atahuallpa coldly asked the priest Valverde by what authority he and his people could say such things, Valverde offered him a Bible, saying that the authority derived from the words in it. He examined it and then asked why did it not speak to him. He then threw it to the ground. That gave the Spaniards the excuse they needed to wage war on the Incas. They opened fire, and over the course of 2 hours more than two thousand Inca soldiers were killed. The Spanish then imprisoned Atahuallpa in the Temple of the Sun.

Atahuallpa still could not believe the Spanish intended to take control of his kingdom. He thought that if he gave them the gold and silver they sought they would leave. In exchange for his release, he agreed to fill a large room with gold and promised the Spanish twice that amount in silver. Although he was stunned by the offer, Pizarro had no intention of releasing the Inca because he needed the ruler's influence over the native people to maintain order in the surrounding country or, more to the point, he meant to depose Atahuallpa, placing the entire empire under the rule of Spain's King Charles I (Holy Roman Emperor Charles V), with himself as viceroy.

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Oh, and just in case you thought that the only controversy surrounding this movie was Gibson himself (and his penchant for onscreen barbarity), think again. Guatemalan human rights activists are now expressing anger over what they see as a scary, racist depiction of the Mayan culture, with their formidable bone piercings and proclivity for beheadings.

"Basically, the director is saying the Mayans are savages," human rights activist Lucio Yaxon told Reuters this week.

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Mel Gibson Criticised For Apocalypto 'Stereotypes'
By WENN
Dec 8, 2006


New Mel Gibson movie Apocalypto has come under fire from indigenous Guatemalans for "stereotyping" the Mayan Empire as "savage" and "brutal".

Apocalypto is set in the twilight years of the Mayan civilisation, which peaked in the eighth century, and although only the movie's trailer has been shown in Guatemala, human rights activists are up in arms.

Lucio Yaxon, who works to help the 50 per cent of Guatamalans descending from the Maya, says, "The director is saying the Mayans are savages."



Ignacio Ochoa, director of the Nahual Foundation that promotes Mayan culture, adds, "Gibson replays... an offensive and racist notion that Maya people were brutal to one another long before the arrival of Europeans and thus they deserved, in fact, needed, rescue."

But Richard Hansen, who worked as consultant archaeologist on the project, insists Gibson went to extreme lengths to ensure his film was historically accurate.

(c) World Entertainment News Network

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Tittle-Tattle™
Dishing Hollywood Dirt Daily

Mel Gibson = Native American 'Hero'
By Staff
Dec 9, 2006


Mel Gibson and his latest film offering, Apocalypto, have given him a much-needed personal boost. Mel Gibson filmed Apocalypto to chronicle the end of the Mayan civilization, and used a number of actors from amongst the native populations.
Native American leaders have come out to say they love the film.

Chickasaw Nation Governor Bill Anoatubby leads the praise, stating, "It serves as an inspiration to Native American actors who aspire to perform relevant roles in the film industry."

"It is very important to note that Mr Gibson has gone to great lengths to cast indigenous people in this film."



The film, which chronicles the end of the ancient Mayan civilisation, has been praised by Indian leaders because Gibson successfully chose to cast indigenous actors for the project, reports WENN.

Gibson and his casting team found people from the Yucatan, Mexico City, Oaxaca, Xalapa, Veracruz and other areas to star in his ambitious new film, which is told in the ancient Mayan tongue with subtitles.

And after screening the movie to Native American community groups on Friday, Gibson has been hailed a hero to the indigenous people of America.

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Maya Mistake
Mel Gibson's Gory Action Film Sacrifices a Noble Civilization to Hollywood

By William Booth
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 9, 2006; Page C01

LOS ANGELES

The world audience is very familiar with the deeds of the overachievers of the ancient world, as told through the movies, the tales of the rise and fall, et cetera, et cetera, of your celebrity civilizations, such as the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans.

Now it is time for the Maya to shine, but they are a more mysterious, less overexposed people who finally get star billing on the big screen in Mel Gibson's new film "Apocalypto." How do they do as a civilization? Not so nice. Let's say you had a time travel machine? You definitely would not want to dial back to Mel's Maya, not without superior body armor. They would stick a fork in you.


The "Apocalypto" director got the tattoos
and weaponry right, but scholars say he
did a hatchet job on an advanced people.

Photo Credit: By Andrew Cooper -- Icon Distribution



"Apocalypto" depicts the Maya as a super-cruel, psycho-sadistic society on the skids, a ghoulscape engaged in widespread slavery, reckless sewage treatment and bad rave dancing, with a real lust for human blood. Think: Caligula of the Yucatan. Follow the bouncing heads!

This is a problem because most scholars, while acknowledging the violence of this pre-Columbian society, universally applaud the Maya as among the New World's most sophisticated and subtle civilizations. They were, especially at their height around A.D. 800, remarkable Stone Agers who erected avant-garde cities and towering pyramids in the jungles of Mexico and Central America, created sumptuous art, practiced a precise astronomy and (yes, there's more) developed not only a written language, but a heady cosmology of time and space, built around a complex, ordered society of maize, kings and gods. The Maya flourished for a thousand years. They were winners.

But "Apocalypto's" focus on the more, shall we say, extreme hobbies of the Maya (i.e., removal of still operating body parts) is giving the community of Maya researchers the fits. The archaeologists are shouting: slander! They're circulating statements and editorials and e-mails.

"It is a shocking movie to us," says Stephen Houston, professor of anthropology at Brown University, and like the other Mayanists quoted in this article, a scientist who has spent years excavating sites in Mexico and Central America.

Houston and his colleagues say they are not just engaging in the predictable academic nitpicking about the historical accuracy of a potential Hollywood blockbuster -- though they are also happy to point out the alleged goofs (the famous Bonampak murals are altered to show a warrior holding a dripping human heart when nothing was in his hand before) -- and, in fact, they applaud the things Gibson and his designers got generally right (the groovy tattoos, facial scarification, colorful textiles, nasty weaponry, punky ear plugs, etc.)

The main gripe, says Houston, is that "Apocalypto" will make a bad impression on the general public. "For millions of people this might be their first glimpse of the Maya," he says. "This is the impression that is going to last. But this is Mel Gibson's Maya. This is Mel Gibson's sadism. This is not the Maya we know."

Some of the scientists have seen the movie, others have watched the trailers, read reviews or summaries. David Stuart, professor of Mesoamerican art and writing at the University of Texas, saw a rough cut of the film with Gibson and penned an unpublished editorial with Houston that suggests Gibson's Maya are so evil that they were "a civilization . . . that deserves to die."

Arthur Demarest, anthropology professor at Vanderbilt University, says, "I don't care about some minor historical inaccuracies. That's Hollywood. What I'm very worried about is how the Maya themselves will perceive the film."

As Demarest points out, the Maya are not a extinct lineage. Their descendants, 6 million or more, are still living in Mexico and Central America. (The film does not open south of the border until next year).

"I can promise you that there will be a massive repudiation of this film, not only as a work of fiction, but as a systematic and willful misrepresentation of the Maya," says David Freidel, archaeology professor at Southern Methodist University.

Tough talk, but Gibson has taken heat in the past and come out way ahead. As he did in "The Passion of the Christ," which employed spoken Aramaic, Gibson's players in "Apocalypto," many of them indigenous people and non-actors, speak an ancient language. In this case, it's one of the extant Maya languages called Yucatek, which along with Gibson's skill as a filmmaker, may enhance the verisimilitude of "Apocalypto."

Gibson declined to be interviewed by The Washington Post, but in production notes, the writer-producer-director states that his initial goal was to create a "high-velocity action-adventure chase film" and that he then sought an ancient culture in which to set his go-fast story. The Maya appealed to him, Gibson says, because he sees parallels between the collapse of the ancient Maya civilization and our own. "It was important for me to make that parallel because you see these cycles repeating themselves over and over again," Gibson says. "People think that modern man is so enlightened, but we're susceptible to the same forces."

Gibson's consultant on the project was Richard Hansen, a respected Mayanist and professor at Idaho State University, as well as the president of the Foundation for Anthropological Research and Environmental Studies, which does preservation work and study in Guatemala. Gibson, a generous contributor to the group, now serves on its board of directors.

Hansen defends the film, believing that his fellow Mayanists will be "pleasantly surprised." He says, "For the most part it is very accurate," and "I was amazed at the level of detail, the stone tools, gourds, iguana skins, strung up turkeys, just amazed." Yet, he adds, "there were things I didn't like that they went ahead and did anyway," and he agrees "there was a lot of artistic license taken," and that there is a mash-up of architectural styles, art, costume and ritual from different time periods during the millennium-long Maya reign.

And the sacrifice, the gore, the Maya as savage? The film does "give the feeling they're a sadistic lot," Hansen says. "I'm a little apprehensive about how the contemporary Maya will take it."

"Apocalypto" tells the story of Jaguar Paw, a young hunter who lives in a primordial forest, and is taken captive by a raiding party, marched to the city, slathered in blue paint and hauled up to the blood-soaked altar at the top of a pyramid to have his heart and skull removed by a shaman for his slit-eyed king. But wait! Jag Paw escapes -- and then it's a chase movie.


So where do the Maya end and where does Mel begin?


Gibson shows grisly human sacrifice. And yes, indeed, the Maya were into it. Let us count the ways: decapitation, heart excision, dismemberment, hanging, disembowelment, skin flaying, skull splitting and burning.

But: The humans being chopped into nibbles were more likely to be royals and elites, not common forest dwellers like the film's Jaguar Paw and crew. "They didn't run around rounding up ordinary people to sacrifice," Houston says.

The film depicts human sacrifice on a large scale and shows an open-pit grave filled with hundreds of headless dead, like something out of the Cambodian killing fields or the Nazi death camps.

But: "We have no evidence of mass graves," says Karl Taube, professor of anthropology at the University of California at Riverside. At times the film appears to confuse the Aztecs (who engaged in mass sacrifice) and the Maya. "We know the Aztecs did that level of killing. Their accounts speak of 20,000," says Taube. But the Maya appear to have been more into quality (long, slow torture and death of kings) than quantity. Freidel says, "They disassembled the defeated kings as carefully as if they were a thermonuclear device, because they were dangerous enemies, capable of inflicting real harm."


Gibson includes what appears to be widespread slavery. Masses of gloomy, starved captives are seen toiling under heavy loads, making lime cement and stucco, to build ceremonial centers.

But: "We have no evidence of large numbers of slaves," Taube says. Rather, most Mayanists suspect the pyramids and the like were built by free Maya who saw it as a civic duty, perhaps forced upon them, labor as tax, or perhaps voluntary, as the medieval cathedrals were built by European guilds.

Finally, the Mayanists say the film appears confused about when events take place. One of the great mysteries of the Maya is why their civilization "collapsed" around A.D. 900, when many of the great ceremonial cities, such as Tikal, were simply abandoned. The current thinking is that collapse had many fathers: drought, deforestation, disease, overpopulation, warfare, social disruption. And Gibson's movie includes a little riff on them all, and indeed the film begins with a quote from historian Will Durant about the Romans: "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within."

But Gibson sets his film not during the era of Maya collapse in A.D. 900, but at the time of European contact in the early 1500s, when the first Spanish expeditions arrived on Maya shores. What wiped out the Maya in the 1500s was not internal rot, it was the Spanish, who brought European disease and fought for decades to pacify the Maya.

"Every society is violent," says Demarest. "And the Maya were no more cruel than any other, especially if you look at their entire history. What if you told the story of our history and didn't mention Pascal or Mozart or science or medicine and just focused on MTV and mass genocide?"

Or as Houston put it: "What if you showed the ancient Maya 'The Passion of the Christ'? They'd freak out."

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read this review (http://www.archaeology.org/online/reviews/apocalypto.html) from Traci Ardren who is assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Miami:


"In "Apocalypto," no mention is made of the achievements in science and art, the profound spirituality and connection to agricultural cycles, or the engineering feats of Maya cities. Instead, Gibson replays, in glorious big-budget technicolor, an offensive and racist notion that Maya people were brutal to one another long before the arrival of Europeans and thus they deserve, in fact they needed, rescue."


UPDATE: (09-12-2006)

Mysteriously, a report from Reuters used the above quote we pulled out three days ago on this blog, and attributed it to Ignacio Ochoa, director of the Nahual Foundation that promotes Mayan culture. These articles appeared in The Guardian, BBC, Channel 4, and ITN under the title 'Mayans slam film'. Now the BBC appears to have corrected this and quoted Traci Ardren directly -and changed it to 'film angers Mayan groups'. The BBC even links directly to Traci's article. Slow papers like the Independent are way off the pace and using the old attribution for the 'racist' quote (09-12-2006).

Ignacio Ochoa kindly responded to us and has categorically denied this is his quote. Ochoa doubts the film will increase stereotyping of the Maya beyond what it is already. Ochoa's concern is that the "ancient Maya civilization" commonly referred to is more an ideological construct. This constructed concept has been used by the likes of the Guatemalan State as a kind of systematic colonialism to control indigenous movements in Guatemala during the civil war up to the present day. The real danger for the present day Maya is that Guatemalan politicians are blocking their participation in local development. Ochoa cites the COCODE system as an example of this. Ochoa agrees that any hint by Gibson in the film, just as in the school books many Guatemalans have to read, that it took the Spanish conquest of the Mayas to 'civilize' them is totally unacceptable.

Wouldn't it be great if the media could go beyond the mudslinging (the need for controversy) and examine the issues at stake for a change? They might even check with the people they're quoting- rather than just recycling the news.

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Is "Apocalypto" Pornography? December 5, 2006
by Traci Ardren

A scholar challenges Mel Gibson's use of the ancient Maya culture as a metaphor for his vision of today's world.

Traci Ardren, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Miami, knows the Maya well. She has studied Classic Maya society for over 20 years while living in the modern Maya villages of Yaxuna, Chunchucmil, and Espita in the Mexican state of Yucatan. Her credentials include contributing to and editing Ancient Maya Women (2002) and The Social Experience of Childhood in Ancient Mesoamerica (2006). Ardren's reaction to the new film "Apocalypto," follows. Scholars are well aware that some aspects of Maya culture were violent, but Ardren finds fault with what she sees as a pervasive colonial attitude in the film.


With great trepidation I went to an advance screening of "Apocalypto" last night in Miami. No one really expects historical dramas to be accurate, so I was not so much concerned with whether or not the film would accurately represent what we know of Classic period Maya history as I was concerned about the message Mel Gibson wanted to convey through the film. After Jared Diamond's best-selling book Collapse, it has become fashionable to use the so-called Maya collapse as a metaphor for Western society's environmental and political excesses. Setting aside the fact that the Maya lived for more than a thousand years in a fragile tropical environment before their cities were abandoned, while here in the U.S, we have polluted our urban environments in less than 200, I anticipated a heavy-handed cautionary tale wrapped up in Native American costume.

What I saw was much worse than this. The thrill of hearing melodic Yucatec Maya spoken by familiar faces (although the five lead actors are not Yucatec Maya but other talented Native American actors) during the first ten minutes of the movie is swiftly and brutally replaced with stomach churning panic at the graphic Maya-on-Maya violence depicted in a village raid scene of nearly 15 minutes. From then on the entire movie never ceases to utilize every possible excuse to depict more violence. It is unrelenting. Our hero, Jaguar Paw, played by the charismatic Cree actor Rudy Youngblood, has one hellavuh bad couple of days. Captured for sacrifice, forced to march to the putrid city nearby, he endures every tropical jungle attack conceivable and that is after he escapes the relentless brutality of the elites. I am told this part of the movie is completely derivative of the 1966 film "The Naked Prey." Pure action flick, with one ridiculous encounter after another, filmed beautifully in the way that only Hollywood blockbusters can afford, this is the part of the movie that will draw in audiences and demonstrates Gibson's skill as a cinematic storyteller.

But I find the visual appeal of the film one of the most disturbing aspects of "Apocalypto." The jungles of Veracruz and Costa Rica have never looked better, the masked priests on the temple jump right off a Classic Maya vase, and the people are gorgeous. The fact that this film was made in Mexico and filmed in the Yucatec Maya language coupled with its visual appeal makes it all the more dangerous. It looks authentic; viewers will be captivated by the crazy, exotic mess of the city and the howler monkeys in the jungle. And who really cares that the Maya were not living in cities when the Spanish arrived? Yes, Gibson includes the arrival of clearly Christian missionaries (these guys are too clean to be conquistadors) in the last five minutes of the story (in the real world the Spanish arrived 300 years after the last Maya city was abandoned). It is one of the few calm moments in an otherwise aggressively paced film. The message? The end is near and the savior has come. Gibson's efforts at authenticity of location and language might, for some viewers, mask his blatantly colonial message that the Maya needed saving because they were rotten at the core. Using the decline of Classic urbanism as his backdrop, Gibson communicates that there was absolutely nothing redeemable about Maya culture, especially elite culture which is depicted as a disgusting feast of blood and excess.

Before anyone thinks I have forgotten my Metamucil this morning, I am not a compulsively politically correct type who sees the Maya as the epitome of goodness and light. I know the Maya practiced brutal violence upon one another, and I have studied child sacrifice during the Classic period. But in "Apocalypto," no mention is made of the achievements in science and art, the profound spirituality and connection to agricultural cycles, or the engineering feats of Maya cities. Instead, Gibson replays, in glorious big-budget technicolor, an offensive and racist notion that Maya people were brutal to one another long before the arrival of Europeans and thus they deserve, in fact they needed, rescue. This same idea was used for 500 years to justify the subjugation of Maya people and it has been thoroughly deconstructed and rejected by Maya intellectuals and community leaders throughout the Maya area today. In fact, Maya intellectuals have demonstrated convincingly that such ideas were manipulated by the Guatemalan army to justify the genocidal civil war of the 1970-1990s. To see this same trope about who indigenous people were (and are today?) used as the basis for entertainment (and I use the term loosely) is truly embarrassing. How can we continue to produce such one-sided and clearly exploitative messages about the indigenous people of the New World?

I loved Gibson's film "Braveheart," I really did. But there is something very different about portraying a group of people, who are now recovering from 500 years of colonization, as violent and brutal. These are people who are living with the very real effects of persistent racism that at its heart sees them as less than human. To think that a movie about the 1,000 ways a Maya can kill a Maya--when only 10 years ago Maya people were systematically being exterminated in Guatemala just for being Maya--is in any way okay, entertaining, or helpful is the epitome of a Western fantasy of supremacy that I find sad and ultimately pornographic. It is surely no surprise that "Apolcalypto" has very little to do with Maya culture and instead is Gibson's comment on the excesses he perceives in modern Western society. I just wish he had been honest enough to say this. Instead he has created a beautiful and disturbing portrait that satisfies his need for comment but does violence to one of the most impressive of Native American cultures.

Traci Ardren is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Miami.


© 2006 by the Archaeological Institute of America
www.archaeology.org/online/reviews/apocalypto.html

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Producers certainly wouldn't want to use Greco-Roman sources as a guidance, for a movie about 'contemporaneous' Europeans to their north.

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Originally posted by ARROW99:
Djehuti, It is a good thing the europeans came alsong and rescued the heathens you speak of. These were some of the bloodiest, most barbaricc people that history reveals. How anyone would think that the Spanish conquest was not an overwhelming positive is beyond civil thinking people. Its not a matter of their race, its a matter of almost total evil. The Spanish could not match them on their worst day times two.

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they look up and see Europeans docked offshore and loose their train of thought

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Originally posted by Doug M:

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Originally posted by ARROW99:
Djehuti, It is a good thing the europeans came alsong and rescued the heathens you speak of. These were some of the bloodiest, most barbaricc people that history reveals. How anyone would think that the Spanish conquest was not an overwhelming positive is beyond civil thinking people. Its not a matter of their race, its a matter of almost total evil. The Spanish could not match them on their worst day times two.

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Actually the Europeans WERE the heathens and never RESCUED anyone from anything. IN FACT, the Europeans never DID anything POSITIVE except kill and rape and pillage and enslave people because of their INNATE desire to CONQUER everyone in the name of European savagery. NOTHING done by ANY civilization matches the barbarity and savagery done by Europeans to Native Americans, Africans and Asians in the name of MONEY. The ONLY PROGRESS that has come about as a result of this ADVANCEMENT in technology is a GREATER displarity between rich and poor, MORE suffering, MORE starvation and MORE people dying from BASIC illnesses. All of it is a RESULT of the European CONQUEST of most of the KNOWN world and their CONTINUED attempts to be the WORLD's ECONOMIC RULING POWER, backed by the OVERWHELMING might of the military juggernaught that can DESTROY the planet with the number of conventional and unconventional weapons in its stockpile. This is NOT progress or civilization it is SAVAGERY and BARBARITY in its PUREST FORM.

But of course, these Europeans HAVE to lie about it, because they want you to BELIEVE that they INTRODUCED civilization to America, Africa and Asia. How is that when Asia, America and Africa ALREADY HAD civilizations THOUSANDS of years PRIOR to the BEGINNING of ANY Western European civilizations and even mediterranean European civlizations owe a debt to their forebears from Africa and Asia. Europeans came to conquer pure and simple and that is why they were called CONQUISTADORS. They werent trying to CIVILIZE anyone, they werent trying to teach the TRUE nature of GOD to anyone and they CERTAINLY werent trying to EDUCATE anyone to any HIGHER knowledge. They came to TAKE what they saw in the name of the King and NOTHING else. So stop trying to turn the EXPLOITATION of native peoples all over the world into some sort of NOBLE cause, because IT WAS NOT.


In fact, it was the Europeans who BENEFITTED from the fact that these things ALREADY existed and were developed by those SO-CALLED savages that they conquered. European history is nothing but one big atrocity after another. Start with 1492, the near genocide of millions of Native Americans, the African Holocost of Slavery, the genocide in Australia and Tasmania, the murder of Millions in Congo, the murder and pillage in Asia, the forced entry into China and Japan, Apartheid, the exploitation of Inda, the 1st world war, the Second World War, the Jewish Holocaust, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and on and on. ALL at the hands of so-called CIVILIZED Europeans whose WHOLE concept of progress is based no MILITARY might and the genocide of NATIVE populations. Europeans have NEVER represented TRUE civilized society, democracy, human rights or FREEDOM in ANY sense. They have ONLY represented the PURE desire for MATERIALISTIC gain and pleasure at the EXPENSE of INDIGENOUS rights and the FREEDOM of those who suffer in order to ALLOW Europeans to live a lifestyle that is UNMAINTAINABLE. It is the Europeans who have a DISTORTED concept of reality, which says that CIVILIZATION was INTRODUCED from Europe to the world, when it wasnt. Religion, civilization, culture and everything ELSE was INTRODUCED to Europe FROM everywhere else.

Bottom line, this FAKE history of Europe being such a BENEFICIAL presence for native people and the planet is just an attempt to HIDE from Europeans OWN savage nature, which EVERYONE ELSE takes for granted. That is why their B.S. history is the LAUGHING stock of the world. The MesoAmericans, Africans, Asians and everyone else UNDERSTOOD that the cycles of life, death and new life were a NATURAL part of nature and TRIED to live according to it. They did not HIDE it and try to sugar coat LIFE for what it is or human nature for what it is. It is EUROPEANS who try and DENY their OWN humanity which INCLUDES the SAME savage traits that they frown on in everyone else, but everyone else understands that this is PART of what makes us HUMAN. No amount of technology, mathematics, science or any other sort of MATERIAL thing is going to CHANGE man from being the CREATURE of nature that he is, no matter how COMFORTABLE he tries to make himself and no matter how many PLEASURES he creates for himself to enjoy. THIS is the ULTIMATE folly of modern civilization, that NO MATTER HOW ADVANCED they become with MATERIAL things, they are STILL fundamentally HUMAN and STILL have their INNER savagery INTACT and it is that INNER savagery that will ULTIMATELY determine MAN's FATE on this planet, pure and simple.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ARROW99:
Djehuti, It is a good thing the europeans came alsong and rescued the heathens you speak of. These were some of the bloodiest, most barbaricc people that history reveals. How anyone would think that the Spanish conquest was not an overwhelming positive is beyond civil thinking people. Its not a matter of their race, its a matter of almost total evil. The Spanish could not match them on their worst day times two.

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[ 11. December 2006, 06:26 PM: Message edited by: Horus_Den_1 ]
 

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Posted by Myra Wysinger (Member # 10126) on :
 


Royal Treasure

Elaborate offerings were recovered from a vaulted stone tomb from about 150 B.C., probably the earliest known burial of a Maya king. Near the chest of the deceased lay a jade pectoral, at front—a symbol of Maya royalty. The trove also included a mysterious figure of green stone, at right, which stood inside a large incense burner, at left, likely portraying Chac, the Maya god of rain and lightning. "Today the Maya still burn incense to create rain," says project iconographer Karl Taube, "with the rising smoke symbolizing rain clouds."

Mayan Incense

The Mayan Copal (pom) is gathered by hand from native pines existing in the high mountain valleys, and sundried as it has been for over 2000 years. This incense plays a vital role in the traditional Mayan religious ceremonies of offering and purification. Known as Gum Copal, White Copal, and Copal Blanco, this resin incense comes from a family of trees known as Bursera. These are small trees that are related to both frankincense and myrrh. This Copal can be found growing in North, South, and Central America and is considered sacred to many peoples of South and Central America, including the Mayans.

Copal smoke may have been employed for trance induction by shamans of Mesoamerica, but all the facts are not in yet. However, copal was definitely used by the shaman for divination purposes. "The shaman picks up fourteen grains of corn and holds them in incense smoke. He then chants, asking the sacred hill spirits to guide him. Next, he casts the grains (of censed maize) onto the cloth and interprets where they fall" (Sandstrom-Corn is Our Blood-1991:236).


.
 

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Posted by King_Scorpion (Member # 4818) on :
 
I've read both good and bad reviews for this movie. If you go here you'll see that it's getting more good reviews than bad. I haven't seen the movie yet, so I can't pass judgement on it. But from what I've read, it's violent just like every other Mel Gibson flick. I mean, let's not pretend mass sacrifices didn't happen...it's a historical fact they did. But maybe Gibson was wrong in just focusing on that and not the other aspects of the culture....I don't know.
 

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Posted by lamin (Member # 5777) on :
 
And note that none of the major characters are actually Mayan--even though Gibson had many to choose from. Comments?
 

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Posted by King_Scorpion (Member # 4818) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by lamin:
And note that none of the major characters are actually Mayan--even though Gibson had many to choose from. Comments?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by King_Scorpion:

quote:

---

Originally posted by lamin:
And note that none of the major characters are actually Mayan--even though Gibson had many to choose from. Comments?

---

What are they?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by alTakruri:
As in the above reviews, this is why the
interviewed Native Americans love the movie
whereas the Maya Guatemalans despise it.

---

Gibson Criticized For Apocalypto 'Stereotypes'

Hispanic Business, Inc.
December 7, 2006

New Mel Gibson movie Apocalypto has come under fire from indigenous Guatemalans for "stereotyping" the Mayan Empire as "savage" and "brutal."

Apocalypto is set in the twilight years of the Mayan civilization, which peaked in the eighth century, and although only the movie's trailer has been shown in Guatemala, human rights activists are up in arms.

Lucio Yaxon, who works to help the 50 percent of Guatamalans descending from the Maya, says, "The director is saying the Mayans are savages."

Ignacio Ochoa, director of the Nahual Foundation that promotes Mayan culture, adds, "Gibson replays… an offensive and racist notion that Maya people were brutal to one another long before the arrival of Europeans and thus they deserved, in fact, needed, rescue."

But Richard Hansen, who worked as consultant archaeologist on the project, insists Gibson went to extreme lengths to ensure his film was historically accurate.

.
 

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Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Yes, that was the first review I posted.

The 2nd review I posted has quotes from
Native Americans who love the movie due
to exposure for their actors not for any
accuracy of the movie's content.

Rather than repost it, just scroll up
to read it (and an archaeologist's
critique who's not on Gibson's payroll
as is the anthropologist Hansen who
pleads its historically accurate, what
else would he say since he's the one
paid to provide the factual input?).

Anyway a movie's a movie and what's
been done to the Maya differs little
from the historical and literary
hatchet jobs done in all historical
novel type films including ones on
white/Euro cultures.

I pity the viewer who can't separate
fantasy from documentary (and yes
recently there's a spate of these
docu-dramas) and believes a movie
is a time capsule peep into the
past instead of a couple of hours
worth of "entertainment."

But then 1/2 the PBS/A&E/DSC/HIST
etc. documentaries are full of
(expletive deleted) too, and I
don't find that very entertaining.
 

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Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
 
The ancient Maya came in various complexions and the actors were fairly accurate in my opinion. In fact there are some modern Maya (and other Indian groups all over America) who are dark and there are some who arent. But the point about using NON Mayan actors is a good one. They probably used them because REAL Mayans may not have appreciated participating in a slander against themselves and their history.

But I swore I read somewhere that Mr. Gibson used Mayan actors as part of the general masses of people in the film.
 

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Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
 
I still find Mayan and MesoAmerican culture amazing, including some of the similarities between Mayan and Egyptian textiles:



http://www.artemaya.com/traje_bib.html
 

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Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doug M:


But I swore I read somewhere that Mr. Gibson
used Mayan actors as part of the general masses
of people in the film.

---

quote:

---

Mel Gibson filmed Apocalypto to chronicle
the end of the Mayan civilization, and used a
number of actors from amongst the native populations.
. . . .
"It is very important to note that Mr Gibson has
gone to great lengths to cast indigenous people
in this film."
. . . .
Gibson and his casting team found people from
the Yucatan, Mexico City, Oaxaca, Xalapa,
Veracruz and other areas to star in his
ambitious new film ...

---

 

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Posted by yazid904 (Member # 7708) on :
 
The Maya are a diverse group. You have those in Yucatan, Guatemala and those in Belize. That being said, although they inhabited a contiguous area, their present nation/state status determines political agenda in now addressing the movie! There are probably "native community activists' stirring the pot (they learnt from USA) to gain some benefit from the misrepresentation of Maya in the cinematic sphere.

I am saying that you have Mexican Maya, Guatemalan Maya, and Belizean Maya! so the agendas will assert themselves. Don't we all look alike per our group!
 

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Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
It's been a while, but I almost forgot about this thread. I saw the movie just last week after I my finals, and I must say I have mixed feelings about the movie.

I agree with all the articles that Tarkruri posted:

I'm glad they casted the 'right people' as in real Native Americans for all the roles which most people would assume to be a given and have forgotten that back in the old days Hollywood simply used white actors who are either tanned or with dark-makeup. The lead character Jaguar Paw was played by Rudy Youngblood a Native American from the US of Comanche, Cree and Yaqui descent. And I totally understand how happy and proud many Native Americans are that Hollywood is casting their people in starring and leading roles, or even better-- movies entirely about Native American people with no particular relevance to white people as you see in many movies featuring Native Americans like Western or Pioneer films.

The movie was also pretty accurate in terms of wardrobe showing the right clothing, hairstyles, make-up, tatoos, and piercings etc.

But of course all the above is the accuracy ends and Hollywood fantasy begins. I was somewhat disappointed with the way Mayan society was portrayed as sadistic bloodthirsty people who would pillage villages, raping women and raiding them for slaves and sacrifices. The way the society was depicted as corrupt and I dare say somewhat depraved is what I've been fearing though kind of expecting so I wasn't really surprised. It's true that Mayan blood sacrifices were usually not as gory and bloody as the movie depicted though these days blood and gore seem to be a common feature in Hollywood films. And I was very disappointed with the image that the Maya were mass murderers with that scene of the mass piles of bodies!

Mel Gibson had a couple of themes in mind when making this movie. The first is that with every end there is a new beggining hence the title of the movie. What's little known is that this theme actually reflects Mayan religious beliefs and cosmology about destruction and rebirth of everything in the universe even the universe itself. Gibson's second theme was that great civilizations are destroyed not by other civilizations but by the peoples within it and that corruption and decadence can be bred from the arrogance and might from mankind and the great civilizations he creates, hence the way Mayan society was depicted in the movie. Although the movie was suppose to be a lesson for people in today's Western civilization, I am just a little bothered that Gibson had to "sacrifice" the image of the Maya (pun intended)!

Of course the are a couple other inacuraccies in the movie. The very ending of the movie which shows Spanish arrival is blatantly historically inaccurate because as we know by now the Europeans arrived centuries after the collapse of Mayan civilization. As for the "jaguar" in the movie, it wasn't really a jaguar but a black panther (of African origin). I can understand that getting a live jaguar from captivity (if there is one) let alone one that's trained would be etremely costly, and of course jaguars are an endangered species so it would be much easier using some other large cat. Although it would have been better if they used a spotted leopard instead of a black panther. The resemblance would be alot closer to the jaguar which is also spotted. Jaguars were considered sacred

jaguar



Achievments of the Mayans

I definitely agree that movie failed to show just how advance Mayan civilization was. Their mathematics at the time was superior than that of contemporary Europe. For one thing, they had the concept of zero which Europeans at that time didn't have although Arab and Indian civilizations had it. With zero, one is able to perform a greater number of calculations and compute more precise numbers. With better mathematical skill came better science and engineering. Combining their math with their religious astrological beliefs, the Maya became expert astronomers who mapped the stars and other celestial bodies. Again, they developed an advanced calendrical system, a system that beats our own modern one in accuracy. Just as the Egyptians were characterized as a civilization 'obsessed with death' (actually with the after-life), the Mayans like many Meso-Americans such their successors the Aztecs, were obsessed with time. This obsession stemmed from their religious belief that the universe ran in cycles of destruction and rebirth.



http://www.geocities.com/wwwtimto/gfx/azteccalendar.jpg



http://www.archiv.cas.cz/english/foto/v/vmaykale.gif

And talk about 'Apocalypto', one main reason why the Mayans created their great calendar was to help calculate the end of the world. According to their predictions the end of the world will be December 21, 2012! Is this true? I certainly hope not. Sounds like a good enough idea for a movie (they've used the theme in various sci-fi shows).

quote:

---

Yonis asked:

Then why isn't it (Mayan Calendar) used instead?

---

I would think the only reason why we don't use the more accurate Mayan calendar is that it would be too much of a hassle to go and change and re-arrange everything including our schedules that we've been using for centuries. Our calendar system, even though not as accurate still works and it would be too hectic to change everything now. Maybe in the future(?)

And of course the Mayans made excellent engineering feats with complex cities including temples and other important buildings. In the opening week of the movie Apocalypto, the history channel ran some pretty interesting series on the Maya like 'Engineering an Empire'. I learned so many things I didn't know before, like archaeo-engineer James O'Kon theorizes that the Maya were the first to build the largest suspension bridge in the world. This bridge linked the capital Mayan city of Yaxchilan to land across the Usumacinta River. It was the longest suspension bridge until the Italians build one over the Adda River!



The Mayans also build a sophisticated system of irrigation for their crops as well as running water for human use and consumption including fountains. What's even more surprising is the way they engineered their pyramid temples, so that if you clap your hands, the sound waves that bounce off the temple are strikingly similar to the chirp of their sacred bird the quetzal or kuk which symbolizes their cheif god Kukulcan! (the same one they were sacrificing to in the movie)

temple


Quetzal/Kuk bird


And of course the Mayas had their own writing which was a system of . After the Mayas were conquered by the Spanish, some crazy Christian missionary wanted to destroy everything having to do paganism even the Mayas' own history. Countless priceless Mayan texts were burned. Only a precious several documents survived which helped later scholars decipher the [url=http://www.famsi.org/mayawriting/]Mayan script.

Mayan characters


Yes, the Mayas were a fascinating people and still are as Ausar has mentioned, their living descendants are still there in southern Mexico. Some of their ancient customs and beliefs have also survived and and synchronized to Christian Catholocism similar to Sa'idi Egyptians with Coptic and Islam.

Today's Mayans

 

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Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
 
Interesting timeline of Mayan history:

B.C.
11,000
The first hunter-gatherers settle in the Maya highlands and lowlands.

3114 or 3113
The creation of the world takes place, according to the Maya Long Count calendar.
2600
Maya civilization begins.

2000
The rise of the Olmec civilization, from which many aspects of Maya culture are derived. Village farming becomes established throughout Maya regions.

700
Writing is developed in Mesoamerica.

400
The earliest known solar calendars carved in stone are in use among the Maya, although the solar calendar may have been known and used by the Maya before this date.

300
The Maya adopt the idea of a hierarchical society ruled by nobles and kings.

100
The city of Teotihuacan is founded and for centuries is the cultural, religious and trading centre of Mesoamerica.

50
The Maya city of Cerros is built, with a complex of temples and ball courts. It is abandoned (for reasons unknown) a hundred years later and its people return to fishing and farming.

A.D.
100
The decline of the Olmecs.

400
The Maya highlands fall under the domination of Teotihuacan, and the disintegration of Maya culture and language begins in some parts of the highlands.

500
The Maya city of Tikal becomes the first great Maya city, as citizens from Teotihuacan make their way to Tikal, introducing new ideas involving weaponry, captives, ritual practices and human sacrifice.

600
An unknown event destroys the civilization at Teotihuacan, along with the empire it supported. Tikal becomes the largest city-state in Mesoamerica, with as many as 500,000 inhabitants within the city and its hinterland.

683
The Emperor Pacal dies at the age of 80 and is buried in the Temple of the Inscriptions at Palenque.

751
Long-standing Maya alliances begin to break down. Trade between Maya city-states declines, and inter-state conflict increases.

869
Construction ceases in Tikal, marking the beginning of the city's decline.

899
Tikal is abandoned.

900
The Classic Period of Maya history ends, with the collapse of the southern lowland cities. Maya cities in the northern Yucatán continue to thrive.

1200
Northern Maya cities begin to be abandoned.

1224
The city of Chichén Itzá is abandoned by the Toltecs. A people known as the Uicil-abnal, which later takes the name Itzá, settles in the desolate city.

1244
The Itzá abandon Chichén Itzá for reasons unknown.

1263
The Itzá begin building the city of Mayapán.
1283
Mayapán becomes the capital of Yucatán.

1441
There is a rebellion within Mayapán and the city is abandoned by 1461. Shortly after this, Yucatán degenerates from a single united kingdom into sixteen rival statelets, each anxious to become the most powerful.

1511
A Spaniard named Gonzalo Guerrero is shipwrecked and washed up on the eastern shore of Yucatán. He defects to the Maya, tattooing his face, piercing his ears and marrying into a Maya noble family. Guerrero later becomes an implacable foe of the Spaniards and does much to help the Maya resist Spanish rule in Yucatán.

1517
The Spanish first arrive on the shores of Yucatán under Hernandez de Cordoba, who later dies of wounds received in battle against the Maya. The arrival of the Spanish ushers in Old World diseases unknown among the Maya, including smallpox, influenza and measles. Within a century, 90 per cent of Mesoamerica's native populations will be killed off.

1519
Hernán Cortés begins exploring Yucatán.

1524
Cortés meets the Itzá people, the last of the Maya peoples to remain unconquered by the Spanish. The Spanish leave the Itzá alone until the seventeenth century.

1528
The Spanish under Francisco de Montejo begin their conquest of the northern Maya. The Maya fight back with surprising vigour, keeping the Spanish at bay for several years.

1541
The Spanish are finally able to subdue the Maya and put an end to Maya resistance. Revolt continues, however, to plague the Spaniards off and on for the rest of the century.

1542
The Spanish establish a capital city at Mérida in Yucatán.

1695
The ruins of Tikal are discovered by chance by the Spanish priest Father Avedaño and his companions, who had become lost in the jungle.

1712
The Maya of the Chiapas highlands rise against the Mexican government. They will continue to do so off and on until the 1990s.

1724
The Spanish Crown abolishes the system of encomienda, which had given Spanish land barons the right to forced Maya labour, as long as they agreed to convert the Maya to Christianity.

1821
Mexico becomes independent from Spain. In general, life becomes more tolerable for the Maya than it had been under Spanish rule.

1822
An account of Antonío del Río's late eighteenth-century explorations of Palenque is published in London. The book raises a great deal of interest in further exploration of the "lost" Maya civilization and settlements.

1839
American diplomat and lawyer John Lloyd Stephens and English topographical artist Frederick Catherwood begin a series of explorations into Maya regions, revealing the full splendour of classical Maya civilization to the world for the first time.

1847
The Yucatán Maya rise up against the Mexican government, rebelling against the miserable conditions and cruelty they have suffered at the hands of the whites. The rebellion is so successful that the Maya almost manage to take over the entire peninsula in what has become known as the War of the Castes.

1850
A miraculous "talking cross" in a village in central Quintana Roo predicts a holy war against the whites. Bolstered by arms received from the British in Belize, the Maya form into quasi-military companies inspired by messianic zeal. The fighting continues until 1901.

1860
The Yucatán Maya rebel again.

1864
Workmen digging a canal on the Caribbean coast of Guatemala discover a jade plaque inscribed with a date of A.D. 320. The plaque becomes one of the oldest known objects dated in the Maya fashion.

1880
A new tide of government intervention in Maya life begins as governments attempt to force the Maya to become labourers on cash-crop plantations. This destroys many aspects of Maya cultural traditions and agricultural methods preserved over 4,000 years. Towns which had been protected for the Maya soon become a haven for mixed-race ladinos who prey economically on the indigenous Maya and usurp all positions of social and economic power.

1910
Rampant government corruption leads to the Mexican Revolution.

1946
American photographer Giles Healey is taken to the Maya city of Bonampak by the native Lacandón who live nearby. Healey becomes the first non-Maya ever to see Bonampak's stunning wall-paintings, which reveal new details about Maya civilization.

1952
The Priest-king Pacal's tomb at Palenque is discovered and excavated by Mexican archaeologist Alberto Ruz, marking the first time a tomb has been found inside a Maya pyramid. Prior to this, Maya pyramids were believed to be temples with a purely religious or ceremonial purpose.

1962
Maya hieroglyphic signs are first catalogued. Uncontrolled looting of Maya tombs and other sites begins around this time in the southern lowlands, continuing until well into the 1970s.

1992
A Quiché Maya woman from Guatemala named Rigoberta Menchu, who has lost most of her family to the death squads and is known for speaking out against the extermination of the Maya, wins the Nobel Peace Prize.

From: http://www.civilization.ca/civil/maya/mmc09eng.html

I still hate the term old world versus new world, especially when used in reference to Europe. Europe is the NEW WORLD, as in NEW WORLD ORDER, whereas the Maya and Mesoamerica represent the OLD world and OLD world order, that existed LONG before Europe became a CIVILIZED state.

Also note how the LATINOS are seen as the enemies of the INIGENOUS people like the Maya. Most here in the U.S. assume that Latino means EVERYONE "South of The Border" but that is NOT the case and the term latino is only one of the many terms used to describe populations in the stratified caste system of South and Central America.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latino
 

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Posted by Morpheus 27 (Member # 10819) on :
 
^^ Very interesting. (Djehuti & Doug M)

I had know idea how advanced Mayan civilization was, an the kuk or quetzal bird clap aspect of the temple is amazing!

Wouldn't it be amazing if it was deliberate! (as it seems it may be)
 

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Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Tip o tha hat to Djehuti and Doug M for the Maya education,
a most welcome line of posting most relevant to this thread.
 

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Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
 
Thanks to everyone for an informative thread.

In addition I would like to add the following:

quote:

---

Comparative morphological studies of the earliest human skeletons of the New World have shown that, whereas late prehistoric, recent, and present Native Americans tend to exhibit a cranial morphology similar to late and modern Northern Asians (short and wide neurocrania; high, orthognatic and broad faces; and relatively high and narrow orbits and noses), the earliest South Americans tend to be more similar to present Australians, Melanesians, and Sub-Saharan Africans (narrow and long neurocrania; prognatic, low faces; and relatively low and broad orbits and noses). However, most of the previous studies of early American human remains were based on small cranial samples. Herein we compare the largest sample of early American skulls ever studied (81 skulls of the Lagoa Santa region) with worldwide data sets representing global morphological variation in humans, through three different multivariate analyses. The results obtained from all multivariate analyses confirm a close morphological affinity between SouthAmerican Paleoindians and extant Australo-Melanesians groups, supporting the hypothesis that two distinct biological populations could have colonized the New World in the Pleistocene/Holocene transition.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Djehuti:
As for the "jaguar" in the movie, it wasn't really a jaguar but a black panther (of African origin)...

jaguar

---

Nop...

BLACK JAGUAR



BLACK PANTHER



look similar but...

just Google it.
 

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Posted by Supercar (Member # 6477) on :
 
^At the least, what is the physical difference here?
 

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Posted by Israel (Member # 11221) on :
 
Let me just state that this movie was excellent...except for the last five minutes.....LOL.

In truth, the movie was excellent. A spiritual interpretation can help bring about clarity concerning the significance of the historical events that were dramatized in the movie. Salaam
 

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Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
To me, the persuers realized getting back to the
city with an intelligence report on the "phenomena"
was much more important than sport and vengeance.

I mean there was this prophecy from that child and
bit by bit they witnessed every ominous piece of
it as it actualized starting with the eclipse. Those
things in the sea with strange men upon them was
definitely the cherry on top so to speak.

The strong ending words and decision was to go
the forest, not to the men coming from the sea,
for a new beginning.

I enjoyed the movie but hated some of the cinematography.
It didn't seem any better or worse than any other historical
fiction movie.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evergreen:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Djehuti:
However, I can't help but get the feeling that Gibson whether wittingly or not is using this to deomonize this ancient culture. As a way of somehow saying, "It's a good thing the Europeans came and converted these heathens!"

---

Evergreen Writes:

I just finished watching the film. It is of interest that the main character is 'saved' from his enemies by the coming of the Europeans....literally! His enemies are about to kill him, they look up and see Europeans docked offshore and loose their train of thought.

It was a good movie however.....

---

 

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Posted by Willing Thinker (Member # 10819) on :
 
Supercar, generally, Jaguars have broader faces/skuls, are supposed to be stalkier, noses on a more downward tilt, ears are funnel - cone shaped (like small cats), their ears are not as rounded at the top of the funnel-ish shape, like lions, panthers.

There eye range does overlap, as I've seen (alleged) Jaguars in books with eyes like those (the 'jaguar' of the movie).

Trust me I'd know, the Jaguar's my favorite am-inol of all time, and I was very much into large cats. However, jaguars' eyes are less revealed, apearing in a less rounded and more human, almond shape.

Or atleast they would appear more human (just the eyes, I can draw my ass off) in my sketchings
 

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Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Wow! U n2 d Jaguar God comix?
 

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Posted by Willing Thinker (Member # 10819) on :
 
No, I may have heard of them or seen them, but I'm sure I would have bought one, atleast picked one up if it was in stores when I used to buy comics if I had the money.

Every time I thought of suggesting/making my own comic with an animal-based hero, I thought of a Jaguar man

I was very into Spiderman and Marvel in general.

OT, but some weird ness regarding some art:
art I just searched Jaguar God:

Is this what the comic looked like? ^The textures are the exact same ones I would use when I drew vegetation and Jaguars, the Jaguar logo has my favorite textur to put anywhere regardless of what I'm doing(other than that I used indigo), and every color is perfect: the golden brown of the jaguar fur, the color of the logo, and even the dudes skin. FREAKY.

Also, one day when I was sketching(; I was a sketcher, use blacks and whites) some hero dude I conceived up, unrelated to Jaguars, and he had (I chose) the SAME EXACT weapons, and had similar style/garb 'cept for longer cloth, maybe shorts/ sweatpants however the dude was in my image, my build.




I don't quite remember how I drew the head, and will never find out as I lacked organization skills and we(+ the rest of the kids) were irresponsible, I would get the most angry I could get. Thus, I don't draw too often anymore ..
Anyway:

Has got to be fan art.

" " " " " ".

dont no, pics look cool, I'd have to read the comic, interesting none the less.

I'll check them out, but I'm curious are YOU in2 Jaguar God comix?
 

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Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Nope not fan art but actually from the comic. I have
nearly the whole set (there's only like eight or so of
them.

The character was a brown skinned Indio but got
lightened after acquiring the spirit of the jaguar
(sales figures show caucasoid heros sell more
mags).

They're pretty violent (not for kids). In one issue JG
splits a colonizer in half from head to groin. In another
issue he frickin' turns into a were-jaguar (tigre capiango)
clawing and biting his opponent, another jaguar god (but
lacking any humanity) to death.

Nothing socially redemptive in this comic, not a
factual based series, just a sword and sorcery
type mag except based in South American locale
and legend/mythology.




 

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Posted by Arwa (Member # 11172) on :
 
Interesting article (First part)

Thomas Sutcliffe: We are gambling with people's lives

quote:

---

The unexpected success of Mel Gibson's film Apocalypto has been explained away by surprised Hollywood executives in quite a few ways - as proof of the durable virtues of the old-fashioned cliff-hanger or as evidence of an unexpected taste for the exotic. But so far as I know nobody's made much of one of its less obvious pleasures, which is that of civilisational smugness.

Western audiences - used to thinking of themselves as superior to all other cultures but increasingly aware that this position may not actually be sustainable - could at least relax here, when presented with the religious practices of the Mayan baddies. The viewer could look on as the corpses tumbled down the pyramid steps and reflect with satisfaction that at least we don't do that anymore - trading human lives for an abstraction.

In truth there's barely a society on the planet that doesn't still practice human sacrifice in one way or another, and the UK is no exception. They only difference is that the sacrifice is rarely ceremonial and almost never explicitly connected to the gods it serves. If you're sceptical about this just recall last week's brief debate about Tim Yeo's proposal that the clocks should be moved forward by an hour, to save energy and lives. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents suggested that there might be 450 fewer road deaths and serious injuries following such a change - and Stephen Ladyman, the Road Safety Minister appeared to accept that prediction: "I am prepared to accept that approximately 100 lives would be saved, "he said, "and 400 people killed or seriously injured would be spared that fate."

Nonetheless the Government wasn't minded to make the change. So, taking the minister's words at face value around 100 victims are out there right now, waiting their turn to be sacrificed for... well, what exactly? Governmental expedience? Scottish voters?

And the sacrifice can be to a greater good. Anyone opposed to the Government's plans for pre-emptive crime prevention, for example (as I am) should honestly acknowledge that their opposition doesn't come without human cost. If you cleave to the principle that punishment should follow a crime rather than precede it - then you necessarily accept that dangerous individuals may have to conclusively prove their danger to society before they are restrained. The cost to their victim may well be huge, but even so you might argue that it is worth paying. Something similar happens when motorists resist attempts to lower the speed limit or even enforce the existing ones - future deaths are being traded for a present convenience.

The question isn't whether human sacrifice still occurs, then, but what we're sacrificing humans to. It surely needs to be something worthwhile - even if it is as debatably worthwhile as cutting five minutes off your journey time. And thinking about the Government's most recent proposal for large-scale sacrifice I'm at a loss to find any social upside whatsoever. The changed rules on gambling will unquestionably ruin lives - even if the overall death toll is likely to be low. Despite its denials the Government must know this to be true. And though they've invoked that modern minor deity of "personal leisure" that's a surely just a cover for a bigger, more powerful god - money. The casino owners will get rich and the Government gets a cut. At least the Mayans sincerely believed that everyone would benefit.
Source.

---

 

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Posted by Technical Anomal (What Box? (Member # 10819) on :
 
Something I had to do for Spanish:



They told us to pick any word, so I picked my faorite animal. It so happens, that Jaguar en Espanol is Jaguar, just sounds like Haguar lol.

May post in the Kem art section.
 

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Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
^I almost forgot about this thread!
 

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Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by SuWeDi:

Nope...

BLACK JAGUAR



BLACK PANTHER



look similar but...

just Google it.

---

Oh! So Jaguars are just like leopards in that they too come in all black coats!-- (black panthers are just leopards whose coats are all black instead of spotted)

Thankyou Suwedi for this enlightment. I did not know this!

Whatbox, so I take it your favorite animal is the jaguar(?)
 

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Posted by Technical Anomal (What Box? (Member # 10819) on :
 
^Si, Senor. Can't beleive you didn't knnow that they could be black, you came off as educated on Big cats at first.
 

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Posted by legeonas (Member # 13231) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Djehuti:
Although it would have been better if they used a spotted leopard instead of a black panther. The resemblance would be alot closer to the jaguar which is also spotted. Jaguars were considered sacred

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Supercar:
^At the least, what is the physical difference here?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Willing Thinker:
No, I may have heard of them or seen them, but I'm sure I would have bought one, atleast picked one up if it was in stores when I used to buy comics if I had the money.

Every time I thought of suggesting/making my own comic with an animal-based hero, I thought of a Jaguar man

I was very into Spiderman and Marvel in general.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Djehuti:
Oh! So Jaguars are just like leopards in that they too come in all black coats!-- (black panthers are just leopards whose coats are all black instead of spotted)

Thankyou Suwedi for this enlightment. I did not know this!

Whatbox, so I take it your favorite animal is the jaguar(?)

---

Dude you didn't know about melanistic cats?

Melanistic Serval

Melanistic Bobcat

Melanistic Tiger

Of course Jaguars and Leopards are the most common.


Leopards do not have the same face as a jaguar.
You can look at that face and immediately tell that Apocalpto was a leopard.
http://www.ifilm.com/video/2806197
 

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Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
^Sorry, I didn't mean to sound like an expert on cats. I knew that leopards can be melanistic-- all black, but I didn't know jaguars or other big cats were the same way.

Also, Legonas is right that another reason why I suspected the cat in the movie was a leopard was the way the face looked. Jaguars have larger faces.

By the way Legonas, I find it utterly ironic as well as humorous that YOU of all people are using the term 'melanistic'... and, well look at the results in all thos big cats. LOL
 

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Posted by Technical Anomal (What Box? (Member # 10819) on :
 
Yeah, I caught the melanistic thing too.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Djehuti:
Although it would have been better if they used a spotted leopard instead of a black panther. The resemblance would be alot closer to the jaguar which is also spotted. Jaguars were considered sacred

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by legeonas:
Hardly, the spots are different.

---

quote:

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Supercar:
^At the least, what is the physical difference here?

---

Shorter limbs, much stronger jaw, leopard is much more of aman killer.

---

quote:

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Willing Thinker:
[qb] No, I may have heard of them or seen them, but I'm sure I would have bought one, atleast picked one up if it was in stores when I used to buy comics if I had the money.

Every time I thought of suggesting/making my own comic with an animal-based hero, I thought of a Jaguar man

I was very into Spiderman and Marvel in general.

---

Interesting. You should try Ayahuasca. You might find Otorongo is your soul guide as well.

---

Thanks, I will write that down.

Do you live in South America? I'm not assuming you have been to a farm there, but I've heard Jaguars like to harass farmers there!
 

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Posted by Technical Anomal (What Box? (Member # 10819) on :
 


^Don't know if I noticed it, but this is some sweet ass artistry.
 

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Posted by legeonas (Member # 13231) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Djehuti:
^Sorry, I didn't mean to sound like an expert on cats. I knew that leopards can be melanistic-- all black, but I didn't know jaguars or other big cats were the same way.

---

quote:

---

By the way Legonas, I find it utterly ironic as well as humorous that YOU of all people are using the term 'melanistic'... and, well look at the results in all thos big cats. LOL

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Technical Anomal (What Box?:
True, Jaguars spots appear braoder. At times they cluster together, giving off a broader look

---

Jaguar rosettes have a middle spot that leopards do not have.

quote:

---

This doesn't mean that the Jaguar's always shorter, just more built and muscular, stalkier.

---

quote:

---

You really think leopards are more killer like?

---

quote:

---

Thanks, I will write that down.

Do you live in South America? I'm not assuming you have been to a farm there, but I've heard Jaguars like to harass farmers there!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ARROW99:

Djehuti, It is a good thing the europeans came alsong and rescued the heathens you speak of. These were some of the bloodiest, most barbaricc people that history reveals. How anyone would think that the Spanish conquest was not an overwhelming positive is beyond civil thinking people. Its not a matter of their race, its a matter of almost total evil. The Spanish could not match them on their worst day times two.

---

Again Arrow A.K.A Horemheb, demonstrates Eurocentric doctrine #8 IF IT WAS NOT WHITE, AND ITS GREATNESS IS UNDENIABLE, THEN IT MUST BE DEPRECATED IN SOME WAY.

Now, I know Arrow no longer posts in this section of the forum (but he may still lurk here, as he posts in the political section), but I forgot to address his address his claims above before, so I will now just for the educational purpose of this board.

How true are Arrow's claims that the Mayan's were so evil, cruel, and savage-- more so than Europeans?

Well for starters, the rulers of Mayan city-states did not raid or attack simple villages where they sold the women off to slavery and take the men to sacrifice while abandoning the children as was shown in the movie. Much like the ancient Greeks Mesopotamia, there was intermittent warfare between the various Mayan city-states where one king would try to conquer another city-state. It was the elite warriors (those of noble status) of the defeated city-state that would be chosen for ritual torture or sacrifice. All the other warriors of common status who were taken as prisoners of war were enslaved as well as their families. Slave women were not considered sexual property as they were depicted in the movie but retained their rights. The inaccurate way they portrayed the status of women in Mayan culture was another thing I did not like about the movie! Slaves Mayan society were very much like servants and they could even buy their own freedom. The defeated city-state would just be incorporated in the conquereing king's domain.

Mayan sacrifices were usually not as gruesome as in the movie, with the heart taking ritual only performed on special occasions. Blood-letting was an important ritual in Mayan spiritual beliefs. The greatest gift to the gods was a sacrifice of one's blood. Everyone from commoners to the Mayan king and queen were expected to give a little blood almost everyday. The king for example sometimes make an incesion on his penis using a sting ray barb and collect blood from their, while the queen would pass a small rope of thorns through the lips of her vagina and collect blood. The blood would be collected on leaves or bark and burned. The taking of the heart was an actual ritual and just like the movie depicted those chosen for this sacrifice were painted in the sacred color of blue and then (well the process as shown in the movie was about right). Once the victims were beheaded their bodies were rolled down the temples 365 steps which represent the days of the month.

Now, what about Europeans or their ancestors, particularly the Spanish?? We all know that the lives of slaves in ancient Greek or Roman society (which included Latinized Iberia) was very miserable, especially for women. Slaves had little to no rights and women (as well as men) were the sexual property of their masters! If I you had to be a slave in either Greco-Roman society or Mayan society, the latter would be the preferred choice.

It is also a well established fact that sacrifice was also a ritual held in common by the various Celtic and Nordic tribes who were the ancestors of almost all Northwest Europeans. The Celts were notorious for their various sacrifical rites. There were three main deities that were constantl sacrificed to. To the god Teutates, victims were drowned in peat; to the god Taranis, victims were hacked to death; and to the god Esus, victims were tied to trees and skinned alive!! There is also a ritual described by the Romans in which men as well as domestic animals were stuffed inside a large hollow effigy of a man woven from twigs and then burned alive. This ritual was called the 'Wicker man' from which classic movie was based on and then the recent re-make.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celts_and_human_sacrifice

From Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars:

[The Gauls] believe that unless a man's life is paid for by another man's, the majesty of the immortal gods cannot be appeased. They use figures of immense size, whose limbs, woven out of twigs, they fill them with living men and set on fire, and the men perish in a sheet of flame. They believe that the execution of those who have been caught in the act of theft or robbery is more pleasing to the immortal gods; but when the supply of victims fails they resort to the execution even of the innocent..

Archeological findings:

In the British Isles, human remains have been found bearing marks of being sacrificed. They have dated from the Neolithic era to far into the Roman times.

At Woodhenge, a three-year-old child had its head sliced open with an axe and was buried in the center of the structure.] This appears to be a foundation sacrifice, and similar bodies are found throughout the archeological records. There are also graves that contain several bodies, often one of an aged man, and several younger individuals, who bear marks of having been killed; these appear to be sacrifices to the dead man.

In Havránok, Slovakia, seven people were beaten to death and quartered. Parts of their bodies were subsequently thrown into a pit in the middle of a shrine, either to ensure a good harvest or as an offering to the deities of the Underworld (1st century BCE).

Ritualised decapitation survives in the archaeological record such as the example of 12 headless corpses at the French late Iron Age sanctuary of Gournay-sur-Aronde.

Lindow man may be an example of a human sacrifice from the 1st or 2nd century, preserved in a peat bog in near perfect condition. The case for his sacrifice hinges on the three separate injuries he suffered. He was throttled, clubbed around the head and had his throat slit. This dovetails with the threefold death detailed in medieval texts. Tollund Man has also been suggested as a bog sacrifice although both men may also have been executed criminals.

Iron Age societies may have developed highly ritualised judicial killings in order to both satisfy their gods and punish wrongdoers at the same time.

Oh and the ancient Lusitanians of Iberia up to Roman times also sacrificed their prisoners-- stabbing him in the stomach and trying to make predictions from the way he falls and dies, to the way his entrails look!!

The Germanic or Norse peoples were no different.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse_paganism

A unique eye-witness account of Germanic human sacrifice survives in Ibn Fadlan's account of a Rus ship burial, where a slave-girl had volunteered to accompany her lord to the next world. More indirect accounts are given by Tacitus, Saxo Grammaticus and Adam von Bremen. The Heimskringla tells of Swedish King Aun who sacrificed nine of his sons in an effort to prolong his life until his subjects stopped him from killing his last son Egil. According to Adam of Bremen, the Swedish kings sacrificed male slaves every ninth year during the Yule sacrifices at the Temple at Uppsala. The Swedes had the right not only to elect kings but also to depose them, and both king Domalde and king Olof Trätälja are said to have been sacrificed after years of famine. Odin was associated with death by hanging, and a possible practice of Odinic sacrifice by strangling has some archeological support in the existence of bodies perfectly preserved by the acid of the Jutland (later taken over by the Daner people) peatbogs, into which they were cast after having been strangled. An example is Tollund Man. However, we possess no written accounts that explicitly interpret the cause of these stranglings, which could obviously have other explanations.

And of course there is the infamous Norse form of torture-execution called the "blood eagle". It was performed by cutting the ribs of the victim by the spine, breaking the ribs so they resembled blood-stained wings, and pulling the lungs out. Salt was even sprinkled on the wounds!! Definitely more gruesome than the Mayan 'taking of the heart'!

Now one could argue that all of this savagery was in the distant past and that all of these European peoples changed when they were Christianized, but how much?

The movie Apocalypto falsely depicted the Maya as being so obsessed with sacrifice that they were genocidally wiping out large segments of the population! Of course there is no evidence of such an event!! On the contrary we do have evidence of Europeans even during Christians times, committing acts of genocide. Frankish king Charlemagne tryint to annihilate the Saxons and various other Germanic kings on campaigns to wipe out other tribes. And what of Christian kindness and charity? Apparently that must have gotten lost somewhere especially in Spain during the Inquistion that sought to purge the country of all non-Christian/non-Catholic presence. People from Muslims to Jews to even Catholics who spoke out against the Church or members thereof were imprisoned and horrendously tortured and executed, especially inoccent women!

Here is just a sample of torture methods used by the Spaniards during the inquistion:

http://www.the-night.net/torture/torture.htm#Mastectomy

http://www.the-night.net/torture/torture2.htm

http://www.the-night.net/torture/torture3.htm

And here are some torture devices:

http://www.occasionalhell.com/infdevice/


^^ Now even on their "worst day" I don't think the Mayans would be able to match the "good Christian" Spaniards and other Europeans on that level of sick degeneracy!! The Mayans may have taken hearts from elite warriors and offered them as gifts to their gods, but I don't think you could compare those actual sacrifices to the pure hatred and sexual depravity of the Spanish and other European men who utilised the methods and tools above!!

Now, Arrow claimed it was a blessing that the Europeans came along and "rescued" the heathen Mayans and other Native Americans. But how true is that statement??

Well, back in highschool my Spanish teacher gave my fellow students and I copies of official Spanish records she got from the Library of Congress. These records show the real story of Columbus and the Spaniards and their true exploits. To make a long story short, Columbus obtained a couple of Natives (kind of like specimens) to bring back to Spain as well as samples of gold from the gold bearing Caribe Natives. When he returned to the Caribe, he read an official document from the King of Spain telling them to either convert to Christianity or be conquered by the Spanish army. Of course the chieftain does not know a word of Spanish, and Columbus took his nonanswer as consent to conquer the native people. Columbus and boatloads of mighty Spanish conquistadors began to sack and pillage the villages of the innocent Natives, taking all of their gold valuables, capturing and enslaving the populace as well as the random rape of women. The Spaniards soon set up plantations where the natives were made to do hard labor in less than humane conditions. There were other side incidences like the Spanish releasing some men and hunting them down like animals for sport, or the Spaniards testing the sharpness of their knives on small children, or feeding the babies to their dogs!! And there were ship logs of men keeping the women as their sex-slaves and beating and torturing them for not complying to their perverted sexual demands, etc. etc. ( Looks like those Spaniards brought their 'Inquisitive' ways) Those natives who did not die from the actual slave labor did not survive the diseases that the Spaniards 'introduced' and became pandemic to the region. And from there the rest is "history" so to speak when it comes to Latin America and rest of American history in general. But with all of these disgusting acts by Columbus and his men is it all a wonder why some folks, especially those from the Caribbean region protest??

As to Hore's and other Eurocentric comments about Europeans being a Godsend to the Americas,... well Native Americans and everyone else with sense don't think so.

So who was really more wicked, cruel, and savage?? Native Americans or Europeans? Judging by all the evidence, it seems to be the latter.
 

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Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
^And again, despite all the exaggerations of "savage" Maya that the film tries to entail it totally fails at showing how advance a civilization they were with all their mathematics including their superior knowledge of calculus based math which they applied to their engineering and more imporantly astronomical knowledge which went hand in hand with their astrological religious beliefs. All of this amiss in the movie.

But again, Hollywood likes to uphold "tradition".

I would like to post more in the thread about the more recent movie 300, but unfortunately I still haven't seen it yet. Practically everyone I know has, but I will soon (if Finals doesn't kill me first)!

In the meantime, I will post more info on Mayan religous beliefs including sacred animals like the cucul and jaguar.
 

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Posted by Tyrannosaurus (Member # 3735) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Djehuti:
I would like to post more in the thread about the more recent movie 300, but unfortunately I still haven't seen it yet. Practically everyone I know has, but I will soon (if Finals doesn't kill me first)!

---

I saw it, and I felt the slow-motion ruined what would have been an ass-whooping movie. The historical inaccuracy, though blatant and clearly intentional, didn't bother me, though I did wonder why so many of the Persian characters with speaking roles were black.
 

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Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
^^My main point was the refutation of Hore's (Arrow's) silly claim that Mayan society was somehow more violent and more 'evil' than the Europeans who conquered them.

As was said:

"Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." (John 8:7)

Or rather those who live in glass houses (especially thin ones with many cracks already in them--- that was European society) should not throw stones at other's houses.
 

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Posted by Willing Thinker {What Box} (Member # 10819) on :
 
Whoa, I missed this.

A bit late but good rebuttal nevertheless, Dje.

As to whore's comments, I forgot about them. I must have missed him or (more probably) grown too tired of him and too busy to care.

He had made NUMEROUS, like as in a MYRIAD of ignorant comments talking of history reveals while you were out. And you know how much play he got...

Anyway, about your rebuttal:

• Good point about Mayan slavery
• I actually didn't/don't know too much about about Iberia, and didn't know anything about a Iberian relationship with / to latin Greece.
• Good point again on the European burning-man sacrifice to the god's thingies. I don't remember knowing they had any relation to 'the gods'.
• LMBA off @ 'the blood eagle'! It sound funny, but I'm sure it wasn't.

 

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Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
^ Yeah and if you thought that was bad, look at all the sick things the Spaniards did to people during the Inquisition, especially women-- ripping off their breasts, mutilating their genitals, punching holes into them. A very sick twisted bunch.

But anyway, to get back to the main topic I will be posting some info on Mayan mythology soon.
 

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Posted by Tyrannosaurus (Member # 3735) on :
 
BTW, how can one calendar system be more advanced than another, Djehuti?
 

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Posted by King_Scorpion (Member # 4818) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tyrannosaurus:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Djehuti:
I would like to post more in the thread about the more recent movie 300, but unfortunately I still haven't seen it yet. Practically everyone I know has, but I will soon (if Finals doesn't kill me first)!

---

I saw it, and I felt the slow-motion ruined what would have been an ass-whooping movie. The historical inaccuracy, though blatant and clearly intentional, didn't bother me, though I did wonder why so many of the Persian characters with speaking roles were black.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tyrannosaurus:
BTW, how can one calendar system be more advanced than another, Djehuti?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Djehuti:
^Exactly. Their calendar is by far the most accurate one to date.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Supercar:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Djehuti:

However, I can't help but get the feeling that Gibson whether wittingly or not is using this movie to deomonize this ancient culture. As a way of somehow saying, "It's a good thing the Europeans came and converted these heathens!" I don't know. We probably wouldn't know who he'll demonize unless he's drunk, and definitley if they're Jewish! LOL

---

...in which case, it would be interesting to produce a movie of Europeans, particularly the Northern ones, that places time at about when the Mayan complex came about. Producers certainly wouldn't want to use Greco-Roman sources as a guidance, for a movie about 'contemporaneous' Europeans to their north.

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LMBAO! I did not realize how funny this was before, the first time I read it!

This is exactly what has happened to htese ancient Mayans!
 

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Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
^ I sure which someone would produce a movie about the Spanish Inquisitions whose vile and grotesque acts against innocent people including women would shock and disgust even the Mayan priests who cut out enemy warriors' hearts!

The movie would be a historical documentary but would have the intense and disturbingly graphic feel of horror movies like the 'Saw' and 'Hostel' series.

Civilized Spaniard saviors my brown a**!!
 

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Posted by JMT (Member # 12050) on :
 
I saw this movie for the first time recently. It was certainly overhyped. I was disappointed that the movie didn't explain how and why the Mayan civilization came into fruition.
 

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