Ritual sacrifice and torture have been observed in many blood thirsty cultures of the ancient world. The film Apocalypto directed by Mel Gibson attempts to capture this aspect of the Mayan culture and does so with some historical accuracy. However, the Mayan culture is sometimes fused with the neighbouring Aztec culture in this film. Even though this fusion occurs the movie portrays accurate aspects of both civilizations.
For the Mayans, ritual sacrifice involving animals like deer, dogs, jaguars and birds used as offerings to the gods was common at festivals, temple consecrations, the rise of new leaders and during natural disturbances such as drought and disease. Bird’s heads were cut off and were laid at the base of an idol as an offering. Other animals such as deer and dogs were held down by priests and killed with a cut made from the stomach to the diaphragm and the removal of the heart, still beating. They bled the animal by slitting the throat and the bodies were then tossed down the temple steps. Conversely, Apocalypto’s depiction of Mayan culture does not deal with this aspect of religious and political sacrifice it focuses instead on human sacrifice which was more prevalent in the Aztec culture perhaps because the purpose of the film maker is to exaggerate the cruelty of ancient civilisations rather than to depict historical accuracy.
The chronicles and codices of the missionary-ethnographers say that human sacrifice was a feature of the Mayan religious culture but less common than animal sacrifice. The Mayans practiced two types of human sacrifice. The first was the killing of prisoners of war or slaves by tearing out their beating hearts. Archaeologist Guillermo de Anda from the University of Yucatan believes that it was only the male prisoners that were sacrificed. Men were covered in blue dye and the females were mostly sold into slavery or, if they were too old or unsellable, set free in the city. Often the reason for a human sacrifice was famine, drought, disease and war to honour and please the particular gods that were required at the time. These parts of the Mayan culture are accurately described in the film. Apocalypto shows prisoners being pinned down on an altar and cut from stomach to diaphragm, similar to animal sacrifice, and having their hearts torn out and shown to the crowd. However, the film goes further by depicting decapitation and the tossing of bodies down the temple steps. This part of the ritual was more Aztec inspired then Mayan. Mayans did shoot their prisoners through the heart with an arrow. It is apparent that the beating heart was central to the sacrifice with both animals and humans. The heart established or renewed the Mayan connection to the sacred and this was essential in maintaining the natural order. Although the Mayans did sacrifice humans and animals in this way there was no priesthood and so they were usually performed by the king and not priests. There is also no evidence to suggest that the Mayans tossed the bodies off the temple or that they sacrificed in such large numbers as shown in the film. In this way the film more accurately conveys how the Aztecs practiced this sacrifice exploiting the similarities between the two cultures for entertainment purposes.
The second form of human sacrifice to pay homage to the gods was the bloodletting through self piercing of the earlobe, tongue or genitals, by the privileged.
This relief found in Lintel 24 at Yaxchilian shows a woman feeding a piece of barbed wire through her tongue. Bloodletting was practiced at every ceremony and was considered an honour. The blood gathered was either smeared on the statue of a god or burnt as an offering. Blood from the genitals was considered especially sacred as it regenerated the natural world and made it plentiful. This is not accurately depicted in Apocalypto which simply shows a military leader cutting his hand and letting the blood drip onto the ground. Although this is bloodletting for the relief of famine and disease it is not an accurate account of what the Mayans would perform.Apocalypto also presents several forms of torture supposedly performed by the Mayans. The film depicts the Mayans tying up their prisoners and attaching them to bamboo poles by their necks. The men’s hands were tied behind their backs and the women’s in front. They were all tied together at the waist so that if one collapsed from exhaustion, they all fell down. If this happened they were not physically allowed to help each other up. As they walked, the prisoners were whipped with bamboo and taunted by their captors. The prisoners were paraded through the city and crowds cheered. Humiliation, starvation and the removal of fingernails were common forms of torture performed by the Mayans so this element of the film is likely to be fairly accurate. The film exaggerates the cruelty of the Mayans in prominent scenes such as the one where captives are forced to run towards freedom as they shot and threw weapons at them.
Therefore, in assessing the historical accuracy of the ancient Mayan ritual sacrifices and torture in the film ‘Apocalypto’ it can be said that many aspects of Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto are historically accurate although its quest is to entertain audiences with the story of the cruelty of ancient civilisations rather than to recreate history. To some extent exaggeration and invention distort aspects of the Mayan civilisation as a separate culture as the film fuses together Mayan and Aztec ritual sacrifices and methods of torture.
