I just watched Apocalypto. How much pre-Columbian tradition is

>>78741008
Amazing fucking movie. Can't believe it was pulled from shelves.

>>78741026
It's on Youtube

It made the conquistadors look like good guys though.

>>78741008
>How much pre-Columbian tradition is alive in Latin American nowadays?
Pretty strong in countries like Bolivia and Peru, which were historically centres of amerindian population
>At least human sacrifice and beheadings don't happen anymore, right?
IIRC aztecs didn't behead, they ripped the heart and skin and then wear it for some time.

>>78741008
>>78741037
You should go to /his/ and read about the non-violent achievements of the mesoamericans. The movie is good.

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>>78741008
>beheadings don't happen anymore, right?
>

>>78741037
It barely mentions them. On the contrary, it hints at the spread of smallpox and mass death.

>>78741008
90% in center-south mexico, they are still basically living in that world

>>78741054
And Argentina.

>>78741008
We still kill people in the town pyramid, but wearing modern clothes off course.

>>78741119
The movie is really stupid regarding historical facts, they even show smallpox being on The Americas before (yes, fucking before) Europeans arrived, for Christ sake. Not to mention that it was supposed to be set on the collapsing period of the Maya civilization, which happened 600 years before the Spaniards reached Yucatán, and we are somehow shown the Spanish ships at the end.

Plus, the massive level of human sacrifice (which sacrifice obviously did happen irl) depicted on the film is highly exaggerated, according to every single archaeological finding of the Maya civilization. And Gibson also somehow manages to make the Maya people oblivious of not only what are solar eclipses, but when they are going to happen (in the film, it appears the eclipse happens by chance, and nobody was expecting it), when they had a calendar that was way more accurate than the European one, and a great deal of their civilization was entirely focused on astronomy.

Also, the small "tribe" (I don't really know or get what they were) who were living in the jungle are shown to be hunter-gatherers, a thing that stopped being a thing in Mesoamerica for at least several thousands of years, and they also were somehow oblivious of the bigger Maya cities until they got attacked, when in that period of time, Maya cities where so dense in the Peninsula it was literally impossible to walk a few miles without reaching one. Among other things I'm forgetting.

They did got right the Maya clothes onece they were inside the city (the clothes for the smaller tribe was garbage, tho), however, and the massive deforestation happening at the time, plus the beheading thing. And they did bother to film in Yucatec Maya. I'll give them that.


I know it's Hollywood, and I know that I shouldn't be angry at this, but the fact that people seem to think the movie is historically accurate makes me mad.

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>>78741008
The movie does a good job in re-creating the old Mayan world even if they took more than a few creative liberties. Their relligious practices I don't think were portrayed in an entirely fair manner, the story is technically plausible, there's descriptions of larger Maya city states raiding small communities, tho there are aspects that have been largely exaggerated. It would have certainly been unlikely for Mayas to use prisoners for target practice for instance.

Mayas today are a very different people, I think some recent research found they had some unexpected amount of Basque ancestry in them, and the effects of colonization have been profound, a large majority is devoutly Catholic. Obviously the Mesoamerican world is long gone.

>>78741054
The sacrifice victims were in fact beheaded after death, their heads would be placed in the skull racks, the tzompantli, amongst the Aztecs. The method of death varied greatly according to the deity being honored.

>>78742833
Historical movies rarely make for big blockbusters, as they are too boring.

I completely agree with you on, though.

>>78742833
There were still some active city states left even after the Mayan collapse, much of the conquest of what is today Guatemala was spent dealing with those, I do agree with your comment.

>>78742833
I see your point and you are right about historical accuracy, but seems to me that the time setting is when the conquistadors were starting to appear in the continent. That's why the little girl basically tells the headhunters, you're all going to die from something evil that is coming or is already here.
The hero seems to know what types the conquistadors are and that's why he prevents his oblivious wife from coming into contact with them.
The eclipse imo is shown to be a very familiar phenomenon to the priesthood, who in turn are shown to use it as something to manipulate the masses.
I got the sense that the movie was all about "shit is going downhill and some people from far away will really bring a shitstorm upon us".

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>>78741008
how sexy was this chief tho

>>78741008
>At least human sacrifice and beheadings don't happen anymore, right?
They still do, anon.

>>78742487
This.

Bochica still asks for bood.

>>78744739
WE WUZ MUISCA N SHIET

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>>78744508
I know right.
Don't forget about the emperor as well tho. It was so strange, seeing someone with light eyes halfway through the movie. Even as a European who grew up among blue eyed folk, I was dazzled by it. I guess I just got into the Mayan headspace too much, as if I was one of them.