The story behind the movie "Apocalypto" | The Mayan Civilization
02-15-22 | EurydiceThe movie "Apocalypto" is one of the best movies that I watched in my entire life. This movie showed me the things that I thought impossible to happen. This movie was violent, it's all about killings and more on rituals and beliefs. I can still visualize what happened in the movie and how traumatic it was. Since I'm a curious lady, I was not contented with what I saw in the movie. That is why I made a research and these are what I found.
APOCALYPTO | MOVIE SYNOPSIS
But first, let me give you a synopsis about the movie.
The Mayan monarchy is at its pinnacle of opulence and power, but the empire's foundations are beginning to crumble. The rulers believe that until they construct more temples and sacrifice more people, their crops and citizens will perish. A raid captures Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), a calm hunter in a secluded tribe, along with his entire village. Until he makes a daring escape and returns to his pregnant wife and son, he is set for a ceremonial sacrifice.
This movie talks about a small villagers who was being colonized by the Mayan Tribe. Jaguar's father who was the ruler of their small tribe was killed in front of him. Luckily, he got a chance to escape and he was able to hide his pregnant wife and son. Upon fighting, he was captured by the Mayans together with his co-villagers and that was the start of their sufferings. They were captured to become the sacrifice of the Mayans because they believed that the more people they sacrificed, the more abundant their life would be.
MAYAN RITUALS
BEHEADING AND DISEMBOWELING
They were known for pinning their captives to temples and cutting out their hearts, which they then offered to their gods while still beating. The Maya also hacked the hearts out of their victims.
From what I saw in the movie, they hacked the hearts out of the victims and behead them. After that, they will roll the head down in the stairs where all the Mayan people preceded to run to get the head of the victim.
RITUAL BLOODLETTING
Ritual bloodletting was another part of Maya blood sacrifice. The early Maya punctured their flesh to offer blood to the gods. Maya monarchs and lords would puncture their skin with sharp things like stingray spines, usually in the genitals, lips, ears, or tongues.
As what we can see in the picture above, they have a lot of piercings. The Mayan often use Jewelry as a way to showcase their social status.
FACTS ABOUT THE ANCIENT MAYA
They Were More Violent Than Originally Thought
The Maya were once thought to be a peaceful people who were satisfied to stare at the skies and trade jade and lovely feathers with one another. That was before current experts figured out what the glyphs on the sculptures and temples meant. The Maya were just as ferocious and warlike as their later northern rivals, the Aztecs. War scenes, killings, and human sacrifices were carved into stone and left on public structures. The city-state fighting became so severe that many people believe it contributed significantly to the Maya civilization's eventual decline and fall.
They Saw Their Gods in the Sky
Maya astronomers were obsessive astronomers who meticulously recorded the movements of the stars, sun, moon, and planets. They kept meticulous records of eclipses, solstices, and other astronomical occurrences. They thought that the sun, moon, and planets were gods who moved back and forth between the heavens, the underworld (Xibalba), and the Earth, which explains why they observed the heavens so closely. Ceremonies were held at Maya temples to commemorate celestial phenomena like as equinoxes, solstices, and eclipses.
They Had Kings and Royal Families
There was a king in every major city-state (or Ahau). The Maya monarchs claimed to be divine ancestors because they claimed direct descent from the sun, moon, or planets. Because he drank god's blood, the Ahau was a vital link between the realms of man and the heavens and underworld, and he was frequently involved in ceremonies. The Ahau was a wartime leader who was expected to fight as well as participate in the ceremonial ball game. When the Ahau died, his son usually took over as monarch, though there were exceptions. There were even a few queens who ruled over powerful Mayan city-states.
©Minster, Christopher. (2021, July 31). 10 Facts About the Ancient Maya. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/facts-about-the-ancient-maya-2136183
To better understand, these references might help.
These are the "cut" escape scenes from the movies to better understand it.
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Love,
This movie has a great impact on me too as I watched this at a young age then watched it again at teenage. The scene where his wife have birth is one of the intense scenes there