‘Apocalypto’ excites and daunts Mayan people

updated 2:46 p.m. ET Dec. 11, 2006

MEXICO CITY - Scenes of enslaved Maya Indians building temples for a violent, decadent culture in Mel Gibson’s new film “Apocalypto” may ring true for many of today’s Maya, who earn meager wages in construction camps, building huge tourist resorts on land they once owned.

Some Maya are excited at the prospect of the first feature film made in their native tongue, Yucatec Maya. But others among the 800,000 surviving Mayans are worried that Gibson’s hyper-violent, apocalyptic film could be just the latest misreading of their culture by outsiders.

“There has been a lot of concern among Mayan groups from Mexico, Guatemala and Belize, because we don’t know what his treatment or take on this is going to be,” said Amadeo Cool May of the Indian defense group Mayaon, or We Are Maya.

“This could be an attempt to merchandize or sell the image of a culture, or its people, that often differs from what that people needs, or wants,” Cool May said.

Gibson employed Maya, most of whom live on Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, in the filming of the movie, and says he wants to make the Mayan language “cool” again, and encourage young people “to speak it with pride.”

The film has been screened for some U.S. Indians, who praised the use of Indian actors. The Maya haven’t seen it yet, but like Indians north of the border, they have seen others co-opt their culture, as in high-class Caribbean resorts like the Maya Coast and the Maya Riviera.

But Indians are largely absent from those beach resorts, where vacationers tour mock Mayan Villages or watch culturally inaccurate mishmashes with “Mayan Dancers” performing in feather headdresses and face paint.

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“The owners are often foreigners who buy up the land at ridiculously low prices, build tourism resorts, and the Mayas in reality are often just the construction workers for the hotels or, at best, are employed as chambermaids,” said Cool May.

“Apocalypto” also portrays Mayan civilization at a low moment, just before the Spaniards arrived, when declining, quarreling Mayan groups were focused more on war and human sacrifice than on the calendars and writing system of the civilization’s bloody but brilliant classical period.

Outsiders’ views of the Maya have long been subject to changing intellectual fashions. Until the 1950s, academics often depicted the ancient Maya as an idyllic, peaceful culture devoted to astronomy and mathematics. Evidence has since emerged that, even at their height, the Maya fought bloody and sometimes apocalyptic wars among themselves, lending somewhat more credence to Gibson’s approach.

Warrior-kings and priests directed periodic wars among the ancient Maya aimed at capturing slaves or prisoners for labor or human sacrifice. Entire cities were destroyed by the wars, and whole forests cut down to build the temples.

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