Mesoamerican “Scholar” Goes Apocalypto on Mel
March 24, 2007, 3:35 pm |
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By Andrew L. Jaffee
The violent history of the Maya has been sanitized as nonviolent, proving that having a “Ph.D.” after your name doesn’t really prove anything. Case in point: Alicia Estrada, an assistant professor of Central American studies at California State University, Northridge, Thursday night accused Mel Gibson “of misrepresenting the Mayan culture in the movie” Apocalypto. Estrada, in a superior display of historic ignorance, argued “that representations in the movie that the Mayans engaged in sacrificial ceremonies and had bloodthirsty tendencies were both wrong and racist.”
Quite to the contrary, archeological evidence of Maya “sacrificial ceremonies” and “bloodthirsty tendencies” is ubiquitous. It all started with the discovery of murals at Bonampak in 1946:
In this scene, Muan, king of Bonampak, indulges in egomania, proving to his subjects what a great conqueror of neighboring Maya city-states he was. Muan’s prisoners have obviously been tortured — blood dripping from their bodies — before being carted off to be sacrificed (killed). Other murals at Bonampak show “warriors descend[ing] on farmers working in the field,” and “a gruesome illustration of the pen being mightier than the sword:”
…the official scribes of Maya kings, who were considered important to the kings’ power, were especially targeted by enemies in warfare. If captured, they were executed—after their fingers were broken and their fingernails ripped out, according to a researcher who has taken a much closer look at Maya murals. …
The mural depicts captured scribes—bound, semi-nude, and with their fingers broken and bleeding. Some have already been executed.
After the discovery of the murals at Bonampak, archeologists kept finding more and more evidence of Maya “sacrificial ceremonies” and “bloodthirsty tendencies.” A hastily-built defensive wall was discovered at Chunchucmil (see here also):
…the stones used to create the barricade were clearly robbed from nearby structures (rather than freshly quarried)…
Given this data, it has been hypothesized that the barricade was constructed rapidly at the end of Chunchucmil’s history, possibly to protect the remaining inhabitants from an invasion that arrived before the wall could be completed (Dahlin 2000), leading to the ultimate demise of the ancient city.
This wall, certainly not the only one of its type discovered (e.g., Dos Pilas), bares evidence of Maya culture going up in flames as their city-states destroyed each other, just as Gibson portrayed in Apocalypto. From Science Daily:
Translation of recently unearthed hieroglyphic stairs on an ancient Maya pyramid in Guatemala provides dramatic evidence that two great Maya city-states and their allies were locked in a brutal superpower struggle that may have set the stage for the later collapse of the classic Maya civilization.
The newly translated stone hieroglyphs - complete with references to piles of skulls and flowing blood - were partially exposed last summer during a hurricane at the site known as Dos Pilas, deep in the Guatemalan rain forest.
During a dig at the Maya site of Yaxuná, Charles Suhler and David Freidel found:
…the remains of 11 murdered men, women, and children.
We wondered who these people were and why so many had been placed in a tomb chamber usually reserved for a single person. Then it dawned on us. We had stumbled onto the dark side of Maya history. Like the murder of the Romanovs after the Bolshevik Revolution, the sacrifice of the royal family in burial 24 had accompanied a violent change in rulership.
Do not forget the ball courts (see here also) you can see at any major Mayan site, where:
…the ball game was ritually associated with the endemic warfare among city-states of the times. The success of military conquest was recreated in a public and ritual ball game, in which high-ranking war captives were defeated and sacrificed. Sometimes they were kept, tortured, and displayed for years before their sacrifice.
So adds CBS:
Human sacrifice among the Mayans has been well-documented in recent years and is accepted as fact by most anthropologists, knocking down a previous theory that the culture did not take part in such bloody rituals.
Heard enough? Apparently Alicia Estrada, “assistant professor of Central American studies,” hasn’t. She’s heard what she wants to hear. Her “thesis” is not based on science, rather pure emotion. But this is now par for the course in academia, where you can get your Ph.D. by telling your professors what they want to hear — and G#d forbid you stray from the party line.
I myself have traveled extensively in Mesoamerica, and was truly awed by the great achievements of the Aztecs, Maya, Olmec, Teotihuacánacos, Toltec, etc. But, even as a child being dragged from archeological site to site by my archeologist mom, I could not help being troubled by the scenes of ultra-violence encoded by Los Indios in their murals, stelae, and frescos. As these civilizations reached their zeniths, their rulers became terrorists, terrorizing their own peoples and neighbors, all in pursuit of greater and greater power. Any student of history knows this is a common human theme, not distinct to any one race. People are people, capable of the human foibles which a certain non-Mesoamerican, Shakespeare, so eloquently studied and elucidated.
To forget history is a mistake. To sanitize history is plain stupidity.
Related: Academia, Archeology, Political Correctness
March 25th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
Not only is Alicia Estrada misrepresenting the Maya, she is lying about her confrontation with Mel Gibson.
Here is account of what REALLY happened according to an audience member. (language warning)
http://fox-gloves.livejournal.com/153262.html
Quite different than what is being reported in the media!
March 26th, 2007 at 2:09 am
Dr. Estrada seems to be driven by an intense insecurity, not by science. Unfortunately, the term “peer review” doesn’t mean much anymore in today’s academia.
November 3rd, 2008 at 6:27 pm
How can you look at a foreign picture with complete ignorance to its meaning and attempt to explain what it is describing. “Scholars” are constantly trying to “explain” how Mayans thought with the thought process 19th century Americans used to describe native americans. For example in the Hindu religion there are depictions of Shiva stepping on a infant. Does that mean Hindus used to step on infants??? Actually it is a metaphor, the infant represents ignorance… Could our own ignorance be keeping us from understanding a true mayan culture?? Could their images be metaphors as describing other ideas, similar to that of the stories recently uncovered about the Aztec Quetzacoatl??
November 3rd, 2008 at 8:08 pm
I have visited numerous Mayan sites, and seen the murals and frescos depicting very real violence. These were expressions of power, pomposity, and terrorism, sending a stern message: Mess with me and this is what’ll happen to you. Just look at the murals from Bonampak. It doesn’t take a trained eye to see that these were far from being metaphorical. These were historical records emphasizing the conquests of the ruling elite.
If you missed it, I provided numerous examples of hard archaeological evidence for Meso-American Indian ultra-violence (e.g., “the remains of 11 murdered men, women, and children … the sacrifice of the royal family in burial 24 had accompanied a violent change in rulership”).
People are people, and trying to idealize some ancient culture that went up in flames is silly, as history is replete with civilizations going down the tubes.
All cultures had their violent fits — the Hindus, the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Aztecs, etc. Sanitizing history because of guilt, political correctness, or “the grass is always greener,” is just foolish.
I, sir, am not ‘ignorant,” rather an astute student of history; some who has visited more archaeological sites then you probably will in your entire life. Mayan violence is just one aspect of an otherwise great civilization.
January 20th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Wrong is in that movie portrays heart-ripping as central thing in Mayan civilisation. Maybe we would know if naz… ahm, catholics haven burned all mayan books. Mel is catholcoholic so he must make movies like this. To bad he lost his intestines in Braveheart. No fit for sacrifice any more…
January 20th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
michelle, your history is faulty. I have visited numerous Mayan sites, and seen the murals and frescos depicting very real violence. The archeological community has found voluminous, tangible evidence for Mayan human sacrifice:
March 14th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
The subMayas, Toltetcs and Aztecs were indeed bloodthirsty. That was sadly to say one of the activities that moved them day in and out from hundred of years before the arrival of the Europeans. Archaeological finds, old settlements, drawings made by the first Spanish and Native’s drawings and fresco’s do speak loud and clear to a good observer.
It truly makes me laugh when sometimes I find those blogs or websites where ignorants do focus on pointing the finger to the Spaniards as the destroyer’s of a such wonderful and advantaged civilization that was the Mayan’s, Astec’s etc. What does men definy or does understand as “advantaged”? Just because they builded some piramids and they had some astrological knowledge does not mean they had any advantaged civivlicization and if so, all this good was surely shadowed by their brutality and their daily massa sacrifices.
Any advantaged civilization would tolerate massa murdering at all.
The information left of these so often unfairly named “advantaged” civilization loved to sacrifice around 50 human bodys a day, the less and they adored to eat them covered in chocolate sauce.
We all know chocolate passed from America to Spain whom builded their first chocolate fabric in the 1500’s conquering all europe with its delicious taste.
However, I wouldn’t like to try human meat covered with chocolate at all.
May 2nd, 2009 at 11:59 am
I am the author of THE JAGUAR SUN, an extensive study of the decline of the Classic Maya civilization. It is available from Amazon.com. I think you would enjoy the book and the viewpoint it reflects.
George Priest.
May 15th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Yeah, yeah. The Mayans kicked ass, I know. Sure, humans are violent. What else can you expect from one of the two most violent, warlike primate species?! At least we humans don’t rip out adversaries’ testicles off (anymore?). I wish we could fix all of our problems with sex like Bonobos…. Oh, and Leopold, learn to spell like a big boy, ok?
May 15th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Actually, the Maya rulers used to pierce their scrotums to draw blood to be burned with copal incense, and the smoke offered to their G#ds.
They were just people like everyone else, past and present included. No use to sanitize or exaggerate their history.
August 2nd, 2009 at 8:14 am
I’m confused. How does Dr. Alicia Estrada explain the skeletons that have been excavated with their ankles tied and hands bound behind their backs. Rib cages exhibiting signs that they were cut open. Decapitated heads. I think it’s rather difficult to explain away when the physical evidence is right in front of you.
August 2nd, 2009 at 8:18 am
Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I guess all the bodies that they have found in all the sacred cenotes just fell there by themselves.
August 4th, 2009 at 8:31 am
Jimmy:
Dr. Estrada is not thinking clearly. She wants to believe that somehow the Mayans were “different” from the rest of the humans throughout history. The savagery continues today. Just look at the Islamists, for example.
The Mayans achieved great things, but their society grew corrupt as it became more and more complex, larger, and decadent — the leadership drunk with power and self-importance. How many times have humans done that throughout history?
October 27th, 2009 at 11:09 am
Estrada has an equally clueless colleague at CSUN named Beatriz Cortez. I had worked with several students from their department last year to create a field activity derived from the ancient ballgame know as Pokatok. When Cortez heard about it she told me to my face that I was just a greedy Anglo trying to rip off Mayan culture and quashed the project. A lot of people were disappointed but remained silent about her racist paranoia.