APOCALYPTO
IN OUR SEARCH FOR THE SACRED
Amanda Torrey
Religion 298
May 22, 2008
A belief in multiple gods, angels, demons, guides and daemon has clearly dwindled to the almost non-existent in our Western society’s worldview. In his book, Exploring Religion, while focusing on the question, “Who am I?” Roger Schmidt states:
“If religion is, telling a story with our lives, then each biography has a spiritual quality. The introspective task is then, to search our experience for hints of ultimacy. Since most people are not visited by angels or other extraordinary reminders of the holy, we must look to the ordinary for what Peter Berger calls “signals of transcendence.”[1]
This is an interesting statement since earlier in this chapter Dr. Schmidt writes:
“Abraham H. Maslow, a psychologist argued for the naturalness and desirability of religious or what he labeled ‘peak’ experiences. Maslow maintained that transcendent or peak experiences are widespread in contemporary society, even though many such spiritual experiences occur outside the framework of traditional religion. In fact, for Maslow such experiences were so widespread and natural that he came to view ‘non-peakers’ not as people unable to have such moments, but rather as people who are either afraid of them or who suppress them. Maslow believed that the core elements of the peak experience are common to both religious experiences and those creative, self-expanding experiences that occur in art, love, and therapy. Transcendent experiences draw us outside ourselves and fill us with joy and a sense of communion with our world.”.[2]
In fact, I would say there are many visionaries in our culture who claim visitations on a daily basis, but to the rational mainstream, such concerns are relegated to the pens of fantasy fiction writers. Consequently, those who are considered serious devotees of what might be labeled “Transcendent” or “Supernatural” are basically consigned to an energetic community that supports faux Eastern spiritualities like neo-Tantra, Satsang or the haunts of new age witches and gothic vampires. We live in an extremely diverse society so if, as Schmidt maintains, our many different religious expressions function as a means to “tell a story with our lives” and each of our biographies really do have “a spiritual quality,” then whether or not some or all of these spiritual factions are charlatans seems to be beside the point. If we are investigating religion as to how it serves us as human beings, then wouldn’t each spiritual story have to be defined with its own voice?
It might seem at first glance that the realm where we feel deity interacts with us, has lost its sacredness, and could now even be deemed foolish. Considering that as Dr. Maslow believes, the peak experience is so common worldwide, how have the worlds of logic and “the transcendent” become so critically disparate? Don’t the two paradigms need each other?
Of greater concern though, is that we see nothing wrong in promoting a false idea of the spiritual convictions of an existing people to push our own agendas. For example, the Maya, who regularly conversed with divine sources, had a sophisticated civilization in Central America for well over a thousand years. After being overwhelmed by diseases from Europe, they were finally conquered and a new paradigm was injected into Mesoamerican culture. Their religion and culture has been ill-served by the inaccurate images created by profit hungry Western filmmakers. According to the Associated Press, Mayan descendants had very mixed feelings about how they were portrayed in Mel Gibson’s “Apocalypto.”[3].
I don’t believe being creative with history is a crime – Hollywood’s been doing it for years. However, playing with someone else’s socio-religious heritage is serious business. Something must be said when outsiders take an already exploited indigenous people and minimize their amazing history and spiritual philosophies into a cartoonish version of the past. The idea that Mayan civilization consisted of evil urbanites preying on their neighbors who were virtuous and visionary forest dwellers, is both simplistic and false.
Science journalist, Alan Boyle asks:
In a way, "Apocalypto" serves as a mirror for those familiar with Maya history, and reflects the debate over whether indigenous peoples were noble savages or just plain savages. ... "The Maya created a civilization that survived for well over 1,000 years in an environment that was not the most hospitable," Danien told me. "Instead of choosing to create a movie that was nothing but violence, it would have been very interesting to have a movie that showed the drama and courage of a people who created a mathematical system, who created a complex religious pantheon, who created a superb writing system - all of this in what Western civilization would consider an environment that couldn't possibly allow this." ... That might make for a fine National Geographic documentary - for example, "Dawn of the Maya." But would that bring 'em in at the multiplex?[4]
Since Mel Gibson’s vision of Mesoamerican paradigms is ahistorical, how can the viewing public benefit from him using pseudo-Mayan imagery to illustrate Christian principles? Is there even enough in common between Christianity and the Mayan worldview for Gibson to successfully utilize this approach?
While watching the Priests mesmerize naive devotees with magical mumbo jumbo around the eclipse of the sun, I was reminded of Bing Crosby playing Hank Martin, the 1912 mechanic who got hit on the head and somehow traveled back as A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.[5] Without the proper context of Mayan knowledge in the areas of both astronomy and mathematics, Gibson misrepresents a complicated ritual that was performed to keep the delicate cycle of life and death in balance. To the Maya, this is a natural process where death moves through time back to life. This cycle was organic and sacred enough for them to give their own blood and lives to support it.[6]
The story of Jaguar Paw’s character (who acquired salvation through suffering) seems like a Christian perspective, rather than something honestly reflecting Mesoamerican culture or the Mayan’s sacred text, the Popol Vuh. [7] Jaguar Paw and his tribe members definitely didn’t seem prepared for the Mayan mindset or their Temple experience. These “simple” savages clearly didn’t understand Creation mythology or the demands of deity in the same way as the urban Maya did. Mr. Gibson subjected our noble protagionists to a brutal village attack, capture and subsequent death march to some distant city-of-stone where thousands of captives were being sacrificed to placate unhappy gods. For the terrified jungle folk it was a bewildering nightmare of hearts being ripped out and bloody beheadings. After an unrealistically speedy solar eclipse stopped the Temple ceremony, those few victims who were spared were then coerced to run across a long field to avoid flying spears and arrows. According to the Popol Vuh, the Mayan often played a valiant and crafty ballgame with their captives on an I-shaped field, where they tried to get a small rubber ball into a metal ring fastened well over their heads – without using their hands. This was the re-enactment of a game where the heroic twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque played with the Lords of the Underworld before rising to the heavens and becoming the sun and moon … not some mindlessly sadistic sport as Gibson portrayed it.
There is nothing simplistic about the Popol Vuh. It not only defined an ethical standard for the Mayans, but also provided a blueprint for their world-renown divining abilities which were derived from a 365 day solar calendar as well as the 260 day calendar relating the rise of Venus, or Morning Star. Some of its secrets are hidden in a clever word game the Hero twins played with their grandmother, which contributed some of the names used for the Mayan Venus calendar. [i]
Finally, in contrast to Apocalypto’s almost prehistoric Indian villagers who chase down a wild boar, Arthur Demarest tells us the Maya were experts on animal husbandry[ii]. The one dimensional characters we saw in Gibson’s movie hardly seem capable of creating a civilization sophisticated enough to domesticate animals and build complex cities.
Interestingly, Rotten Tomatoes, [8] a movie criticism website reported:
The ancient Mayan adventure "Apocalypto" shot to the top of the box office charts with an estimated $14.2M over the weekend giving Gibson a major industry victory just months after a scandalous summer. Playing in 2,465 theaters, the R-rated action film averaged a solid $5,747 per location. Apocalypto entered the marketplace as a tough sell given its unknown cast, subtitles, and extreme brutality. However, good reviews helped the film and the free publicity Gibson received since being arrested in July certainly boosted the overall awareness of the picture.
I realize ticket buyers going to a gore flick are not necessarily interested in being edified -- it’s just entertainment. Apparently very few people who paid to watch Apocalypto cared whether or not the urbanized Mayan were blood-thirsty tyrants lording fear over citizens and enemy alike. Our culture often rewards these types of simple, dualistic “good versus evil” scripts with booming box office numbers. In this film, Gibson was able to produce a classic example of Noble Savage/Nasty Savage dynamics. Albert Memmi believes that one purpose institutions have for promoting a myth like the Noble Savage/Nasty Savage is to deliberately perpetuate negative images of those they’re oppressing. This technique is supposed to show the downtrodden how much better off they would be when cared for by a benevolent, intelligent, competent power structure. It also justifies this “power” to dictate unreasonable terms to those under their control.[9] Is sincere belief in a deistic, interconnected universe merely a tool to manipulate primitive minds?
Some modern thinkers strongly believe religion is only a social construct with no spiritual reality. Adherents to this philosophy make statements like: “humanized religion which has at its core the love of neighbor; not the laws of an illusory God but of a real human being;”[10] and “from the immense mass of accessible evidence, we have to admit that the belief in spiritual beings appears among all low races;”[11] or “persons who are addicted to obsessive acts or ceremonials belong to the same class as those who suffer from obsessive thoughts and ideas, obsessive impulses and the like and form with them a definite clinical group the customary term for which is “obsessional neurosis;”[12] for as all scientific right minded folks know, “Religious suffering, is after all, simply symbolic of real suffering and is an opiate of the people.”[13] .
And this is what our civilization calls progress...
[1] Schmidt, R. (1988). What is religion? Exploring religion. (p. 30) Belmont, CA, Wodsworth, Inc.
[2] ibid. Schmidt (p. 7-8)
[3]Associated Press (2006) Apocalypto’ excites and daunts Mayan people: Indians glad Gibson epic uses their language but fear cultural misreading Website: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16058423/
[4] Boyle, A. (2006) Post apocalypto vision Cosmic Log Website: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2006/12/08/19477.aspx
[5] IMDb A Connecticut yankee in King Arthur’s court. Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041259/
[6] Austin, A. (1997). Tamoanchan, Tlaloca Places of mist. (pp. 268-269) Niwot, CO:University Press of Colorado
[7]Tedlock, D. Translator . (1996). Popol vuh. (p. 39) New York: Touchstone
[8] Pandya, G. (2006). Box office wrapup: Moviegoers choose war, not love, as "Apocalypto" conquers #1 spot. Website: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/news/1647938/
[9] Memmi, A (1965). The Colonizer and the colonized. (pp. 79, 81) Boston, MA: Beacon Press
[10] Livingston, J (1971) Modern Christian thought from the Enlightenment to Vatican II. (p. 186)New York: Macmillian Publishing
[11] Tylor, E. (1965.) Animism. Reader in Comparative Religion. An anthropological Approach.. New York:Harper & Row
[12] Freud, S. (1965) Obsessive acts and religious practices. Reader in Comparative Religion. An anthropological Approach.. (p. 198) New York:Harper & Row
[13] Marx, K. (1972) Contribution to the critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Introduction. The Marx Reader. New York:W.W. Norton
[i] As Dennis Tedlock translates the game in the Popol Vuh:
The twins play a game with language when they instruct their grandmother; only now, instead of a quotation swallowed up inside other quotations we get a word hidden within other words. The secret word is Aj., one of the twenty day names; the twins point to it by playing on its sounds rather than simply mentioning it. When they tell their grandmother that they are planting corn ears (aj) in the house (ja), they are making a pun on the name Aj in the one case and reversing its sound in the other. ... If the twins planted their corn ears in the house on this day, then their expected arrival in Xibalba, seven days later, would fall on the day named Hunahpu. This fits the Mayan Venus calendar perfectly; whenever Venus rises as the morning star on a day named Net, corresponding to the appearance of Hunahpu and Xblanque on the the earth, its next descent into the underworld will always fall on a day named Hunahpu.
[ii]In Ancient Maya The Rise and Fall of a Rainforest Civilization, (p. 145) Arthur Demarest tells us that:
Domesticated turkeys were raised in pens and in household gardens. Turtles and fish were constantly being netted from lakes, rivers, swamps, and the artificial reservoirs and canals. They were not only a critical source of protein, but their shells and bones were the raw material for tools, musical instruments, armor, headdresses, shields, scepters, and bloodletters that were the symbols of royal and ritual power. ... In all areas, the Maya landscaping of natural terrain and creation of canals and lagoons increased the bounty of aquatic life for consumption and crafts.
Bees were expertly cultivated (that is loosely reflected when Jaguar Paw throws the beehive at his pursuers.)
Deer were hunted, sometimes so systematically that the practice approached domestication. Fallow zones and patches of rain forest were left throughout even the most densely populated areas to assure a nearby deer population for hunting and trapping.
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