ABSTRACT
In 1492, Christopher Columbus encountered a vast, rich environment that was home to a multitude of different Native American Indian groups who spoke different languages and lived in many different geographical zones and conditions. The Siberian ancestors of the native Latin American peoples migrated into the western hemisphere over a period of hundreds of years as they followed game and food sources across the Bering Strait ice bridge at the end of the Pleistocene epoch. Films depicting pre-Columbian Native Indian cultures in Latin America are not as prevalent as they could be. Usually the only portrayals of native cultures come associated with the baggage of Spanish contact. Mel Gibson’s film Apocalypto is visually stunning and fast-paced. It was filmed in the Yucatec Mayan language which lends a level of authenticity to the production. The movie opens on a hunting scene where a tapir is pursued by Mayan hunters.
