The situation of the mines was picturesque; grand hills of porphyritic rock, and pine-forest everywhere. Not far off is the broad track of a hurricane, which had walked through it for miles, knocking the great trees down like ninepins, and leaving them to rot there. The vegetation gave evident proof of a severe climate; and yet the heat and glare of the sun were more intolerable than we had ever felt it in the region of sugar-canes and bananas. About here, some of the trachytic porphyry which forms the substance of the hills had happened to have cooled, under suitable conditions, from the molten state into a sort of slag or volcanic glass, which is the obsidian in question; and, in places, this vitreous lava—from one layer having flowed over another which was already cool—was regularly stratified.
The mines were mere wells, not very deep; with horizontal workings into the obsidian where it was very good and in thick layers. Round about were heaps of fragments, hundreds of tons of them; and it was clear, from the shape of these, that some of the manufacturing was done on the spot. There had been great numbers of pits worked; and it was from these “minillas,” little mines, as they are called, that we first got an idea how important an element this obsidian was in the old Aztec civilization. In excursions made since, we travelled over whole districts in the plains, where fragments of these arrows and knives were to be found, literally at every step, mixed with morsels of pottery, and here and there a little clay idol. Among the heaps of fragments were many that had become weathered on the upper side, and had a remarkable lustre, like silver. Obsidian is called bizcli by the Indians, and the silvery sort is known as bizcli platera.[[11]] They often find bits of it in the fields; and go with great secrecy and mystery to Mr. Bell, or some other authority in mining matters, and confide to him their discovery of a silver-mine. They go away angry and unconvinced when told what their silver really is; and generally come to the conclusion that he is deceiving them, with a view of throwing them off the scent, that he may find the place for himself, and cheat them of their share of the profits—just what their own miserable morbid cunning would lead them to do under such circumstances.
[11] The book-name for obsidian is itztli, a word which seems to mean originally “sharp thing, knife,” and thence to have been applied to the material knives are made of. Obsidian was also called itztetl, knife-stone. But no Indian to whom I spoke on the subject would ever acknowledge the existence of such a word as itztli for obsidian, but insisted that it was called bizcli, which is apparently the corrupt modern pronunciation of another old name for the same mineral, petztli, shiny-stone.
Mexican Arrow-heads of Obsidian.
The family-likeness that exists among the stone tools and weapons found in so many parts of the world is very remarkable. The flint-arrows of North America, such as Mr. Longfellow’s arrow-maker used to work at in the land of the Dacotahs, and which, in the wild northern states of Mexico, the Apaches and Comanches use to this day, might be easily mistaken for the weapons of our British ancestors, dug up on the banks of the Thames. It is true that the finish of the Mexican obsidian implements far exceeds that of the chipped flint and agate weapons of Scandinavia, and still more those of England, Switzerland, and Italy, where they are dug up in such quantities, in deposits of alluvial soil, and in bone-caves in the limestone rocks. But this higher finish we may attribute partly to the superiority of the material; for the Mexicans also used flint to some extent, and their flint weapons are as hard to distinguish by inspection as those from other parts of the world. We may reasonably suppose, moreover, that the skill of the Mexican artificer increased when he found a better material than flint to work upon. Be this as it may, an inspection of any good collection of such articles shows the much higher finish of the obsidian implements than of those of flint, agate, and rock-crystal. They say there is an ingenious artist who makes flint arrow-heads and stone axes for the benefit of English antiquarians, and earns good profits by it: I should like to give him an order for ribbed obsidian razors and spear-heads; I don’t think he would make much of them.
Aztec Knife of Chalcedony, mounted on a wooden handle, which is shaped like a human figure with its face appearing through an eagle-head mask, and has been inlaid with mosaic work of malachite, shell, and turquoise. Length 12½ inches.[[12]]