Cut 10.
Mexican carpenter.
This instrument is of the most extravagant form. Were it not for the authentic interpretation of the picture and the accessories we should not be able to make out what kind of object it represented, and least of all that it was a hatchet.
Let us examine its construction. The wooden handle has the shape of all the Mexican and Yucatecan axes,—that of a somewhat curved club. But instead of its being chopped off at the top, the handle extends farther and is bent down to an angle of about 45 degrees. On the head of this bent top a deep notch is visible, into which the blade of a little axe is fixed, being fastened by a tongue or string wound three times around. Thus, when a blow was struck, we can presume, the head of the tenon would not move, from the resistance it met from the bottom of the notch. Thus much the picture proves, and we cannot learn anything more of this instrument. We only presume that in order to get a durable handle, they sought a curved branch, and that this branch came generally from one particular class of trees. The word Tepozcolula signifies, properly, the town in which copper was bent, tepuzque (copper), and coloa (to bend), but we learn from our picture, that the natives understood these words to signify the town where the curved handles were manufactured, which seems to be corroborated by another picture which we found for the coat of arms of the town of Tepozcolula, Cod. Mendoza, pl. 45, fig. 5, in which the painter (see cut [11]) has laid a special stress upon this curving of the handle, by shaping the end of the handle into an exaggerated spiral form.
Cut 11.
Tepozcolula.
There existed also a town, in which carpenter’s work was the chief occupation of the inhabitants. This is to be inferred from the coat of arms belonging to the town of Tlaximaloyan, cut [12], Cod. Mendoza, pl. 10, fig. 5.
Tlaxima signifies to work as a carpenter, and tlaximalli a chip of wood. The “little” axe of copper, found by Dupaix at Quilapa, and of which he gives an illustration not differing from the known shapes of all axes, is very probably a specimen of this carpenter’s axe (see Dupaix, Vol. II., 3d Expedition, Planche II., fig. 4).
Cut 12.
Town of Tlaximaloyan.
It is but natural to think that being in possession of the large chopping axe, the invention of the small hatchet would have become incomparably easier than that of this awkward carpenter’s tool. We are, however, too little informed to judge or to criticize its construction and rather incline to think that these people had reasons of their own for giving it the form it has. It must have been the one which Sahagun called “destral,” or carpenter’s hatchet.[[23]]