[12]. In Molina’s vocabulary a suggestion can be found for what technical purposes tin might have been employed. The word teputzlacopintli is translated with cañuto de estaño, para horadar piedras preciosas (cylinder of tin for perforating precious stones). We may, therefore, presume that the holes bored through the well known green jade trinkets, were drilled by the aid of the mentioned cañuto de estaño.
[13]. This little figure symbolizing gold, recurs only once more in all those Mexican paintings which we have been able to examine. It stands in Vol. I., Kingsb. Collection, Cod. Mendoza, page 13, fig. 4, and is identical with that represented by the engraving. We do not venture too far in asserting that the symbol on this gold piece represents a genuine Mexican numeral. It is composed of a cross, having a dot in each of its quadrants. This cross is the well known symbol of the number 8000 (xiquipilli), and each dot stands for the number 1. We have thus expressed four times 8000 (nahui xiquipilli) or 32,000. Here, however, the interpretation ends, so far as it may be based upon accepted authorities. Whatever else there is to be learned concerning this number 32,000, found on the gold piece, must be derived by the confessedly hazardous process of induction.
Nevertheless, let us try this process and ascertain what the number 32,000 actually refers to. In answering this question it may, perhaps, fairly be assumed that the number stands in a direct relation to a certain numerical unity, like that in which hundreds stand to the tens, 100:1. Such a numerical unity, however, presupposes the existence of some tangible equivalent, which in Mexican commerce, if it was not some small piece of metal, would have had some other conventional representation, either in merchandise or in labor. If such a unity actually existed it is clear that its value must have been fixed either by weight or by measure. There is, however, no positive proof that such a unity, fixed by weight or measure, ever existed among the Mexicans. Cortes, in the above quoted letter, pretends that it was impossible for him to detect the use of any weights or scales, and no writer after him has touched this question or given any other decision. Respecting measures, there is no direct testimony at all. But, on the other hand, it is hardly to be imagined that these people, of whose religious administration and social polity we have such abundant evidences, should have been deficient to such an extent in the department of their commercial polity as not to have found any method by which the proportion between the value of the precious metal to merchandise in all its forms was to be expressed. We must guard ourselves against the fallacy that because we are not acquainted with the method it could not have existed. There are grounds to believe that Cortes was right in saying that the Mexicans did not know the use of weights (their vocabulary does not show any word answering to peso, pesilla, libra, balanza romana), but, we think they knew perfectly the use of measures (the vocabulary gives about twenty words for all varieties of this operation); and in regard to a certain unity of measure employed in gold transactions, there are indications given by other trustworthy writers that this unity might be detected in the quills, of conventional length, and probably of conventional diameter, which quills were filled up with grains of gold dust, by the color and shades of which they graduated the respective value. Bernal Diaz, Chapter 92: Antes de salir de la misma plaza, estaban otros muchos mercaderes, que, segun dixeron, era que tenian a vender oro en granos como lo sacan de las minas, metido el oro en unos canutillos delgados de los anserones de tierra (thin goose quills) e asi blancos porque se pareciese el oro por defuera, y por el largor y gordor de los canutillos (length and width of the quills) tenian entre ellos su cuenta (they made up their account) que tantas mantas o que xiquipiles de cacao salia o qualquier otra cosa a que lo trocavan.
This point being settled let us next introduce one other, for it will contribute to strengthen the probability that besides the quill there existed still a lower unity, that of the grain of gold itself, by which they counted. For this purpose, let us turn again to the gold piece represented in the painting. It is round. This reminds us of what was told by Cortes of the little pieces of tin discovered in Tachco, which, he said, were used as coins. Likewise, we read in Bernal Diaz that Motezuma used to pay with pieces of gold when he lost in playing patol (trictrac) with his Spanish jailors. The word employed by the author and eye-witness of the game, is “tejuelo,” which, according to Spanish usages and the dictionaries of their language, signifies: a round piece of metal. The author moreover informs us of the value of this tejuelo. It was 50 ducats of weight and must, therefore, have been equivalent to, at least, one hundred dollars of gold. Since Bernal Diaz in this entire passage wishes to express his highest esteem for Motezuma on account of the princely generosity with which he paid even those whom he knew had cheated him, we may fairly conclude that these tejuelos were not the lowest, but rather the highest, gold pieces that he had at his disposal. Should we now remember the number, 32,000, which is the highest found represented in Mexican pictures (they generally never exceed that of 8000, the xiquipilli), it is not at all improbable that the Motezuma-tejuelo, about 100 dollars worth, might have been equivalent to 32,000 unities, while this unity may have been one grain of gold. For if we would divide 100 dollars of gold into 32,000 equal parts, or still farther divide one gold dollar into 320 equal parts, each part would represent a very small portion of gold, but still large enough to be counted separately with the finger. This was the way the gold-dust was collected on the placeres, not by men but by women and children. The procedure was primitive, indeed, in the highest degree. In such a way, however, gold gathering was undoubtedly practised in the first stage of men’s civilization. If not written in history, yet the linguistical testimony bears witness to it. We find the expression “grain of gold” to be the common property among the ancient and modern nations in connection with commerce and the weighing of gold.
[14]. Torquemada (Fray Juan de) Monarquia Indiana, Madrid, 1613, Vol. II., Book 13, Chapter 1. “The goldsmiths did not possess the tools necessary for hammering metals, but with one stone placed above another one, they make a flat cup or a plate.” (Pero con una piedra sobre otra hacian una taza llana y un plato.) Gomara, l. c. “They will cast a platter in a mould with eight corners, and every corner of several metals, that is to say, the one of gold, the other of silver, without any kind of solder. They will also cast a little caldron with loose handles hanging thereto, as we used to cast a bell. They will also cast in a mould a fish with one scale of silver on its back and another of gold; they will make a parrot of metal so that his tongue shall shake and his head move and his wings flutter; they will cast an ape in a mould so that both hands and feet will stir, and holding a spindle in his hand, seeming to spin, yea, and an apple in his hand, as if he would eat it. Our Spaniards were not a little amazed at the sight of these things, for our goldsmiths are not to be compared to theirs.” Bernal Diaz, Chapter 91. “I will first mention the sculptors and the gold and silversmiths, who were clever in working and smelting gold, and would have astonished the most celebrated of our Spanish goldsmiths; the number of these were very great and the most skilful lived at a place called Azcapotzalco, about four leagues from Mexico.” Petrus Martyr, Decade VI., Chapter 6. (A letter written to Pope Adrian VI.) “The chief noblemen’s houses (in Nicaragua) compass and inclose the King’s street on every side; in the middle site whereof one is erected, in which the goldsmiths dwell. Gold is there molten and forged (?) to be formed into divers jewels, and is formed into small plates or bars, to be stamped after the pleasure of its owners and at length is brought into the form and fashion they desire, and that neatly too.”
[15]. Lorenzana (Don Franc, Antonia de) Historia de Nueva España, page 378, Note 2.
[16]. See Bernal Diaz, Chap. 39.
Petrus Martyr de Angleria, English edition of Eden, Islands of the West Indies, page 169: “Circumference of xxviii spans (spithamarum 28).”
Torquemada Mon. Ind., Lib. IV., Cap. 17.
Three letters, on Cortes’ landing in Yucatan, edited by Fredric Muller, Amsterdam, 1871. (1) Their width being seven spans, (2) larger than a wagon’s wheel, and made as if beaten out of white iron. (3) Two wheels, the one of gold and weighing 30,000 castellanos, the other of silver, weighing 50 mark. These pieces are as large as a millstone.