[17].
From Landa.
Bernal Diaz, Chap. 92: “Bronze axes, and copper and tin.” Petrus Martyr, Dec. V., Chap. 10: “Bronze axes and edges, cunningly tempered.” Gomara, Chap. 210: “They also have axes, borers and chisels of copper mixed with gold, silver or tin.” Landa Rel. d. l., Cosas de Yucatan, Ed. Brasseur, Paris, 1864, pag. 170, with a cut of a Yucatecan axe: “They had little axes made of a certain metal, and shaped as the illustration shows. They fastened them into the top of a wooden handle, one side serving as a weapon, the other for cutting wood. They sharpened them by hammering the edge with stones.” Torquemada, Mon. Ind., Lib. 13, Cap. 34: “The carpenters and carvers worked with copper instruments.” Herrera, Dec. IV., Lib. 8, Cap. 3: “In Honduras (1530) they cleared large mountains, for agricultural purposes, with axes made of flintstone.”
Remesal, Hist. d. l. Prov. de Chiapas y Guatemala, 1606: “They clear, every year, large mountains of woods, in order to prepare them for the reception of the seed corn, as is the custom in the whole province of Vera-paz; and before they got the iron axes they had to work hard because they felled the trees with copper axes and often spent an entire day in cutting one single tree, though of inferior size; and if the tree was larger three and four days, those axes being very apt to break; and having experienced the strength of iron, they appreciate all tools made of it, and thus they held our axes and machetes in great esteem.” Cogolludo, Hist. d. Yucatan, Lib. IV., Cap. 3, mentions axes as an article of trade in Yucatan: “Copper axes, brought from Mexico, which they exchanged for other merchandize.” Documentos ineditos, Madrid, 1864, Vol. I., pag. 470: “The Captain, Gil Gonzales de Avila, arrived here in Sto. Domingo (from Nicaragua) and sends to His Majesty 14,000 pesos de oro and 15,000 pesos, proceeding from axes which they said contained gold, and 6150 pesos de oro proceeding from bells which they also said contained gold. All this he said he was presented with during his discoveries which he was making in the Province of the South sea.” Petrus Martyr, Dec. VI., Chapt. 2 and 3, states the same fact on the authority of Gil Gonzales’ treasurer, Cereceda.
[18]. The absolute absence of mines in Yucatan is a fact that needs no further corroboration. It might, however, be of interest to hear the language used by Landa, Rel. d. las cosas de Yucatan: 1. c. § 5 “There exist many beautiful structures of masonry in Yucatan, all of them built of stone and showing the finest workmanship, the most astonishing that ever were discovered in the Indies; and we cannot wonder at it enough because there is not any class of metal in this country by which such works could be accomplished.”
[19].
From Oviedo.
Herrera (Dec. III., Lib. 4, Cap. 5) having the original reports before his eyes, represents this scene as follows: “Multitudes of Indians flocked along the ways, astonished to see the beards and the dressing of the Spaniards. The chief person they met was Dirianjeu, the warlike cacique, who came attended by five hundred men and seventeen women, covered with gold plates, all drawn up in order, but without arms and with ten banners and trumpets, after their fashion. When they came near, the banners were displayed and the cacique touched Gonzales’ hand, as did all the five hundred, everyone giving him a turkey. Yet each of the women gave him twenty axes of gold (veinte hachas de oro) fourteen carats fine, each weighing eighteen pesos and some more.” We find in Oviedo (Gonzalo Fernandez de), Historia gen. y nat. de las Indias, at the end of Vol. IV., five folio quarto pages with illustrations referring to the chapter he wrote on Nicaragua, and we learn from his text that he made the sketches himself during his sojourn in Nicaragua (1524). They represent views of the volcano of Masaya, gymnastic sports of the Indians, a plan of the town of Tecoatega, and three Indian arms, an estorica, a porra and an alabarda. Each of the drawings is provided with a number which correctly corresponds to that written in the text, except those three drawings of the arms, for which we could not find the text. Upon closer examination we discovered a suggestion made (on page [81]) that some ancient copyist or editor must have revised Oviedo’s original manuscript, who was supposed to have dropped the inscription to which the drawings of the three arms belong, perhaps, only on account of the illegibility of Oviedo’s handwriting. On the other hand, we cannot help expressing our doubts as to the fact that these three kinds of arms should have been in use with the Nicoyans or Nicaraguans. Notwithstanding we give the cut of the alabarda, which has the shape of a genuine mediæval battle-axe.