Cut 7.
Smelting Gold.
In the midst of an earthen tripod, surrounded by smoke and flames, we perceive a small disk of a yellow color. Our attention is called to the peculiar mark imprinted on the surface of the disk. Upon searching in Lord Kingsborough’s Collection, Vol. V., page 112, plate 71, where the interpretation of the little picture is given, we learn, that the man sitting by the tripod, is meant to be a goldsmith. Hence we conclude the disk must be understood to mean a round piece of gold, and that very probably the mark printed on it, was the usual symbolical sign for gold.[[13]] At the right of the tripod sits a man wrapped in his mantle, no doubt the master of the work-shop; for the addition of a flake flying from his mouth, as the typical sign for language or command, gives us a right to suppose that we have before us the so-called temachtiani, or master of the trade. At the left side crouches the apprentice, tlamachtilli. He holds in his right hand a staff, one end of which is in his mouth and the other is placed in the crucible. Tlapitzqui, in the Nahoatl language means at the same time a flute player and a melter of metal. This etymological version therefore conveys the idea, that the staff held by the smelter signifies a pipe or tube used for increasing heat by blowing the fire, as the staff is similar to a long pipe or flute and is held in the mouth of the workman. In his left hand he holds a similar staff, but there is no means of recognizing whether it is a stick for stirring the embers, or a tube to be used alternately with the other. Now, we shall be permitted to draw a conclusion from this process of smelting gold as to the manner of smelting copper. The process must have been exactly the same with both. For, if the Mexican goldsmith, with the aid of a blowpipe, was able to increase the heat of the fire to such a degree as to make gold fusible, a heat which requires 1,100° C., he cannot have found greater difficulties in melting copper, which requires nearly the same degree of heat; and tin, which is far more easily fusible, could have been treated in the same way.
Melting was followed by casting into forms or moulds, and these moulds must have been of stone. This might be concluded from the language of Torquemada and Gomara.[[14]] The words “by placing one stone above another one” are too clear to leave the least doubt as to what the author meant. This process will account for the absolute identity we had the opportunity to observe existing between certain trinkets of the same class, coming chiefly from Nicaragua and Chiriqui. No specimens of a mould, however, have come to our view, or have been heard of as existing in any collection, probably because whenever they were met by the “huaqueros,” they did not recognize them as such, and threw them away.
The scanty knowledge we have of all these interesting technical details will not be wondered at, if we consider that we derive it from no other class of writers than from unlearned soldiers, and monks unskilled in the practical matters of this world. But still, the principal reason for this want of information is that the Mexican artist was as jealous in keeping his devices secret, as the European. They also formed guilds, into which the apprentices were sworn, and their tongues were bound by fear as well as interest. Let us quote only one instance. The Vice-King Mendoza reports to the Emperor[[15]] that he offered to pardon one of those workmen, if he would disclose how he was able to counterfeit the Spanish coins in so striking a way. But the native preferred to remain silent and was put to death.
Here is the place for asking the question: Would not the early Mexicans, aside from their practice of casting the above metals, have employed also that of hammering? Our reply would be emphatically in the negative, if taking the expression “hammering” in its strict meaning, which is that of working with the hammer. The writers of the Conquest have left the most explicit testimony, that the natives, only after the arrival of the Spaniards became acquainted with this instrument, and with the art of using it for working high reliefs out of a metal sheet. Moreover, the native vocabulary has no word for the metal hammer as it is commonly understood. Yet the wooden mallet was known, the so-called quauhololli, and used by the sculptors. In the gradual education of mankind in technical knowledge, beating of metals, of course, must have preceded casting. The ancestors of the early Mexicans, at a certain epoch, stood on the same low stage of workmanship as their more distant northern brethren. But when the inventor of the mould had taught them how to multiply the objects most in demand, by the means of this easy, rapid and almost infallible operation, we must not imagine that he had done away entirely with the old practice of beating and stretching metal with a stone. The practice, in certain cases, would have been maintained: as for instance, when a diadem, a shield, or a breastplate was to be shaped, and on occasions when the object to be made required the use of a thin flat sheet of metal. Such objects are not only described by the writers, but are also represented by the native painters. A specimen of such a kind is mentioned, which on account of its extraordinary beauty, workmanship and value left a deep impression on the conquerors. It was the present which Motezuma made to Cortes at his landing, on the Culhua coast, “the two gold and silver wheels;” the one, as they said, representing the Sun, the other the Moon. According to the measures they took of them, these round discs must have had a diameter of more than five feet. It is preposterous to imagine that round sheets of this size should have been the product of casting.[[16]]
We pass on now to discuss the various tools which we have reason to think were cast in copper or in bronze, by the early Mexicans.
The axe stands in the first place. Cortes, we shall remember, omitted to specify any of the objects which he saw exposed for sale in the market-place. Not so his companion, Bernal Diaz. He, after a lapse of 40 years, when occupied with the writing of his memoirs, has no recollection of other tools, which he undoubtedly must have seen, except the much admired bronze axes. Specimens of these were sent over to Spain in the same vessel on which the above mentioned presents to the Emperor were shipped. At their arrival at Palos, Petrus Martyr of the Council House of the Indies was one of the first to examine the curiosities sent from the New World, and to gather from the lips of the bearers their verbal comments. His remarks on the axes he had seen, are “with their bronze axes and hatchets, cunningly tempered, they (the Indians) fell the trees.” There are three expressions in this passage which will claim our attention. First, we learn that two classes of axes were sent over, one of which Martyr recognized as a “secūris” the other as a “dolabra” hence a common axe, and another which was like a pick or a hoe. Further on we shall give an illustration of these axes, taken from the pictures of the natives, when we are to recur again to this subject. Our author, in the second place, describes the two axes as of bronze, for this is the English rendering of the Latin expression: aurichalcea. Thirdly, we learn, that the blades were “cunningly tempered” or “argute temperata.” This language requires explanation.
The attentive reader will remember what has been said respecting Cortes and Bernal Diaz, whether they recognized the bronze objects in the market as a mixture of copper and tin, of themselves, or whether they had been inquisitive enough to ask for information, and in consequence learned that it was a common practice among the workmen to mix these two metals, in certain proportions, in order to produce a harder quality of copper. The latter hypothesis seems to gain a certain corroboration from Martyr’s language. For there cannot be the slightest doubt as to what he meant when putting down the words “cunningly tempered.” He wished to express the idea, that he had positive grounds for the conviction, that the metal of which the axes were made, was not a natural but an artificial product. What grounds for this conviction he had, he does not, however, communicate to his reader.
Our author has the well deserved reputation of being one of the fullest authorities for all that concerns the discovery and conquest of the western hemisphere. Of all, however, that he has written, the pages containing the landing of Cortes in Yucatan, and the entrance of the Spaniards in the capital of Motezuma, appear to have been the most attractive to the general reader and the student; these pages being torn and soiled in the existing copies of his original Latin, as well as of its translation into foreign languages. We mention this circumstance, for it is not without a certain bearing upon our question. It proves how confidently the reading public has drawn upon the author’s statement, and how eagerly students have sought to digest his amazing accounts, quite unsuspicious, however, of the errors in dates as well as facts; admiring rather than criticizing the pompous phraseology of his mediæval Latin, or his often very suggestive but somewhat flighty speculations. In Petrus Martyr, therefore, we may recognize the originator of the widespread theory that the Mexicans possessed the secret of manufacturing bronze in the highest perfection and in accordance with metallurgical rules. We are, however, forewarned. The statement is of importance, and must be weighed before accepting it. We fear it will fail like many genial but unsupported inspirations, of which our author was susceptible. If we ask whence he derived the notion that the bronze tools were “argute temperata” we shall find that he failed to give any authority. Petrus Martyr, whom we often find quoting the full names and special circumstances by the aid of which he gathered the material for his historical letters, does not follow this laudable practice on this occasion, even though the matter was one of importance to investigators like himself. For these instruments of bronze, and many other tools sent over, must have been, in another way, still more interesting to him than the objects of industry themselves. These tools afforded the most palpable proof of an independent industry practised by that strange people beyond the sea; they were a key perhaps also to the riddle, how it was possible to perform those marvels of workmanship. This silence of Petrus Martyr respecting the details of the “argutia” which he professes that the natives employed in manufacturing their bronze is so much the more striking, since we find him enlarging a long while upon their manufacture of paper; and he shows himself correctly informed respecting that process. It is clear that the one was as well worth detailing as the other. Therefore we cannot help expressing the suspicion, that whilst he had correct information respecting the one, he had none respecting the other.