Part 1
Produced by Richard Tonsing, Julia Miller and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
MEXICAN COPPER TOOLS: THE USE OF COPPER BY THE MEXICANS BEFORE THE CONQUEST;
AND
THE KATUNES OF MAYA HISTORY, A CHAPTER IN THE EARLY HISTORY OF CENTRAL AMERICA, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE PIO PEREZ MANUSCRIPT.
BY
PHILIPP J. J. VALENTINI, PH.D.
[TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN, BY STEPHEN SALISBURY, JR.]
WORCESTER, MASS.:
PRESS OF CHARLES HAMILTON.
1880.
[PROCEEDINGS OF AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY, APRIL 29, AND OCTOBER 21, 1879.]
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
MEXICAN COPPER TOOLS 5
THE KATUNES OF MAYA HISTORY 45
NOTE BY COMMITTEE OF PUBLICATION 47
_Introductory Remarks_ 49
_The Maya Manuscript and Translation_ 52
_History of the Manuscript_ 55
_Elements of Maya Chronology_ 60
_Table of the 20 Days of the Maya Month_ 62
_Table of the 18 Months of the Maya Year_ 63
_Table of Maya Months and Days_ 64
_Translation of the Manuscript by Señor Perez_ 75
_Discussion of the Manuscript_ 77
_Concluding Remarks_ 92
_Sections of the Perez Manuscript Expressed in Years_ 96
_Table of Maya Ahaues Expressed in Years_ 100
_Results of the Chronological Investigation_ 102
Illustrations.
PAGE.
COPPER AXES IN THE ARMS OF TEPOZTLA, TEPOZTITLA AND 12 TEPOZCOLULA
COPPER AXES, THE TRIBUTE OF CHILAPA 13
COPPER AXES AND BELLS, THE TRIBUTE OF CHALA 14
MEXICAN GOLDSMITH SMELTING GOLD 18
YUCATAN COPPER AXES 30
COPPER CHISEL FOUND IN OAXACA 33
MEXICAN CARPENTER’S HATCHET 35
COPPER AXE OF TEPOZCOLULA 36
COPPER AXE OF TLAXIMALOYAN 36
COPPER TOOL, FOUND BY DUPAIX IN OAXACA 37
MAYA AHAU KATUN WHEEL 72
MAP SHOWING THE MOVEMENT OF THE MAYAS, AS STATED IN THE 78 MANUSCRIPT
FOOTNOTE
YUCATAN AXE, FROM LANDA 17
INDIAN BATTLE AXE, FROM OVIEDO 19
MEXICAN COPPER TOOLS.
BY PHILIPP J. J. VALENTINI, PH.D.
[_From the German, by Stephen Salisbury, Jr_.]
[From Proceedings of American Antiquarian Society, April 30, 1879.]
The subject of prehistoric copper mining, together with the trade in the metal and the process of its manufacture into implements and tools by the red men of North America, has engaged the attention of numerous investigators.
It was while listening to an interesting paper on prehistoric copper mining at Lake Superior, read by Prof. Thomas Egleston before the Academy of Sciences, of New York, March 9, 1879, that the writer was reminded of a number of notes which he had made, some time previous, on the same subject. These notes, however, covered a department of research not included in the lecture of that evening. They were collected in order to secure all the material extant in relation to the copper products of Mexico and Central America. Nevertheless, this treatment of a subject so germain to ours, could not help imparting an impulse to a rapid comparison of the results of our own studies with those of others. It brought to light striking agreements, as well as disagreements, which existed in connection with the copper industries of the two widely separated races. On the one hand it appeared that both of these ancient people were unacquainted with iron; both were trained to the practise of war, and, strange to say, both had invariably abstained from shaping copper into any implement of war, the metal being appropriated solely to the uses of peace.
But, on the other hand, whilst the northern red man attained to his highest achievement in the production of the axe, the native of Central America could boast of important additions to his stock of tools. He possessed copper implements for tilling the fields, and knew the uses of the chisel. Besides, when he wished to impart to the copper a definite form, he showed a superior ingenuity. The northern Indian simply took a stone, and by physical force hammered the metal into the required shape. But the skilled workman of Tecoatega and Tezcuco, subjecting the native copper to the heat of the furnace, cast the woodcutter’s axe in a mould, as well as the bracelets and the fragile earrings that adorned the princesses of Motezuma.
Therefore, in view of the recently increasing interest shown in archæological circles, respecting everything relating to Mexico, the writer deemed it worth while to revise the notes referred to.
As to the fact that the early Mexicans used instruments of copper, there can be no doubt. The brevity of the statements respecting these instruments is nevertheless very perplexing. The accounts of the Spanish chroniclers, indeed, afford a certain degree of satisfaction, but they leave us with a desire for fuller information. We should have felt more grateful to these authorities if, out of the thousand and more chapters devoted to the glorious deeds of the “Castellanos and Predicadores,” they had written one in which they had introduced us to the Mexican work-shop, exhibiting the weaver, the paper-maker, the carpenter, the goldsmith, and the sculptor, and initiating us into the devices and methods respectively employed; describing the form and shape of the tools they used, and giving an account of all those little details which are indispensable for achieving any technical or artistical results.
Yet, as it exists, the desired information is incomplete, and, for the present at least, we can only deplore its brevity. In looking for aid from other quarters we feel still more perplexed. No specimen of any copper or bronze tool, apparently, has been preserved, and we are thus prevented from determining whether the axes or chisels mentioned by the Spanish authors were of the same shape as ours, or whether the natives had contrived to give them a peculiar shape of their own. Finally, no definite hint is given whether the kind of copper metal, which they called “brass or bronze,” was copper with the natural admixtures of gold, silver, tin, or other tempering elements, or whether the Mexicans had themselves discovered the devices of hardening, and combined the elements in due conventional proportions.
All these questions are of the highest interest, and claim an answer. Our most renowned authorities for Mexican archæology and history, Humboldt, Prescott and Brasseur de Bourbourg,[1] pass over this subject without giving any desired satisfaction. They do not go much farther than to repeat the statements furnished by the writers in the same language as they received them.
These early statements will form the principal portion of the material out of which we weave the text of our discussion. In order that the reader may be better prepared to enter into our reasoning and judge of the correctness of our conclusions, we shall, in translation, place the statements of these authors below the text, in the form of foot-notes; though, in cases where it is believed that the reader may desire to see the originals, the Spanish text is given. Considerable help has been derived from a source hitherto very little consulted, that of the native paintings, which represent copper implements. As will be seen, they make up, to a certain extent, for the deficiency of the latter in collections. The cuts we give are of the same size as those we find copied in the Kingsborough Collection.
We shall speak first of those localities whence the natives procured their copper and their tin; secondly, of the manner in which they used to melt metals; thirdly, consider whether the metal was moulded or hammered; and fourthly, discuss the various forms into which their tools appear to have been shaped.
That the natives of the New World collected and worked other metals besides gold and silver, seems to have become known to the Spaniards only after their entrance into the city of Mexico, A.D. 1521. During the first epoch, in which the West India Islands and the Atlantic coasts of South and Central America were explored and conquered, no specimen of utensils, tools or weapons, made of brass or copper, was discovered to be in the possession of the inhabitants. So also in Yucatan, Tlascalla, and on the high plateau of Anahuac, where mechanics and industry were found to have a home, and where the native warrior exhibited his person in the most gorgeous military attire, their swords, javelins, lances and arrows, showed that concerning the manufacture of arms they had, so to speak, not yet emerged from the Stone-Age. And finally, when brass, copper, tin, and even lead, were seen exposed for sale in the stalls of the market-place of Mexico, it was noticed to the great astonishment of the conquerors, that these metals had exclusively served the natives for the manufacture of mere instruments of peace.
The Spanish leader communicates these facts to his emperor in these few words:[2]—“Besides all kind of merchandise, I have seen for sale trinkets made of gold and silver, of lead, bronze, copper and tin.” Almost the same expressions are used in the memoirs of his companion, Bernal Diaz de Castillo:[3]—“And I saw _axes_ of _bronze_, and _copper_, and _tin_.” Under the influences of such a revelation the hearts of the distressed Spaniards must have been elated with joy and courage, when they saw not only a prospect of replacing the arms which their small band had lost, but also the source from which to equip the faithful Indian allies of Tlascala in an efficient manner. Immediately after having taken firm foothold on the conquered ground, Cortes ordered the goldsmiths of Tezcuco to cast eight thousand arrow-heads of copper, and these weapons were made ready for delivery within a single week.[4] At the same time, too, the hope to have a supply of cannon made was presented to the conqueror’s mind. The only question was from whence to procure a sufficient quantity of the material necessary to carry out this design.
Copper is found to-day in nearly all the states of the Mexican Republic. We abstain, therefore, from quoting the localities. But as far as our information goes, no writer or historian has stated where Cortes and before him the natives themselves found it. To investigate this matter might be of direct utility, at least. We intend to use a source hitherto little explored, but which for the history of Mexico is of greatest importance, the picture tables, called the Codices Mexicana. These collections contain representations of their historical, religious, social and commercial life. The writer of this article has made himself familiar with these sources, expecting to find in them disclosures about the location of the ancient copper mines, as soon as he could discover what _copper_ was called in the language of the natives. The answer comes in this connection.
The Mexicans had the habit of giving a name to their towns and districts from the objects which were found in abundance in their neighborhood. Therefore, copper regions ought to bear a name which related to this mineral.
In Lord Kingsborough’s Collection, Vol. V., pages 115–124, there are two printed alphabetical indices of the names of all the towns, whose hieroglyphic symbol, or, as we term it, whose coat of arms, is represented in the Codex Mendoza, to be found in Vol. I. of the same collection, pages 1–72. This Codex is arranged in three sections. The first shows the picture-annals of the ancient Aztec-Kings, and the cities which they conquered (pages 1–17). The second reproduces again the coats of arms of these cities, but gives in addition the pictures of all the objects of tribute which these cities had to pay. The third section exhibits an illustration of how Mexican children were trained from infancy up to their 15th year. Sections first and second will claim our interest, exclusively.
Copper, we learn from the Dictionary of Molina[5] was named in the language of the Nahoa speaking natives, _tepuzque_.[6] Upon searching in the above quoted Codices, we find three names of towns which are compounds of this word _tepuzque_. Their names appear in the following form: Tepoztla, Vol. I., page 8, fig. 2, and the same name on page 26, fig. 13. Tepoztitla, page 42, fig. 10, and Tepozcolula, page 43, fig. 3.
The cuts 1, 2, 3 and 4, are faithful reproductions of the coats of arms belonging to these towns.
There cannot be any doubt as to the meaning of the objects represented by these pictures. They mean axes. Their handles appear in a curved form, the blades at their cutting edges are somewhat rounded, and the tenons of the blades are inserted below the top of the handles. Both handles and blades are painted in a reddish brown color, the wood as well as the copper.
The differences between the pictured representations are the following: Cuts 1, 2, and 4, show the axes growing out from the top of a mountain, whilst the axe of cut 3 appears by itself. Further, the axes of cuts 1 and 2, those of _Tepoztla_, show something applied to the handle, which in cut 1 we recognize to be a single bow-knot, and in cut 2 the same girdle with a bow-knot, yet wound about a dress of white color, embroidered with red spots. A notable difference, however, will still be noticed between the form of the axes in cuts 1, 2, 3, and that in cut 4, or _Tepozcolula_. We shall speak of this latter, on a later page, as an instrument very closely related to the other axes.
By means of these pictures we arrive at the knowledge of the following facts: Copper was undoubtedly found in the neighborhood of the three named cities. Moreover, copper in these cities was wrought into axe-blades. Finally, the axe will turn out to be the symbol used for copper, in general.
Let us accept these facts and see whether this picture for the symbol for copper does not return on other pages of the same Codex, and thereby gain more information on the subject. We notice the picture of the axe-blade reappearing on the pages 39 and 42. Both happen to bear the same number, that of figure 20, and both belong to the same section of the Codex which contains the pictures of the tributes paid by the conquered towns. Cut 5 is a reproduction of fig. 20, page 39, Codex Mendoza. It shows the metal axe without a handle hanging on a thread from a line upon which we see five flags are painted. Moreover, at the left side is a little picture. A flag in Mexican symbol writing signifies the number twenty.[7]
We may therefore conclude that by this combination one hundred copper axes are indicated. The question now arises, what city may have paid this tribute of copper axes? The painter has not only omitted to connect directly these flags and axe with one of the various coats of arms that are grouped in their neighborhood, but even, if he had done so, the student, still unacquainted with the art of explaining pictures, would be unable to make out the name of the city, embodied in the picture of the coat of arms. We will overcome this difficulty by consulting the interpretation of the Codex Mendoza, which is printed on the pages 39–89 of Vol. V., Kingsb. Collection. There, on page 73, the suggestion is given that the tribute objects refer to the town of Chilapa, whose coat of arms (fig. 2), as we shall notice on the cut, consists of a tub filled with water, and on whose surface the _chilli_-fruit appears, better known as the Spanish red pepper _chilli_, red pepper, _atl_, water, _pa_, in or above. For this reason we learn that the town of _Chilapa_ was tributary in 100 axes.
In like manner we may proceed with the definition of the picture found on page 42, fig. 20. The copy given in cut 6, shows 80 blades of copper axes in fig. 20, and besides 40 little copper bells in fig. 19, and the interpretation, Vol. V., page 76, informs us that it was the town of Chala, fig. 26, which had to pay this kind of tribute.
Therefore, the towns of Tepoztla, Tepoztitla, Tepozcolula, and, besides, those of Chilapa and Xala, must be considered to have been connected, in one way or the other, with copper mining, copper manufacture, and the tribute of the same.[8]
A few words on the procuring of the metal from localities where it was discovered by the natives, may find a suitable place here. Mining, as we understand it to-day, or as the Spaniards understood it already at the time of the conquest, was not practised by the natives. Gold and silver were not broken from the entrails of the rocks. They were collected from the _placeres_ by a process of mere washing. No notice at all has come down to us how copper was gathered. We can, however, easily imagine, that whenever by a chance outcropping a copper vein or stratum became visible, they probably broke off the ore or mineral to a depth easy to be reached, and only selected the most solid pieces. It is evident that the results of such superficial mining must have been very trifling, certainly not greater than would barely suffice for the fabrication of the most necessary tools. Herein we will find an explanation, why this people, though possessing the metal and the technical skill, nevertheless did not use it for the manufacture of arms. The production could not have been abundant enough to supply the whole nation or even the professional soldier with metal weapons. They preferred therefore, to continue in the ignorance of the Stone-Age.
Where the Mexicans found the _lead_ that was seen in the market-place, nay, even the purposes for which they might have used it, we have been entirely unable to learn. _Lead_ in the language of the Nahoas, is called _temeztli_ (telt stone, metzli moon), moon stone, a name picturesque and characteristic, as were most of those which stand in the list of objects that belong to the realm of nature. Not a single picture referring to lead can be found in the Mexican Codices. The same must also be said of _tin_, the name of which was _amochictl_, a word seemingly Nahoatl in form, but whose root was probably derived from a foreign language. It will be gratifying, however, to learn from the pen of the great conqueror Cortes himself, where the natives, and afterwards his followers, found their _tin_. To quote the language of Cortes,[9] “I am without artillery and weapons, though I have often sent money to obtain them. But as nothing drives a man to expedients so much as distress, and as I had already lost the hope that Your Royal Majesty might be informed of this, I have mustered all my strength to the utmost in order that I might not lose what I have already obtained with so much danger and sacrifice of life. I have therefore arranged to have men immediately sent out in search of copper, and in order to obtain it without delay I have expended a great amount of money. As soon as I had brought together a sufficient quantity, I procured a workman, who luckily was with us, to cast several cannons. Two half-culverines are now ready, and we have succeeded as far as their size would permit. The copper was indeed all ready for use, but I had no _tin_. Without _tin_ I could do nothing, and it caused me a great deal of trouble to find a sufficient quantity of it for these cannons, for some of our men, who had tin plates or other vessels of that kind, were not willing to part with them at any rate. For this reason I have sent out people in all directions searching for tin, and the Lord, who takes care of everything, willed graciously that when our distress had reached its highest point, I found among the natives of _Tachco_[10] small pieces of tin, very thin and in the form of coins.[11] Making further investigations I found that this tin, there and in other provinces was used for money, also that this tin was obtained from the same province of _Tachco_, the latter being at a distance of 26 leagues from this town. I also discovered the locality itself of these mines. The Spaniards whom I despatched with the necessary tools brought me _samples_ of it, and I then gave them orders that a sufficient quantity should be procured, and, though it is a work of much labor, I shall be supplied with the necessary quantity that I require. While searching for tin, according to a report from those skilled in the subject, a rich vein of iron-ore was also discovered.
Now supplied with tin I can make the desired cannons, and daily I try to increase the number, so that now I have already five pieces ready, two half-culverines, two which are still smaller, one field-piece and two _sacres_, the same that I brought with me, and another half-culverine which I purchased from the estate of the Adelantado Ponce de Leon.”
In the above report of Cortes, therefore, we are informed of the name of the locality where tin was found and dug by the natives. So we have the facts established that both copper and tin[12] were dug by the natives, that there was a traffic, in them at that time, that Cortes himself succeeded in getting at the mines from which they were extracted, and that he had not been mistaken in his former recognition of their display for sale in the public market.
But before these ores could be shaped into the above named commercial forms, it is clear that they still needed to undergo a process of smelting. As to the peculiar mode of smelting pursued by the natives, we have not been able to find any distinct reference in the writings of the chroniclers. It does not appear that the ancient Mexicans understood the method of the Peruvians of melting their copper in furnaces exposed to the wind on the lofty sierras, but we may form for ourselves an idea of how they proceeded from a picture in Codex Mendoza, page 71, fig. 24.
Cut 7 gives a faithful reproduction.