Note 17 — MEXICAN COPPER TOOLS.

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.