Philipp J. J. Valentini

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At that date only a scanty number of data, loosely described, and referring to an epoch removed from the Spanish conquest of the Peninsula by only a few decades, had appeared as the sole representatives of a long past, in which the builders of the ruined cities undoubtedly must have lived an eventful life, not to be counted by a few generations, but by a long and hardly calculable number of centuries. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ We may believe that the terrorism exercised by Bishop Landa had a powerful influence on the minds and on the newly converted consciences of the natives, and the Bishop no doubt used every possible means to get into his hands as much as he could of what he considered to be “cabalistic signs and invocations to the devil.” But we can never believe that these 27 rolls represented the entire Maya literature, collected for hundreds of years with the greatest care and held sacred by the natives. Such a wholesale destruction would have been an impossibility. ”

“ The most substantial proofs and contributions may be expected from our fellow-students in Mexico. They dwell upon the ground which was the scene of this ancient industry. They are also in a continuous contact with a numerous indigenous race, which despite of European attempts to improve their working facilities, still tenaciously cling to their old usages and fashions. Our Museums are overcrowded with Mexican idols, pottery, and flint arrow-heads. One specimen of an ancient tin-borer, one of a copper axe or hoe, or of a bronze chisel would be counted as a very welcome and valuable acquisition. ”

“ Those acquainted with the practical handling of axes, and with felling trees, know that a curved handle must increase the swinging power of an axe to a considerable degree, and to have used this form is a remarkable instance of Mexican technical craft and cunning. It would be worth while to investigate whether this use of a curved handle was exclusively confined to the natives of Central America, or had passed beyond its boundaries, north as well as south. ”

“ We are not able to offer any conclusive evidence against the remarkable statement made by Petrus Martyr. We are fully aware how many positive proofs are required to render it totally invalid. But we deemed it to be our duty not to withhold from our readers the many grave doubts we entertain against its too ready acceptance. We have still to add, that this statement stands isolated and without support in the whole literature of the Conquest. His contemporary writers, indeed, occasionally speak of copper axes that were tempered by an alloy. ”

“ Though it did not offer a history conceived in the common acceptation of the 50word, the brief epitome of events which it presented, began by telling us of the arrival of foreigners from distant lands, who, step by step succeeded in conquering the Maya soil and who were brought into significant connection with the name as well as the fall of cities now lying in ruins over the whole country.
As to the authenticity of the events reported, they have been received by many students with a confidence and faith rarely manifested when discoveries of such importance are brought to light. ”

“ Still, having been struck by the occurrence of the three words and their relative positions, we could not dismiss them altogether, especially as Cortes and Bernal Diaz were eye-witnesses and were, therefore, of highest authority. Besides, it is by no means impossible that in the future, instruments of bronze may actually be discovered and found to be composed of tin and copper. In such an event our judgment would favor the opinion that Cortes and his followers were keener observers and investigators than those who during three and one-half centuries have attempted to ventilate the question. ”

“ From the combined statements we learned that the bronze found among the natives contained a rich basis of copper, which was mixed either with gold, or with silver, or with tin, and we might infer from this variety of admixtures, that the natives manufactured their laton according to a fixed method. But, on the contrary, as the three metals named are always found to be the steady components of Mexican copper ore, we are led to the presumption, that these ores were worked in their unaltered condition, just as nature had produced them. ”

“ If therefore with the help of written records we can build up hypotheses partially satisfactory, and not altogether improbable, we have accomplished all that could be expected for the present, at least, and have perhaps excited an interest in a branch of history which has hitherto been held as dead and unproductive. ”

“ Mayapan became the centre of Nahuatl worship. The calendar the invaders brought with them must have been the old honored division of the years into 365 days, with 20 months, and their cyclical period of not 20 but 52 years, and it is also known that about the year 1450, the political union of the Mayas was broken into several smaller divisions, some of which presumably would have held to the ancient cycle of 20 years; others may have adopted the Nahuatl cycle of 52 years, and possibly, may have introduced the cycle of 24 years spoken of by Señor Perez. ”

“ Elements of Maya Chronology. It is impossible to understand the Manuscript before obtaining a knowledge of the division of time prevalent in Yucatan before the Spanish Conquest. Señor Perez has the incontestable merit of having been the first to lay before the world not only the chief points of the system but also all the technical details. Before his time but little was known of Maya chronology. ”

“ Our researches have been directed for a long time towards the discovery of the symbols which the Maya annalists or sculptors would have employed for their chronological periods. It was in connection with these studies that we discovered the Nahuatl symbols for the same, of which we gave account in our discussion on the Calendar Stone. Yet while this discovery only corroborates the suspicion long entertained that a certain set of Maya symbols represented the lustra of 5, and another the period of 20 years, we have not yet been able to recognize a Maya symbol for the period of 260 years. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hence the question arises, was it original with the immigrating Nahuatl tribes who came from the higher northern countries as is reported, and did they succeed in forming such a consolidation with the Maya races as to mingle both under the same hierarchical government, or did the contrary take place? The most prevalent opinion makes the Nahuas the inventors of the general system of chronology, but later students begin to express themselves in favor of its Maya origin. On a more fitting occasion we are desirous to present our reasons for taking the latter view. ”

“ Though the ancient records are wanting, this feature of the Maya system stands out upon the background of dim traditions with great distinctness. After this concentration of tribes, and with the view of regulating worship, a uniform calendar would have been introduced, the main features of which would probably have been a solar year of 365 days, the division of the year into 20 months, and a cyclical period of 20 and 260 years respectively. In the middle of the 11th century great tribal revolutions took place on the high plateaus of Anahuac, by which the lowlands of Yucatan were also affected. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ We understand the two reported destructions of this city as the heroic and victorious effort of the Maya race to exterminate the foreign Nahuatl invader, who, for a long period succeeded in taking a strong foothold in the country. In the succeeding epochs of the 6th, 4th and 2d Ahau, exhaustion from the war and disintegration must have ensued, for such was the condition in which the Spaniards found the Maya people in the following 13th and 11th Ahaues, which were the last they were allowed to count. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is to be hoped that the differences of translation of the manuscript spoken of above, and to which Señor Eligio Ancona [40] draws attention, will be critically investigated and finally decided by the coming generation of scholars in Yucatan. The sons of the country should be the born judges of the language and the spirit of the literary relics of the indigenous race. Recent investigations have shown that this language was split into sixteen dialects, which were spoken by as many tribes, whose territories extended far beyond the present area of the Yucatecan peninsula. ”

“ This compact period of time touches a very remote epoch in the history of the civilized nations of Central America. It reaches backwards to an epoch when in Europe, Pepin D’Heristal and his family laid the foundation to their future ascendancy on the throne of France. If we look still further backward in our table, we notice another long period of time (sections 3 and 4) which represents the sum of eight uninterrupted Ahaues, equal to 160 years. ”