Talk:Macuahuitl

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Contents 1 Decapitate a horse?? 2 Spelling 3 Problems with article 4 Merge? 5 Obsidian sword vs Spanish Steel armor.

[edit] Decapitate a horse??

When was the text "(according to a Spaniard account, it easily decapitated a horse)" added? It's obvious that the blade in the picture couldn't decapitate anything.

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Bernal Diaz del Castillo wrote about the Aztec maquahuitl in his narrative The Conquest of New Spain:

"While we were at grips with this great army and their dreadful broadswords [maquahuitl], many of the most powerful among the enemy seem to have decided to capture a horse. They began with a furious attack, and laid hands on a good mare well trained both for sport and battle. Her rider, Pedro de Moron, was a fine horseman; and as he charged with three other horsemen into the enemy ranks--they had been instructed to charge together for mutual support--some of them seized his lance so he could not use it, and others slashed at him with their broadswords [maquahuitl], wounding him severely. Then they slashed at his mare, cutting her head at the neck so that it only hung by the skin. The mare fell dead, and if his mounted comrades had not come to Moron's rescue, he would probably have been killed also."

Although this was written in the late 16th century when Diaz was an elderly man living in Mexico, we can consider his first hand account accurate. As you can see, the Spanish held a healthy respect for the maquahuitl and its cutting power. --SunWuKong 09:05, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling

Shouldn't the word spelled macuahuitl? Or atleast state the true spelling? Myke 15:41, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Maquahuitl is the true spelling. Macuahuitl is a common phonetic error. comment by User:Paul wilding

Both spellings are used, with the "q" spelling out-Googling the "c" spelling by about 3 - 1 when you take out the Wikipedia hits. However, I believe that Myke is saying that Macuahuitl would be a more common Nahuatl spelling since the "q" is not used in present-day Nahuatl orthography. Let me see if I can round up an expert.

And while I'm doing that, could Paul Wilding please give some sources for this recent changes. Some of them seem reasonable, but some of them (impact weapon or not?) are very fundamental changes. Thanks in advance, Madman 01:00, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Neither spelling is more correct than the other. The choice is arbitrary. The phoneme represented by either qu or cu is a labialised velar stop [kʷ] and have traditionally never been written consistently. qu is commonly used before a and o anc cu before i and e, but some orthographies use cu for both. I would however recommend the cu spelling, because it is more consistent (the qu spelling uses qu before i and e for the sound of /k/).Maunus 07:05, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Problems with article

OK... The writer of the article has worked purely on speculation and assumption. The writer has undoubtably never workd with obsidian, it not self sharpening. The writer has not studied pictures of Maquahuitl in codices because he's quite clearly not seen examples of ones with points. He's not aware of climate and forests in the region, or of maquahuitl grave finds because he seems to think they were made exclusively of hardwood. He's also not aware of what hardwood is, much hardwood is softer than softwood. He knows little of meso-american cultures and seems not to be a aware the maquahuitl was not an Aztec development nor exclusive to them. He also seems not to be a swordsman, as he perceives a 300 gram slashing weapon, a club.unsigned comment by User:Paul wilding

Paul, by the time you had gotten done with the article, as I mentioned on your Talk page, you had made a number of changes contrary to Wikipedia policy and norms. So, I reverted all your additions. Please, pull out your references and let's clean-up the article. I am interested in getting to the bottom of this. Madman 00:47, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

It is self sharpening in the fact that after a strike fragments will come off and the crystal that remains will be sharp. Also, these fragments were meant to cause infection in the wound.

[edit] Merge?

I have suggested a merger with Macana. These articles seem to have very much overlapping subject matters, almost the same; in fact they both use the same illustration on the left side, like they are both referring to the same thing. The Macana article claims to be also about other similarly shaped weapons (with or without obsidian blades) used in Mesoamerica and the Carribean, but couldn't there just be a small section in a united article about that? It seems to me like both articles are mainly about the weapon in the context of their use by the Aztecs.

Hno3 20:07, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

More than likely these two pages should be merged. The name Macana is the name that the Spaniards gave to the weapon when they first encountered it. I do, however, intend to expand on this article soon and am gathering resources at the moment. Pyroxolotl 16:08, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I am the author of macana. I would not strongly object to merging the articles. The usual explanation for the two forms is that they are two reflexes of the same root (or was it a borrowing?), Macuahuitl being Nahuatl, and Macana Taíno. Certainly the descriptions of macanas given in Decades de Orbe Novo do not mention obsidian edges. I will be very interested to hear what you can find in other period resources. --Iustinus 22:54, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

no, don't merge —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pajfarmor (talk • contribs) 15 November 2006.

[edit] Obsidian sword vs Spanish Steel armor.

I understand obsidian is extremely sharp, but how would it fair against spanish steel armor? Would it penetrate and effectively cleave through, or would it shatter upon impact?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.14.30.194 (talk • contribs) 30 November 2006.