Talk:Macuahuitl

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	This article falls within the scope of WikiProject Mesoamerica, a WikiProject interested in improving the encyclopaedic coverage and content of articles relating to pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, its civilizations, history, accomplishments and other topics. If you would like to help out, you are welcome to drop by the project page and/or leave a query at the project's talk page.
Resources and guidelines for editing Mesoamerica-related articles: Guidelines— Outline of suggested guidelines and editing conventions Resources— Selected resources and compendia of Mesoamerican sources and studies Citations— Bibliography and pre-filled citations for Mesoamerican sources Journals— Links to selected journals publishing Mesoamerican research, example citation templates Article listing— Inventory and watchlists of WP:MESO articles and their talk pages (Article Watchlist)—(Talkpage Watchlist) Worklists— Project worklists and activities
NB: Assessment ratings and other indicators given below are used by the Project in prioritising and managing its workload.
Start	This article has been rated as start-Class on the Project's quality scale.
Low	This article has been rated as low-importance on the Project's importance scale.
	This article is also supported by the WikiProject Aztec sub-project.
WikiProject Mesoamerica priority open tasks: (click "show" to expand) WikiProject Mesoamerica Open Tasklist: a shortlist of things you can do to help out. Queries welcomed here. (Project Main • Activities • Catalogue • Guidelines • Strategy• Tools and refs) edit | watch | purge NEWS and ANNOUNCEMENTS: → Mesoamerica, Maya civilization, Olmec, Palenque are WP:MESO collaboration targets of the moment. → Pre-filled citation templates for Mesoamerican sources at Citations. → Recently promoted to GA status: Yuri Knorosov, Nahuatl language, Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg. PROJECT ACTIVITIES: Meta-tasks and subprojects: • add project banner to articles • document Strategy • assign article ratings per the assessment scheme • add to Project references • collate images and maps • More... Categorisation: • develop full Category scheme • reorganise Cat:Mesoamerica contents • More category tasks... Templates: • {{Mesoamerica site infobox}} (create) • {{Mesoamerica ruler infobox}} (create) • {{Maya civilization}} (improve) • {{WP Mesoamerica}} project banner (populate) • More... ARTICLE TO-DO: Requested articles: • History of Mesoamerica • Chenes (Maya subregion & architectural style) • 260-day Mesoamerican calendar • List of Mesoamerican cultures • Hermann Beyer • Huastec civilization • Valley of Oaxaca • More... Expand from stub: • Calendar round • Chiapas highlands • Chilam Balam • Chol language • Trecena • Veintena • More... Cleanup/attention needed: • Domesticated plants of Mesoamerica • Gender in Mesoamerican cultures • History of Mesoamerica (Paleo-Indian) • Gender in Maya society • Olmec figurine • More... Improvement drive: Start-Class • Mesoamerican calendars • Mesoamerican chronology • Mixtec • Monte Albán • Toltec • Yucatán Peninsula • More... Improvement drive: B-Class • Chichen Itza • La Venta • Maya calendar • Maya civilization • Maya script • Olmec • Quetzalcoatl • More... Prepare for Quality reviews (GA, PR, FAC): • Mesoamerica • Mayan languages • Spanish conquest of Mexico • Palenque • Chunchucmil • More...

	This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see lists of open tasks and regional and topical task forces. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.
Start	This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.
Additional information and associated task forces: This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-Class status: Referencing and citation: criterion met Coverage and accuracy: criterion met Structure: criterion not met Grammar: criterion met Supporting materials: criterion met Associated task forces (general topics): Military technology and engineering task force Weaponry task force Associated task forces (nations and regions): South American military history task force

	Mexico Portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Mexico, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to Mexico on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
Start	This article has been rated as Start-Class on the Project's quality scale. (If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.

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.

Obsidian is glass. The edge of those blades was sharper than any metallic sword.Tmangray 19:51, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

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)

This is a picture from the Florentine Codex, representing a battle between mesoamerican indians. As you can see, there is some mutilated bodies, clearly raped by a slashing weapon like the maquahuitl. The aztecs were also so afficionated to cutting heads and putting them in a public place like trophy after the battles or sacrifices. --Ozomatli-Tepoztli 00:30, 20 March 2007 (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.

It's hard to know exactly how Maquahuitl seems in the times of the aztecs. All we has are the pictures in the Codex's illustrations and those are very variated. Some appear to be very rudimentary while others appear to be very elaborated and polished. Besides the escriban-artist's sensibility variation, i think that all versions maybe certain, because it's not rare that they had different types of Maquahuitl depending on the cost, the maker's hability and the social status of the carrier.

About the "club subject" you must remember that they certainly used the Maquahuitl like a club (although not a deadly one) in the Garland Wars, or whenever that they wanted to take a prisoner without using the obsidian blades. Also note that Maquahuitl evolved from macanas. --Ozomatli-Tepoztli 00:30, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[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.

obsidian and carbon steel are about the same hardness (5 or so on the Mohs scale), but obsidian, being glass, is brittle. it would be ground to powder long before one could apply pressure sufficient to cut through steel. (it was in fact very difficult to cut through late european plate armor even with steel swords; one needed a heavy halberd or pollaxe or somesuch.) obsidian weapons might be effective against mail, since fragments could slip through the rings; against plate they would do nothing. 71.248.115.187 20:40, 16 October 2007 (UTC)