Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/536

520 brought from that country to be exchanged for other merchandise, and that they were made of copper.

All those very uniform implements, termed "T-shaped," of which we know, are also of pure or unalloyed copper. As to these, however, there is nothing in the records or in the objects themselves to warrant belief in their ante-Cortesian origin. The material of which they are made appears to be the hammered sheet-copper in use before the invention of the rolling-mill in 1784, and which formed, as the records show, a very favorite article of aboriginal trade. The specimens bear no evidence of oxidation to indicate great age, and the fact that their edges are very neatly cut gives rise to the suspicion that their manufacture must have been subsequent to the introduction of the necessary European cutting-tools. They were found only in the State of Oaxaca, and in each find there were great numbers of them. It is not improbable, then, that for some purpose or other a large lot of sheet-copper was at an early day introduced among the natives of that section, who in turn converted it into these implements. What special use they were intended to serve we can at present only surmise. The absence of objects like these in the aboriginal codices should be noted, while throughout the whole literature of the conquest there is but one approach to their description. This is found in Torquemada, who says: "They also used certain copper coins almost in the shape of a Greek Tau, its width about three or four fingers. It was a thin piece of plate of an uncertain size, and contained much gold." It is not likely that the specimens in question were used as coins, for the edges of what might be called the shank are flattened as if for the attachment of a handle, and hence its probable use as an implement. Moreover, they do not answer to Torquemada's description, for, instead of being three or four fingers in width, they vary in this respect from fourteen to twenty centimetres; and, instead of containing much gold, analyses have proved them to be of very pure copper. Admitting them, however, to be the objects that Torquemada had in mind when he wrote, he is not sufficient authority for ascribing them to pre-Cortesian art.

In the National Museum at Washington there are three copper specimens that were used as awls. One of them, which is nine inches long, is pointed at one end, and flattened or beveled at the other, while it bears unmistakable evidences of having been shaped by hammering. It closely resembles in form, composition, and fabrication a similar tool lately procured by the Bureau of Ethnology from a mound in Wisconsin. These, with other specimens, were purchased from the collection of the distinguished Mexican archæologist, Don Fernando Ramirez, but it is to be deeply regretted that, with the exception of one or two specimens, no data accompanied them as to the locality or manner in which they were found. We can not even say with certainty that they were found within the limits of Mexico.

In this collection came also five specimens the precise use of which