machanas

Updated: May 13, 2025

Careca agreed to supply the Spaniards with food, and to join them with his family and subjects. The only arms these natives used were bows and poisoned arrows, as we have already described was the case amongst those in the eastern part beyond the gulf. As they have no iron, they use in hand-to-hand combat long wooden swords, which they call machanas.

- De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2): The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera