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Updated: May 9, 2025
"In destroying our proud and violent enemies you have given peace to us and to all our people. You overcome monsters. We believe that you and your equally brave companions have been sent from Heaven, and under the protection of your machanes we may henceforth live without fear. Our gratitude to him who brings us these blessings and happiness shall be eternal."
The natives threw darts from a distance and then, gradually drawing nearer, they used their wooden swords and machanes, in a furious assault. So greatly enraged were they that, astonishing as it may seem, they were not frightened either by bows, arquebuses, or the noise of the cannon fired from the ships.
Vines loaded with ripe grapes grow spontaneously amid the trees, but they are wild vines and there is such an abundance of useful and appetising fruits that nobody bothers to cultivate vineyards. The natives manufacture their machanes, that is to say swords, and the darts they throw, out of a certain kind of palm-wood.
Throwing their javelins, brandishing their lances and machanes, which we have already said were wooden swords, they strove to repel our men from the coast. They were painted in different fashions; some of them painted the whole body except the face, others only a part. They gave it to be understood that they wished neither peace nor trading relations with the Spaniards.
They shoot their poisoned arrows with the rapidity of lightning, and kill the dogs in great numbers; but the natives of these mountains do not use arrows in warfare; they only use machanes, that is to say, large wooden swords, and lances with burnt points.
He promised in return for his pardon a large quantity of gold, and clasping his hands upon his breast, he said that he always both loved and feared the Spaniards, because he had learned their machanes that is to say, their swords were sharper than his and cut deeper wherever they struck.
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