cut smooth in that part; and then they press it against their breast, and with the force of the pressure there flies off a knife, with its point, and edge on each tide, as neatly as if one were to make them of a turnip with a sharp knife, or of iron in the fire. Then they sharpen it on a stone, using a hone to give it a very fine edge; and in a very short time these workmen will make more than twenty knives in the aforesaid manner. They come out of the same shape as our barbers’ lancets, except that they have a rib up the middle, and have a slight graceful curve towards the point. They will cut and shave the hair the first time they are used, at the first cut nearly as well as a steel razor, but they lose their edge at the second cut; and so, to finish shaving one’s beard or hair, one after another has to be used; though indeed they are cheap, and spoiling them is of no consequence. Many Spaniards, both regular and secular clergy, have been shaved with them, especially at the beginning of the colonization of these realms, when there was no such abundance as now of the necessary instruments, and people who gain their livelihood by practising this occupation. But I conclude by saying that it is an admirable thing to see them made, and no small argument for the capacity of the men who found out such an invention.”
Vetancurt (Teatro Mejicano) gives an account, taken from the above. Hernandez (Rerum Med. Nov. Hisp. Thes.: Rome, 1631) gives a similar account of the process. He compares the wooden instrument used to a cross-bow. It was evidently a T-shaped implement, and the workman held the cross-piece with his two hands against his breast, while the end of the straight stick rested on the stone. He furthermore gives a description of the making of the well-known maquahuitl, or Aztec war-club, which was armed on both sides with a row of obsidian knives, or teeth, stuck into holes with a kind of gum. With this instrument, he says, a man could be cut in half at a blow—an absurd statement, which has been repeated by more modern writers.