|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weapons Back to Meeting in Battle Click any item to see an enlargement |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Saber blade Spanish Colonial, ca. 1850-1900 Mexico (?) Gift of Mr. Gary Watkins 9108/45 Courtesy of the Palace of the Governors, Museum of New Mexico |
"Cavalry" saber blade typical of arms used by Spanish and Mexican mounted soldiers. Blade is engraved "No Me Saques Sin Rason" on one face and "No Me Embaines Sin Honor" on the reverse: "Don't take me out without reason" and "Don't sheath me without honor." This blade is reported to have been collected in New Mexico; the engraved motto is typical of Spanish and Mexican armament decoration of the time. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Estribo de cruz, stirrup Spanish Colonial, ca. 1700-1800 Mexico Gift of Mr. Edward Pierson 11490/45 Courtesy of the Palace of the Governors, Museum of New Mexico |
Heavy, hand-wrought iron "estribos de cruz," or "Conquistador stirrups" used by Spanish cavalry troops during the 1700s, eventually were banned as "unsuitable and dangerous" in the Royal Regulations of 1772. On the frontier of northern New Mexico, they continued to be used for show and pleasure riding well into the 1800s. Roque Madrid's troops may have sported these stirrups as they rode through fields and settlements during their punitive raids into the Gobernador region in the early 1700s. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Lance blades Spanish Colonial, ca. 1775-1800 Provenience unknown 3227/45 Courtesy of the Palace of the Governors, Museum of New Mexico Spanish
Colonial, ca. 1600-1750
|
The hand-forged steel "buffalo spearpoint" on the right was found during construction work at Santa Fe Railroad Station in early 1900s. The blade may have been forged in northern Mexico and brought up to Santa Fe area on the Camino Real during the 1600s or 1700s. "Ciboleros" were used for both hunting and as a weapon for horse-mounted militia, this socketed point would have been mounted on a long wooden lance. The heavier blade on the left was forged with a tang which would have been fitted into a metal-bound haft. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Wheel lock spanner Spanish Colonial, ca. 1590-1700 Frances Ruin, Gobernador Region Morris excavations, 1915, #377 Courtesy of the University of Colorado Museum, Boulder |
This "spanner," or wrench, was made to wind up the
sparking "wheel" of a wheel lock gun. When the marksman pulled the trigger, the
rough-toothed wheel spun back against a pyrite striker and sparks set off the gunpowder
charge in the priming pan. Soldiers carried spanners on their belt or gun holster, along
with powder horns and pouches of bullets. This spanner may have been separated from its
wheel lock gun long before it came to the Dinétah from the Spanish settlements on the Rio
Grande. The first firearms carried to the New World were matchlock muskets. Notoriously slow to load--first, fill the priming pan with gunpowder, then push more gunpowder and a lead ball down the barrel, then light the saltpeter-soaked match or fuse, lock it into position, blow the glowing end back into life, release the pan cover, and aim--these were tricky to fire. All too often, the "match" burned out at a critical moment or, worse yet, set off loose gunpowder on the soldier's clothing or in his pockets. In the 1600s and 1700s, matchlocks were replaced by wheel lock and flint lock muskets, light muskets, or arquebuses, and pistols. Inspection records show that Don Juan de Oñate's expedition first brought both wheel lock arquebuses (Arquebuses de rrueda) and matchlock muskets to New Mexico in 1598; wheel lock pistols and flint lock guns followed later. The earliest reports of Navajos armed with rifles comes from 1776. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Wheel lock pistol holster Colonial Americas, ca, 1600-1700 Adapted from Peterson, Arms and Armor in Colonial America 1526-1783, Plate 70 |
Spanish Colonial frontier garrison mounted troops carried pistols during the 1600s and 1700s. The holster (brown) carried the pistol, the spanner (red), a powder flask and pouch of shot. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Lead ball Spanish Colonial, ca. 1600-1650 Pa'ako Pueblo, LA 162 Museum excavations, 1936 17692/11 |
Possible musket ball found in excavations of Kiva I, Pa'ako Pueblo. Abandoned after the arrival of the Spanish, this pueblo was a community of several hundred people when the Spanish arrived. Lead balls and iron cross-bow points have been found at many pueblos and campsites occupied by the Spanish military during first contact between the Pueblos and the Europeans. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Metal arrowheads Left: Apache or Pueblo, ca. 1600-1700 Surface find northwest of Rio Rancho, New Mexico Gift of Alan Ferg 51293/11 Middle: Pueblo, ca. 1650 Right: Pueblo, ca. 1600-1700 |
For those in close contact with the Spanish and the succeeding colonial settlements, metal soon replaced stone in arrowheads. Much more common in the Southwest after United States Army introduced ample raw strip metal in the barrel hoops and box bands which came along with the military supply wagons, metal arrowpoints become an increasingly common part of the archaeological record after 1600. Early metal points were made from spoon handles, knives, wagon wheel hoops, and other flat pieces of iron. By the mid-1800s, Apache, Navajo, Comanche, Ute and other mobile horse-mounted fighters were using chisels and tin snips to cut out arrowpoints to re-arm themselves during quick raids and hunting trips. A few metal points are reported from the Gobernador; these are held now in private collections. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Stone arrowhead Surface find, Gobernador, LA 78481 New Mexico Bureau of Land Management Collections in the Museum of New Mexico 35373/ARC |
The stone arrowheads made by the Navajo in the Gobernador tend to be small, with small notches on both lower margins, and also on the base itself. This chalcedony point shows how the flintknapper worked to make the point light and easily bound to a wood foreshaft or reed arrowshaft. Sometimes known as "bird points," these unassuming weapons were made to penetrate deeply and cause fast bleeding. Paired with the powerful, double-curved bow brought by their Athapaskan ancestors into the Southwest, the stone-tipped arrows of the Navajo could be driven deep into deer, or horse, food for the table, or attacking enemies. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Image not available Stone pipe Navajo, ca. 1650-1750 Gobernador Courtesy of the Jicarilla Ranger Station, Carson National Forest |
Most stone or ceramic pipes of the ancestral Southwest have simple shapes and are decorated with a variety of symbols drawn from nature. This gun barrel "pipe" may have been the only rifle fired by the Gobernador Navajo during the early contact between the old cultures of the Southwest and the spreading world of New Spain. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Navajo History | Early Archaeology | Pueblito Architecture | Clothing & Tools New Spain (1600-1700) | Modern Archaeology | Timeline | Acknowledgements Exhibition Schedule |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
