Armor use in the Americas

Are there any accounts by Europeans on the effectiveness of the armors used by various indigenous peoples compared to European armor?

The wooden branch armour sometimes used by north americans was pretty good against clubs. Ditto for the padded gear the mesoamericans used

But how did it hold up to, say, steel swords? Depending on thickness, I would think it might be able to withstand swords (though I am skeptical of polearms).

There is the Ichcahuipilli which is cotton laced and braided, layers of cotton that in a way is like the gambeson, meant to soften blows by the layers.

How effective it is? Against flint arrows it is great, it works like intended, against steel everything else (swords/lances/bullets/maces) I highly doubt they would be of any use, there is however people here that will say that they were good enough to deflect bullets or that swords cannot do a thing to these but most of the time they are the same ones that claim that the Macuahuitl could cleave through an armored knight and horse in a single swipe so my opinion of this armor and weapon is leaning towards the same as the ones that claim that the katanas are essentially lightsabers

it would make it difficult for a steel sword to get through, however rodeleros were trained to spar with the enemy and make an opening before closing so they can lunge with enough force to penetrate or more likely strike an unprotected area

Now, I always thought gambesons could be relatively effective against swords?

As for the Incas and the ones preceding them I can talk more about them, civilizations in pre columbian Peru are were pretty good smiths, they made beautiful art in bronze as well as making what it looks like breastplates of pieces of bronze, however the ones I have seen are sparce and very little and most of them don't look like any other scaled breastplate I have seen so I am dubious to think they were used in mass, probably the Sapa Inca or other feudal lords when they bothered to attend the battles the common foot soldier I would think just their cotton clothes and even some leather/cotton shirt so soften the blows but that is a stretch

That makes a lot of sense. It probably helped the Europeans that the swords at the time were largely thrust-centric.

they are, that is why I have not erased the Ichcahuipilli completely from being useful how useful is another thing entirely

Do you have any pics of the bronze armor though? I had never heard of Natives using metal armor before, so even if it is just nobles, that goes beyond my knowledge (I tend to focus on Euro history).

Sure, here is the one I have looked at it in person it is however super thin, now I don't know how thick are other breastplates (talking about european ones) but when I looked at it it seemed too thin, to which I thought like anything concerning the Sapa Inca to be ceremonial

Just how thin is it?

Lets see, like the thickness of a CD(Kinda hard to put it in words)

Bernal Diaz on the preparations for Cortez's expedition to Mexico: "Cotton being very plentiful here we constructed ourselves cuirasses with it, which form the most efficient protection against Indian arrows, pikes, and slings."

To contrast here is a mace, this things are nasty tho and are pure bronze

Maybe it was worn with something else underneath it or over it? Kind of like a coat of plates?

I'm pretty impressed that they could defend against the native pikes. I will have to look up native pikes to see how they compare.

Not him, but pic realted is from the moche that were much more older that the incas and used metal armor.
The incas, i heard used bronze or cooper helmets and breastplates.
Also the op pic is inaccurate.

Thanks for the pic, user.

I just searched "Native American armor" and downloaded what seemed to be the most appropriate result.

>coat of plates
Like that, underneath it was their clothes and remainder of their status symbols

>ITT Aztecs, Incans and no more

So are you gonna actually contribute or

Something similar happened in the conquest of the incas, there were spaniards wearing native armor and natives wearing spanish armor, shit was so surreal.
You're welcome, here is a ceremonial sword-like chimu weapon.

The Codex Vaticanus 3738 A is an Italian translation of the Codex Telleriano-Remensis made in 1562. This is a quote of the page 25:

>"(the Ichcahuipilli armor) endured arrows (atlatl darts) that were able to pierce through the strongest coats of mail and even some cuirasses."

However, it must be noted that modern recreations of the Atlatl indicate that it was able to penetrate mail armor, but not breastplates.
I haven't found accurate tests regarding the Ichcahuipilli armor, probably because there's not a single specimen remaining.

Among the Mesoamericans, the Chinantecs and the Pipils were fond of very long lances, which ranged from 4 to 6.2 meters.
In fact, Cortes defeated with ease the cavalry of Panfilo de Narvaez thanks to the Chinantec support.
According to Diaz del Castillo, Cortes soon recieved many of these lances after he sent a veteran of the Italian wars with a metal pattern in order to instruct the Chinantecs to replace the obsidian blades with copper points.

Here's another account:

>"Motecusuma had also two arsenals filled with arms of every description, of which many were ornamented with gold and precious stones. These arms consisted in shields of different sizes, sabres, and a species of broadsword, which is wielded with both hands, the edge furnished with flint stones, so extremely sharp that they cut much better than our Spanish swordsm: further, lances of greater length than ours, with spikes at their end, full one fathom in length, likewise furnished with several sharp flint stones. The pikes are so very sharp and hard that they will pierce the strongest shield, and cut like a razor"

- True History of the Conquest of New Spain, Chapter XCI

How would that work against conquistador plate? It's heavy, but soft.

Wait, I thought bronze was harder than iron

>iron
Steel.

I doubt it. Steel is generally stronger.

no steel. iron.

Not against an armored knight of course, but it could decapitate an unprotected horse.

According to an account by Bernal Díaz del Castillo, one of Hernán Cortés’s conquistadors, it could even decapitate a horse:

Pedro de Morón was a very good horseman, and as he charged with three other horsemen into the ranks of the enemy the Indians seized hold of his lance and he was not able to drag it away, and others gave him cuts with their broadswords, and wounded him badly, and then they slashed at the mare, and cut her head off at the neck so that it hung by the skin, and she fell dead.

Another account by a companion of Cortés known as The Anonymous Conqueror tells a similar story of its effectiveness:

They have swords of this kind — of wood made like a two-handed sword, but with the hilt not so long; about three fingers in breadth. The edges are grooved, and in the grooves they insert stone knives, that cut like a Toledo blade. I saw one day an Indian fighting with a mounted man, and the Indian gave the horse of his antagonist such a blow in the breast that he opened it to the entrails, and it fell dead on the spot. And the same day I saw another Indian give another horse a blow in the neck, that stretched it dead at his feet.
—"Offensive and Defensive Arms", page 23

Another account by Francisco de Aguilar read:

They used ... cudgels and swords and a great many bows and arrows ... One Indian at a single stroke cut open the whole neck of Cristóbal de Olid’s horse, killing the horse. The Indian on the other side slashed at the second horseman and the blow cut through the horse’s pastern, whereupon this horse also fell dead.

As soon as this sentry gave the alarm, they all ran out with their weapons to cut us off, following us with great fury, shooting arrows, spears and stones, and wounding us with their swords. Here many Spaniards fell, some dead and some wounded, and others without any injury who fainted away from fright.

Other way around, textile based armor is generally much better against the thrust rather then the cut. zzz

>Also the op pic is inaccurate.
Elaborate

My biggest problem is with the 4th from the right, clearly is seen using a moche mace which no longer existed in inca times, his shield also.
I believe the warrior was modeled from this Moche ceramic, nearly a thousand years more older than the inca empire.

An account of Inca Garcilaso, History of the Conquest of the New World, Volume XII, Chapter X, confirms the description:

>"With this weapon, made of wood and about 60-90 cm long, they throw javelins so strongly that many have witnessed how it can pierce through a man with coat of mail.
In Peru this was the most feared weapon by the Spaniards."

I doubt the flint weapons was a effective as that Spaniard is making them out to be.

Neolithic people started making flint swords too as they started coming into contact with bronze weapons, but that stopped very quickly.

There are also other minor problems like the cotton shirt, it was inside of the tunic.
Also the ethnic incas used two hawk feathers on their helmets, not one or three, they had short hair and some of them very short, often used cloaks, belts, bags and tumis (a type of knife) in their attire.
And I've never seen an outfit like the 2nd from the right, but i guess i can't exclude the possibility.

Penetrating armor is extremely hard,even with weapons designed to get through armor. The best way to defeat armor is going for joints or gaps or using the force of your blow to hurt the person wearing it. So I would imagine that a heavy mace like the one in that picture could probably break some bones through the armor if it got a good hit.

Yeah, the accounts seem to mix truth and lies, so they should be taken with some discretion. Speaking of which, the Spaniard omits that,
albeit sharper, the obsidian broadswords were more brittle. I also checked the original account and found a discrepancy in the translation, Diaz del Castillo doesn't says that lances could pierce through their shields, but that the obsidian blades of the lances didn't shattered after hitting the shields.

On another note, I think those flint swords of the picture were experiments since a weapon made only of glass seems unpractical.

Post more native american armor.

...

They were ceremonial, and never used for combat.
The theory is that they were made after seeing bronze swords, but not being able to produce them by themselves yet.
The sword on the right was likely mounted into a wooden frame.

Several north american tribes such as the Iroquois used woven hemp and wood armor. They would make wooden plates and then weave them together with hemp. How effective was it?

Well, it stopped stone arrows, would stop a warclub and would probably stop even a good slash from a metal weapon. It was worthless against steel arrows, though. In the first encounters between Europeans and the Iroquois the natives used a lot of heavy armor and mantlets. They'd occasionally row up on canoes, use the canoes as mantlets and assault European positions.

Guns made their armor nonviable and it was quickly abandoned in favor of hit and run skirmishing attacks that emphasized superior mobility. Nobody ever accused them of being stupid.

Oh, and before I forget they also used leather to back and reinforce the armor. They were also very fond of large wooden shields. So you could expect their equipment to be a little better (or equivalent to) some lighter armor in Europe.

Slashing would be less effective than a decided chop, a stab would likely get through with ease.
It wouldn't offer significant protection but it likely would have been enough to slow a blow that didn't have the attackers full weight behind it. Getting a cut or bruise instead if getting slashed open, you know.

bump

Forgot to mention, during the skirmish of projectiles that preceded the battle, the Mesoamericans used wicker shields in order to protect themselves from arrows or atlatl darts and avoid damage on their bucklers:

>"Then there were excellent bows and arrows, pikes with single and double points, and the proper thongs to throw them with; slings with round stones purposely made for them; also a species of large shield, so ingeniously constructed that it could be rolled up when not wanted: they are only unrolled on the field of battle, and completely cover the whole body from the head to the feet."

- True History of the Conquest of New Spain, Chapter XCI

The original chronicle of the Anonymous Conquistador is unknown, but an Italian translation (written in 1556) survived. Here's a description, found in the fourth chapter, of the Tlahuiztli feathered suit:

>"Both the jerkin and the breeches are made of thick cloth and covered by a feathered suit of different colors, which provide a beautiful sight: some companies of soldiers wear them white and red, others blue and yellow and in many other ways. The nobles wear a certain type of tunic, made of gilded silver instead of mail. These feathered clothes are proportional to the power of their weapons and deflect arrows and darts without injury, and they are hard to pierce even with swords."

>You will never see Mel Gibson direct a sequel to Apocalypto that shows the europeans using their superior tech and unintentionally their germs destroying what's left of the Maya

I am not convinced by the reconstruction because the finishing seems unpolished compared to the surviving feather works.
Pic related is an attire worn by Nezahualcoyotl, according to the Codex Ixtlilxochil.

...

And here's one of the few remaining shields.

Peru, circa 450-750 AD.
Not sure if it counts as an armor though.

And some Moche warriors, 300-450 A.D.

Clavijero mentioned that those shields were probably made out of rubber. I can't find the original source, but it seems to be Diego Godoy.

It should be considered that the side-swords and early rapiers of the time were still well capable of delivering a cut, even though they were focussed on the thrust.

Better pic.

I can just imagine some jelly proto greek making this

So the reason they're never depicted in armour isn't because they had none but rather because they were consistently against guns.
Shame, imagine the battles if earlier mediaevals had invaded America.