![]() In the English-speaking Caribbean, Robert Mole & Sons of Birmingham, England, was long considered the manufacturer of agricultural cutlasses of the best quality. Its first machetes were sold in 1845 and became so famous that a machete was called un collin. The company was founded as Collins & Company in 1826 by Samuel W. In the past, the most famous manufacturer of machetes in Latin America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean was Collins Company of Collinsville, Connecticut. ![]() Good machetes rely on the materials used and the shape. The machete was used as a weapon during the Mau Mau rebellion, in the Rwandan Genocide, and in South Africa, particularly in the 1980s and early 1990s when the former province of Natal was wracked by conflict between the African National Congress and the Zulu-nationalist Inkatha Freedom Party. This machete is issued with a 13 cm (5 in) Bowie knife and a sharpening stone in the scabbard collectively called a "jungle kit" ( Conjunto de Selva in Portuguese) it is manufactured by Indústria de Material Bélico do Brasil ( IMBEL). The Brazilian Army's Instruction Center on Jungle Warfare developed a machete-style knife with a blade 25 cm (10 in) in length and a very pronounced clip point. Throughout the English-speaking islands of the Caribbean, the term 'cutlass' refers to a laborers' cutting tool. To strike with the sharpened edge is to "chop". In the British Virgin Islands, Grenada, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Barbados, Saint Lucia, and Trinidad and Tobago, the word planass means to hit someone with the flat of the blade of a machete or cutlass. Some countries have a name for the blow of a machete the Spanish machetazo is sometimes used in English. Machetes in this role are referenced in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. The machete is a common side arm and tool for many ethnic groups in West Africa. ![]() The first cavalry charge using machetes as the primary weapon was carried out on 4 November 1868 by Máximo Gómez, a sergeant born in the Dominican Republic, who later became the general in chief of the Cuban Army. He proceeded to lead them, armed with machetes, in revolt against the Spanish government. Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, owner of the sugar refinery La Demajagua near Manzanillo, freed his slaves on 10 October 1868. The machete was also the most iconic weapon during the independence wars in Cuba, although it saw limited battlefield use. Volunteer militiamen led by Pepe Antonio, a Guanabacoa councilman, were issued with machetes during the unsuccessful defense of the city. In 1762, the British captured Havana in a lengthy siege during the Seven Years' War. Machetes were also a distinctive tool and weapon of the Haitian Tonton Macoute. Many of the killings in the 1994 Rwandan genocide were performed with machetes, and they were the primary weapon used by the Interahamwe militias there. For example, the Boricua Popular Army are unofficially called macheteros because of the machete-wielding laborers of sugar cane fields of past Puerto Rico. People in uprisings sometimes use these weapons. However, many hunter–gatherer societies and cultures surviving through subsistence agriculture begin teaching babies to use sharp tools, including machetes, before their first birthdays. Machetes are often considered tools and used by adults. It is common to see people using machetes for other jobs, such as splitting open coconuts, yard work, removing small branches and plants, chopping animals' food, and clearing bushes. Besides this, in Latin America a common use is for such household tasks as cutting large foodstuffs into pieces-much as a cleaver is used-or to perform crude cutting tasks, such as making simple wooden handles for other tools. ![]() In various tropical and subtropical countries, the machete is frequently used to cut through rainforest undergrowth and for agricultural purposes (e.g. ![]() In much of the English-speaking Caribbean, such as Jamaica, Barbados, Guyana, Grenada, and Trinidad and Tobago, the term cutlass is used for these agricultural tools. It is the origin of the English language equivalent term matchet, though this is less commonly used. Alternatively, its origin may be machaera, the name given by the Greeks and Romans to the falcata. In the Spanish language, the word is possibly a diminutive form of the word macho, which was used to refer to sledgehammers. The blade is typically 30 to 45 centimetres (12 to 18 in) long and usually under 3 millimetres ( 1⁄ 8 in) thick. Horn handle, hand forged blade (hammer marks visible)Ī machete ( / m ə ˈ ʃ ɛ t i/ Spanish pronunciation: ) is a broad blade used either as an agricultural implement similar to an axe, or in combat like a long-bladed knife. ![]()
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