Mexico Receives
Odd and Curious Find
CULTURAL PATRIMONY IS back in the news. A find of more than 3,500 pieces of hoe money have been returned to Mexico by an unnamed U.S. collector due to the primitive money being part of Mexico’s cultural patrimony.
The hoe money is being returned voluntarily due to it having been acquired prior to Mexico becoming a signatory to the UNESCO convention in 1972 and the United States in 1983.
Peter K. Tompa is a Washington attorney who is the executive director of the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild. According to Tompa, “In theory, they could have threatened him with a violation of the National Stolen Property Act, but that is not clear.”
The FBI was involved in the recovery of the primitive money, having learned of the hoard’s existence by Mexican authorities in 2013. The odd and curious money had been taken to Spain where it was to be auctioned. It was at that time Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History began authenticating the money in preparation for a request for its return.
Jessica Cascante is a spokesperson for the Mexican Consulate in Miami. According to Cascante, the unnamed collector purchased the hoard at a coin show in Texas during the 1960s. Since this was before the two nations signed the UNESCO convention, that individual would not be charged with a crime for possessing the find.
Cascante said, “Now we’re just waiting for the physical material to arrive [in Mexico].” She confirmed that as of Dec. 31, 2019 the objects were being packaged with assistance from specialists at Florida museums.
Hoe money has been used by primitive societies in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. The objects resemble a hoe, but represent the value of labor rather than serve as a functional tool. At the time of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire during the 16th century, copper composition hoe money was known as tajadero, which is Spanish for “chopping knife.” At that time, “hoe” or “axe money” as it was sometimes called, had a value of 8,000 cacao beans. Cacao beans continued to be used as money by local natives as late as the 19th century.
Living in Antiquera de Oaxaca in 1548, Francisco Lopez Tenorio wrote, “This is the form of copper coins that were in use in New Spain. The value placed, and at which these were commonly accepted, was four such pieces, if new, for five Spanish reales. If worn, many refused to accept them, and they were sold to be melted into 10 pieces for one Spanish real.”
Tenorio described the objects as “sliced mushrooms.” He backed up this observation with a picture of hoe money he sketched.
Several sources tie the likely 1966 find magazine indicates the discovery is associated with chambers in a cave system in the ruins of the Mayan city of Chichen Itza that has since been named Balamku, or “Cave of the Jaguar God.”
