Macana

Head of Macana

Macana with Bronze Head

Bronze heads

Macana del Amazonas. Museum of America.

Macuahuitl

Incas

The macana is an offensive weapon, like a machete or club, made of hard wood and sometimes with a flint edge, used by Native Americans. The term macana of Taíno origin is It is widely used to refer to the wooden maces used by the warriors of the pre-Columbian peoples in Central and South America, although it is also often used to designate heavy clubs.

Some known macanas are the macuahuitl used by the Mexica, which had obsidian or flint knives or blades embedded in its sides, and a kind of macana-spear used by the Incas and other Andean peoples, which consisted of a wooden shaft with a stone or other blunt object at one end, which was regularly in the shape of a star to maximize the damage when hit, and could cause very serious injuries such as fractures and tears. It was the most common weapon in the arsenal of the Inca army.

Individual form

In modern Spanish the term is used (colloquially) to refer to a weapon used by security guards or riot police, with a shape very similar to Okinawan tonfas.

In Río de la Plata lunfardo it means a "nonsense" or "lie" what is said.