The maquahuitl (Classical Nahuatl: māccuahuitl, other orthographic variants include mākkwawitl and mācquahuitl; plural māccuahuimeh),[4] a type of macana, was a common weapon used by the Aztec military forces and other cultures of central Mexico.

[8] According to conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo, the macuahuitl was 0.91 to 1.22 m long, and 75 mm wide, with a groove along either edge, into which sharp-edged pieces of flint or obsidian were inserted and firmly fixed with an adhesive.

[10] According to the research of historian Marco Cervera Obregón, the sharp pieces of obsidian, each about 3 cm long, were attached to the flat paddle with a natural adhesive, bitumen.

[13][15] According to Marco Cervera Obregón, there is supposed to be at least one macuahuitl in a Museo Nacional de Antropología warehouse,[16] but it is possibly lost.

A 500 años de su caída" at the Museo del Templo Mayor in Mexico city, an alleged authentic macuahuitl was displayed along with an atlatl.

A Mayan carving at Chichen Itza shows a warrior holding a macuahuitl, depicted as a club having separate blades sticking out from each side.

[22] By the time of the Spanish conquest, the macuahuitl was widely distributed in Mesoamerica, with records of its use by the Aztecs, Mixtecs, Tarascans, Toltecs and others.

[19] 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.

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.

The macuahuitl thus shows several features designed to make it a useful tool for capturing prisoners: fitting spaced instead of contiguous blades, as seen in many codex illustrations, would intentionally limit the wound depth from a single blow, and the heavy wooden construction allows weakened opponents to be easily clubbed unconscious with the flat side of the weapon.

The art of disabling opponents using an un-bladed macuahuitl as a sparring club was taught from a young age in the Aztec Tēlpochcalli schools.

The thin, replaceable blades used on the macuahuitl were easily dulled or chipped by repeated impacts on bone or wood, making artful use of the weapon critical.

[30] Replicas of the macuahuitl have been produced and tested against sides of beef for documentary shows on the History and Discovery channels, to demonstrate the effectiveness of this weapon.

On the History show Warriors, special forces operator and martial artist Terry Schappert injured himself while fencing with a macuahuitl; he cut the back of his left leg as the result of a back-swing motion.