Machetes for the Survivalist

I tend to believe there is no tool more essential than the machete. In fact, one of the first items that primitive tribes added to their toolkit was the metal machete. Arab traders brought machetes to Southeast Asia, and Europeans brought them to South and Central America. So important were machetes that missionaries in the 1970s, when trying to contact jungle tribes in Ecuador, would drop machetes from helicopters as gifts to attempt to make contact, and ironically, civilize them.