Eureka!!! I think I found it!!
In "Southwestern Colonial Ironwork: The Spanish Blacksmithing Tradition from Texas to California" by Marc Simmons and Frank Turley, New Mexico, 1980....on p.87, are shown several of these and they are ox goads ('puntas de buey'), which were actually an old world implement used to prod oxen with wooden rod with steel tip, in Spain it was called a 'garrocha' and in the New World, as noted.
They are a socketed iron point, most examples have at the base of the point a decorative motif formed by edge filing. These were attached to a wooden pole or handle They were formed from a single piece of stock and one end was tapered to a square sectioned point. The other was hammered thin flared, then rolled to form a socket. The seam was often left open, but the smith if he chose could weld it solid over a mandrel.
The examples seen have much the same decorative motif, and are remarkably similar.
While this seems to place this as more of an implement, it must be remembered that on the frontier most everything had utilitarian uses and could easily serve as a weapon as required . The well known espada ancha, while obviously a sword, became what is commonly known as the machete as they were used most often in clearing chapparal by the soldados and horsemen.
** please pardon faux pas in the book title "Spanish Military Weapons" I meant Brinckerhoff & Chamberlain.....I always think Pierce, oops and forget about Brinckerhoff.
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