Not particularly inspiring at first glance, but then I googled “tule,” a word I hand’t come across before. I figured cattails would be some kind of Thypha. Tules turn out to be types of sedges, although some people seem to use the words interchangeably, or indeed together. Anyway, tules have an interesting ethnobotany in the American Southwest, along with other geophytes.
Tule: nice word.
Wikipedia says “tule” is Nahuatl, but the name is used outside areas of Nahuatl influence, too (including Guatemala and Honduras). I don’t think it exists in peninsular Spanish, so an American origin doesn’t seem unlikely. But that doesn’t explain why the word is used further to the South, too. Nahuatl is not spoken in Central America. Some closely related languages exist (like Pipil), but the majority speak other, Mayan languages.
That reminds me that Fuentes de Guzman, a Guatemalan colonial writer of the 17th century, mentions all kinds of interesting dishes with Nahuatl-sounding names in his Recordacion Florida. When I mentioned this to a Guatemalan historian, he was quite delighted and explained that during the Spanish conquest Nahuatl speakers came along with the conquistadores, settled, and formed an intermediary group between local people and Spanish elite. Some of their heritage still survives, including the word “tule”, I guess.
Very interesting. Could prove to be worthwhile, but did they look into the possibility of introducing a more diverse population of native plants into the delta? because they may essentially turn the land away from one mono-culture just to reintroduce it to another, with certain said properties. we’ve seen this happen before, with others who have tried to use certain grasses for erosion, trying to correct a problem, only to bring on more. Plant diversity in most cases is more beneficial to ecosystems.
From my recollection, the Nahuatl word “tullin” was changed by the early Spanish explorers to “tulare”, which then got altered by the early European settlers in America to our present day “tule”.
Youtube video on tule boat construction:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH5e7CUw688