... the term "carrizo" in the quotation below (and as used by the Spanish 
chroniclers in western Texas) referred to the phragmites australis reed ... 

i've seen the word "carrizo" used by early Spanish chroniclers referring to 
source material for the cane arrows made by the Indians in the area of the 
southern California missions, too, which clearly (by contextual descriptions 
of the arrows) refers to some type of cane or reed, but I'm not sure it 
referred to phragmites ... did phragmites australis (or communis) grow along 
streams in southern California?

Bob Skiles


> In James L. Haley's <italic>Apaches: A History and Culture Portrait
> (</italic>University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), the author says the Apache
> of New Mexico and west Texas made two kinds of arrows, hardwood or cane.
> Hardwoods were "preferably mountain mahogany, Apache plume, or mulberry,
> and some Chiricahuas became known for arrows of desert broom
> (<italic>Baccharis sarothroides</italic>)." (p. 109)  Cane arrows were
> made from carrizo, and included a hardwood foreshaft four to six inches
> long.
>


~~~
"Smithers! Get that bedlamite to an alienist." ~ C. Monty Burns