Ixtle -sisal-henequin?

[Frye, David]

That must be it. Frances Karttunen's dictionary has i:ch-tli, thread made from maguey fiber (which is what sisal or henequen is, you know). 
 
Santamaria's Diccionario de Mejicanismos has:
 
Ixtle (Del azt. ixtli). m. Nombre generico, aztequismo que se ha hecho de uso universal para llamar toda clase de fibras vegetales. 2. Nombre que se aplica al genero vegetal de los Agaves y a las plantas que lo forman y que producen fibra, caracteristicas de Mejico, en numerosisimas especies que tienen varios nombres peculiares y regionales. 3. Por extension y en terminos de charreria, la reata de lazar, el peal, la lechuguilla, y esto por donaire.
 
(Santamaria, you should know, was no nahuatlato.)
 
I recall that in San Luis Potosi the word ixtle was used for the fiber/ropes made from the lechuguilla, a maguey-like plant but a lot tinier than your average maguey.
 
 
David Frye
Dependent scholar

________________________________

From: Nahua language and culture discussion on behalf of Stafford Poole
Sent: Fri 8/19/2005 5:30 PM
To: NAHUAT-L at LISTS.UMN.EDU
Subject: Re: Ixtle -sisal-henequin?



The only word I can think of is ichtli, meaning the thread spun from the
maguey fiber.  The confusion of x and ch was not uncommon in older documents and
the pronunciations are close.

Stafford Poole
Independent scholar


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/nahuat-l/attachments/20050819/861e5e15/attachment.htm>