[caveat emptor]

I first heard of these people through a coffee-table type book full of pictures of their beautiful quonset shaped houses made from bundles of reeds (frames) with reed thatch on floating islands made from reeds.

Here's the only pic I could find with Google. Doesn't look that great here, but use your imagination. The first pics I saw were of much larger structures.

Ran across them again in one of Heyerdahl's books. He built a reed boat in Iraq and sailed to India and back. The Marsh Arabs had lost their knowledge of reed boatbuilding, but knew about reeds, especially waterproofing them. Heyerdahl brought some Lake Titicaka boat builders to Iraq.

Recently read about the Eden Again Project by a group of Iraqi expats involved in attempting to restore the marshes.

[blam]

Thanks. I'm familiar with all that you've mentioned. If you know how to do a search on the National Geographic site I think you'll find much more on these people.