Native American Short Stories

Introduction to the Bidai Tribe

The Bidai (pronounced Bid-ay) Tribe has completely disappeared; in 1690, their population only topped the 500 to 600-person range – and by 1930, the number had finally reached 0. The loss of lives within the Bidai tribe, unfortunately, was due to the same reason many others from neighboring tribes also lost their lives: the white man's diseases – one of which, happened to be smallpox. As with this tribe, it was not uncommon for tribes to lose one-half their population with the spread of smallpox..

Very little is known about these people, who lived primarily in what is now southeast Texas. Other than the belief that they were a tribe of the Atakapa Indian tribe from eastern Texas, research shows them to be the first Native American tribe to actually live in the area.

Spanish explorers gave the first written mention of these people in the year 1691, pointing toward their Hasinai neighbors and giving the two tribes a thumbs-up for dwelling so closely together.

This group of people ate about as normally as anyone else in that time period, growing crops and fishing, hunting and using extra corn as a means to barter for whatever else they needed. They were known as being neighborly and friendly enough to live near.

In any event, a brigadier general from Louisiana by the name of H. H. Sibley gave credit to the Bidai for being a creative lot of people when he reported that they had "an excellent character for honesty and punctuality.” (Quoted from Wikipedia.)

It is commonly believed their language stemmed from the Atakapa people, whose language is also now extinct. In fact, historians and linguists agree that only 8 words from the Bidai language can even be accurately verified. Those words are the numbers 1 through 6, corn and boy. (See the chart below)

1 Namah

2 Nahonde

3 Naheestah

4 Nashirimah

5 Nahot nahonde

6 Nashees nahonde

corn Tándshai

boy Púskus

The tribe referred to themselves by the word, “Quasmigdo”. So technically, nine Bidai words have survived the test of time.

If any of my readers have more information about this tribe, feel free to comment and add what you know. The upcoming story I’ll be relating about the Bidai may fill a few gaps or details I neglected to bring out in the introductory post ... and don’t be shy about checking out my blog, where I mention how my first month with the Wattpad community went for me. Robynleatherman.com is where to go for that bit of news.

Robyn