96 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOOY [Bull. 137 



BIDAI 



A tribe living on the middle course of Trinity River, Tex., about 

 Bedias Creek, in the country southwest of the Trinity about the Big 

 Thicket, also toward the Neches east of the Trinity. In the narrative 

 of Simars de Belle-Isle they are mentioned as allied with the Akokisa 

 by whom he was held captive. In 1748-49 the Mission of San Ildef onso 

 was established for this tribe together with the Akokisa, Deadose, and 

 Patiri. It was on the San Xavier River, now the San Gabriel, at a 

 place identified by Bolton as 9 miles northwest of the present Rock- 

 dale, Milam County, Tex. The medicine men of this tribe were highly 

 esteemed by the Caddo, the exotic being assumed to be potent. In 1750 

 the Indians at San Ildef onso suffered from an epidemic, and next year 

 they abandoned the mission in a body to join the Nabedache in an ex- 

 pedition against their common enemy, the Apache. Later the Bidai 

 settled near the Mission of San Xavier and still later we hear of them as 

 intermediaries between the French and Apache in supplying the latter 

 with firearms. In 1776-77 an epidemic carried off nearly half of their 

 number, which had been estimated as 100, but about the middle of 

 the nineteenth century there was still one small village 12 miles from 

 Montgomery, Tex. A diligent search for individuals of this tribe that 

 I made in 1912 resulted in locating only one Indian of probable Bidai 

 blood, but this person had been brought up in a white family and knew 

 nothing of the language or customs of her people. 



Bidai population. — That portion of the tribe placed in San Ildef onso 

 mission in 1748-49, including the Akokisa, Deadose, and Patiri, was 

 said to have numbered 176 neophytes in 1751 after having lost 40 in 

 an epidemic. Those who located at San Xavier included 66 families. 

 As noted above, they were supposed to have numbered about 100 in 

 1776-77 when they lost half their number in another epidemic, and 

 they are now extinct. 



BILOXI 



A Siouan tribe located on Pascagoula River and Biloxi Bay, prob- 

 ably formerly residents of the Ohio Valley. The De Crenay map 

 of 1733 shows a Biloxi site on Alabama River at the mouth of Bear 

 Creek, which may have been occupied by them on their way south. 

 It was possibly the Istanane mentioned in narratives of the Spanish 

 expeditions of 1693 to survey Pensacola Bay, said to be a very numer- 

 ous tribe living "along a western bayou in Mobile Bay." This was 

 the first tribe encountered by Iberville when he brought the first 

 permanent colonists to Louisiana in 1699. They were visited in their 

 principal town on Pascagoula River by Bienville in June of the 

 same year. In April 1700, Iberville found their town abandoned, 

 and he does not state definitely where they had gone, though SauvoUe 



