Let's Talk About Eloy Bida: Too Long; Do Read

(NATIONAL) I was very hesitant to post this because I don't want it to be weaponized to question anyone's Indigeneity. I'm not questioning that at all. I'm questioning a carefully crafted, inauthentic public persona.

Eloy Bida is a well known Indigenous artist whose primary works deal with decolonization. Themes of ancestral wisdom, reclaiming cultures, and honoring your Indigenous roots/ancestors pervade their works. Very anti colonial. Remember this because it becomes important later.

There's some drama going on between Eloy Bida and another Native artist right now. If you're reading this for all that hot lateral violence I hate to disappoint you. This ain't that.

What it is is the answer to the question I was asked about them last night: Is Eloy Bida Native?

With all the Pretendian hunting going on I tread lightly when asked this question. I believe in Native Nations sovereignty and respect unique kinship relations. As Mvskoke and Semvnole I know how our citizenship and community work and it's not for me to determine who belongs to whom with respect to other Nations.

Still there's definitely important information regarding Bida and the brand of Indigeneity they're selling that deserves a conversation.

Are they Native? The short answer is yes.

Bida is an Indigenous Brazilian Native to the Americas. So Native American.

While not the most commonly accepted definition of that term it doesn't make it any less true. Bida knows this, which is why they work so very hard to cloud the issue.

When I say they're selling a brand of Indigeneity I mean they're really hustling you.

In March 2024 they paid a company, Viralyft, to buy likes for their social media art posts. Instead of relying on community to organically grow their audience they made a financial investment to raise their profile. More likes, more potential profit. This embrace of capitalism runs counter to their consistent calls for personal decolonization, a concept they say must be practiced every day to honor the ancestors.

They bought those likes and then had the temerity to post on May 16 on Instagram, now deleted, that artists shouldn’t take seriously the number of followers they have because of the high proportion of fake accounts!

Bida loves honoring the ancestors, just not the ones from which they descend.

I can't tell you who their ancestors are because they never claim them. In 3 separate bios they are described as a Native illustrator who descends from the Indigenous people from South America. That's cool and all but there are 305 Indigenous tribes in Brazil, 826 Indigenous Peoples/tribes in Latin America and the Caribbean. You'd think someone who is committed to Indigenizing would proudly claim who they are with their tribal name and ancestral homelands.

But that would make it harder to peddle the cultural pan-Indianism that is their bread and butter. Instead Bida uses hashtags like #nativeamerican and #nativewisdom which, while technically correct, allows people to assume (because of the popular definition of Native American) that they must be a citizen or descendant of a so called united states Nation. It's a calculated move seemingly designed to muddy the waters without violating the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990, a "u.s." federal law that prohibits the sale of arts that misrepresent the tribal heritage or affiliation of the creator.

Bidas works are peppered with Native Nations cultural iconography, both authentic and crap that colonizers made up, that are not theirs.

There are buffalos galore in Bidas art. Very sacrit. Also very much not indigenous to Brazil. Brazil does have bison which go by the misnomer Asian water buffalo but they look nothing like the buffalo Bida paints.

Since there are no buffalo in Brazil like we have in Northern Turtle Island there's no way a sacred white buffalo could be born there. That doesn't stop Bida from co opting this sacred belief and monetizing it.

Bida also profits from the Lakota Morning Star, a traditional symbol of their Nations identity. Bida is definitely not a Lakota citizen nor, as far as I can find, are they Lakota culturally. If they were then part of the decolonial work Bida claims to believe in and sells every chance they get would be living authentically as Lakota.

Bida further obscures his actual Indigenous roots by seizing on Native Nations trauma, producing works that address blood quantum, a genocidal construct the so called united states federal government invented that doesn't apply to Brazil.

Bida has also done several works about residential boarding schools, an intergenerational trauma they have only a tangential connection to and whose commissions could have gone to an artist directly affected who could’ve used that opportunity to heal the intergenerational trauma they live with.

Bida also accepted a commission from the Native Governance Center, a Native-led nonprofit supporting Indigenous changemakers and Nations in Mni Sota Makoce, North Dakota, and South Dakota, to illustrate a Tribal Civics guide to implementing programs that aim to strengthen sovereignty for Native citizens. While not completely horrible this is a commission that could have been given to an artist who is a citizen of a Native Nation with lived experience and whose successful outcome they have a vested interest in. That's important. If you don't have lived experience or a vested interest in creating something so important you can end up doing more harm than good.

Like how Bida took a racist meme that began as a story told by white evangelical colonizer Billy Graham about the two wolves inside you and passed it off as #nativewisdom. The story originally appeared in Grahams 1978 book “The Holy Spirit: Activating God’s Power in Your Life" and, instead of name checking the Tsalagi, it was written about (CW: slur) an "esk*mo" fisherman. Bida "Indigenizes" it but it's still plagiarism pretending to be authentic wisdom, stolen from a person who didn't know the first thing about us and didn't care (much like Bida). You might think this is the most egregious example of how colonized and inauthentic this decolonial artist really is.

You'd be wrong.

Bida has a piece of art called, and I'm still stunned this actually exists, "All The Colors of the Wind". The description, probably written under the blue corn moon, reads "May My Ancestors Give Me the Gift of Seeing All the Colors of the Wind." Unless Bidas' ancestors are 2 Jewish American composers who were inspired to write the song Colors of the Wind for a revisionist and stereotypical Disney movie about Matoaka (Pocahontas) by a fake speech attributed to Duwamish/Suquamish Chief Seattle that was in actuality written by a white man, Ted Perry, for the 1972 movie Home Bida isn't going to be seeing anything, much less the colors, of the wind.

Bida, the decolonial artist, does not practice what they preach (nor what they sell). They speak over Native Nations artists, peddle outright lies about our cultures, and monetize caricatures that contribute directly to our erasure.

The worst thing about all this? Bida isn't honoring their ancestors. They're not perpetuating their culture. They're not acting in community with other Indigenous Peoples and they're doing it all for money.

That's the least decolonial thing they could have done.

So, is Eloy Bida Native? Yes.

Just not the Native you've been led to believe.

This story first appeared on Medium.