Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, July 29, 1997

Bayou Teche winds way through St. Martin life

by Jim Bradshaw

Bayou Teche is some 123 miles of water flowing from its origin at Bayou Courtableau in St. Landry Parish to the Atchafalaya, which it joins near Morgan City in lower St. Mary Parish.

Teche is believed to be an Indian word meaning "winding snake." The Chitimacha legend says that Bayou Teche was once a huge snake with its head at Morgan City and its tail at Port Barre. It was a mean and deadly snake that terrorized the tribe. But finally Indian bowmen overcame it, and, as it turned and coiled and twisted in death throes, it broadened and deepened and carved out the place where it died.

Oldtimers say that the Teche once carried as much as its older sister stream, the Mississippi. Its course can still be traced northward through Bayou Courtableau, Bayou Wauska, across Avoyelles Parish to Larto lake in Catahoula Parish, and north of there to what is today the Tensas River.

While most historians think that the bayou's name is of Indian origin, there have been other idea. One of them was put forward in the Opelousas Courier of Oct. 8, 1859:

"As everything of a local nature and especially any little reminiscence that tends to throw additional light upon the early settlement of a country or state is eagerly sought after, we copy from the Planter's Banner of Saturday last the following interesting story of the Bayou Teche.

"Many suppose the name of our beautiful bayou to be of Indian origin. But such, however, is not the case. The stream was called after Edward Teche, the noted pirate, who is said to have had a rendezvous on Berwick s Bay, somewhat in the neighborhood of the present terminus of the Opelousas Railroad, now fast becoming one of the most populous sections ... of the state .... The rendezvous of the corsair has become the habitation of the husbandsman, the professional man, the merchant and the artisan. The wilderness of yesterday is the city of today: the red denizen of the forest is no more seen with his bow and arrow, tomahawk and scalping knife, in pursuit of game....And where once the deer and buffalo bounded over prairie and woodland, secure from the approach of civilized man, the eye now rests upon the smiling verdure of fields of cane, cotton, corn and rice, and magnificent groves of the orange, the magnolia, and far-famed pride of China, and other tropical trees and plants, wafting their sweet odors and perfuming the very atmosphere as they gently wave in the diurnal sea breeze.

"And where the bold smuggler and murderous clan reveled, gutting at defiance all law and order, secure from the officers of justice, two embryo cities now rear their heads made busy by the hum of trade and the arrival and departure of steamers conveying the rich produce of the country to far-off shores, giving evidence of civilization, thrift and refinement. As we ascend the numerous streams that find vent for their waters in the Mexican Gulf, we see before us the planter's princely mansion ... where he cheerfully rests at night with no thoughts of care to disturb his happy dreams.

"What changes have been wrought since the pirate chief gave name to that beautiful umbrageous stream, whose waters flow through one of the richest and most delightful countries on the western continent -- fit, indeed, to be styled the 'Paradise of Louisiana.'"