the prince wrote:Why is it called Indian Summer ?
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A Special Weather Regime
Indian Summer is not, however, a strictly defined meteorological entity and is much an emotional event as a scientific one. Sample the population in North America for a definition, and you will likely get a plethora of thoughts about what constitutes Indian Summer.
Origins of the Term
The origin of the term Indian Summer to describe this weather regime is uncertain. One explanation suggests that Native Americans recognized the pattern, which they attributed to the good graces of the god of the Southwest. When the Eastern tribes described it to the first European settlers of what is now the United States, the event became known as the
Indian's Summer. Another explanation attributes the name to the belief that the haziness of Indian Summer days was caused by prairie fires deliberately set by midwestern tribes.
A more remote origin to the name links it with the marine shipping trade in the Indian Ocean. During the predominately fair weather season, ships would carry extra cargoes. To determine safe load limits, the mariners marked their hulls with the initials I.S. for Indian Summer to indicate the safe loading line for this period. How this term relates to autumn weather on the other side of the globe, however, is uncertain and likely only the coincidental joining of the two words into a similar phrase
Studies of American journals, diaries and papers by Albert Matthews (in an exhaustive study of the historical usage of the term written in 1902) indicate the term Indian Summer appears to have gained popular usage around the 1770s. Its earliest written reference, according to Matthews, appears in the writings of Frenchman St. John de Crevcouer. In a letter dated 17 January 1778, he writes:
"Sometimes the rain is followed by an interval of calm and warmth which is called the Indian Summer; its characteristics are a tranquil atmosphere and general smokiness. Up to this epoch the approaches of winter are doubtful; it arrives about the middle of November, although snows and brief freezes often occur long before that date."
Since de Crevcouer states it is "called the Indian Summer," he implies that the term was already in popular usage when he penned these words.
Nearly a century later, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow adapted an Ononodaga tribe story on the weather regime into his classic 1855 poem Hiawatha:
"From his pipe the smoke ascending
Filled the sky with haze and vapor,
Filled the air with dreamy softness,
Gave a twinkle to the water,
Touched the rugged hills with smoothness,
Brought the tender Indian Summer
To the melancholy north-land,
In the dreary Moon of Snow-shoes."
Indian Summer received a further push into American lore when the Chicago Tribune printed an editorial cartoon and essay by John T. McCutcheon on September 30, 1907. Injun Summer became a classic and was re-issued annually until 1992 when it appeared for the last time. According to Tribune chroniclers, although the drawing itself is timeless, the text, written in the vernacular and with the prejudices of the time, is now seen as offensive to Native Americans and has been withdrawn from use.
Injun Summer (for the images, see
http://mariah.stonemarche.org/poetry/injunsummer.htm) had two scenes. The top one showed an old man and a young boy looking at fields of harvested corn on an autumn day. The spent corn stalks were tied at the tops in bundles to make rows of corn shocks in the barren fields. The man relates a story to the boy about they days when the Indians inhabited that land. To celebrate the bounty of the season, they danced in the moonlight among their tipis. The second panel showed a night scene imagined by the boy and old man where the corn shocks transform into tipis and the Indians appear as ghostly dancers in the smoky atmosphere.
The cartoon struck a responsive chord among many Americans and became one of the icons for Indian Summer for many years. Perhaps it will resurface again, minus the offensive text, as many, including myself, remember it fondly from our youth. (I actually did not remember that it had text until I was researching for this piece.)
Similar weather singularities to the American Indian Summer are know in Europe and take on a variety of names such as Old Wife's Summer and Second Summer. In Poland, the period is called God's Gift to Poland, while the English call it All Hallow Summer or the Summer of the saint whose day falls closest to the autumnal period when the Indian Summer weather occurs. Central Europeans often refer to similar weather conditions as the "halcyon days," harking back to Greek mythology.
