Indian summer

An Indian summer is a period of unseasonably warm, dry weather that sometimes occurs in autumn in temperate regions of the northern hemisphere during September to November. In an article on the US National Weather Service's website, weather historian William R. Deedler writes that Indian Summer can be defined as "any spell of warm, quiet, hazy weather that may occur in October or November."[1] Several references describe a true Indian Summer as not occurring until after the first frost, or more specifically the first "killing" frost.[1]

For other uses, see Indian Summer.

Indian summer

Etymology and usage

The late 19th-century Boston lexicographer Albert Matthews made an exhaustive search of early American literature in an attempt to discover who coined the expression.[2] The earliest reference he found dated from 1851. He also found the phrase in a letter written in England in 1778, but discounted that as a coincidental use of the phrase.

Later research showed that the earliest known reference to Indian summer in its current sense occurs in an essay written in the United States circa 1778 by J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur. The letter was first published in French. The essay remained unavailable in the United States until the 1920s.[3]

Although the exact origins of the term are uncertain,[4] it was perhaps so-called because it was first noted in regions inhabited by American Indians, or because the Indians first described it to Europeans,[5] or it had been based on the warm and hazy conditions in autumn when American Indians hunted.[4] In addition to such conjectures, a great depth of Native American folklore is attributed to describing this phenomenon.

In literature and history, the term is sometimes used metaphorically. The title of Van Wyck Brooks' New England: Indian Summer (1940) suggests an era of inconsistency, infertility, and depleted capabilities, a period of seemingly robust strength that is only an imitation of an earlier season of actual strength.[6] William Dean Howells' 1886 novel Indian Summer uses the term to mean a time when one may recover some of the happiness of youth. The main character, jilted as a young man, leads a solitary life until he rediscovers romance in early middle age.

In British English, the term is used in the same way as in North America. In the UK, observers knew of the American usage from the mid-19th century onwards, and The Indian Summer of a Forsyte is the metaphorical title of the 1918 second volume of The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy. However, early 20th-century climatologists Gordon Manley and Hubert Lamb used it only when referring to the American phenomenon, and the expression did not gain wide currency in Great Britain until the 1950s. In former times such a period was associated with the autumn feast days of St. Martin and Saint Luke.[7]

In the English translation of Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago, the term is used to describe the unseasonably warm weather leading up to the Great October Socialist Revolution.[8]

Similar phenomena

Similar weather conditions, with local variations also exist. A warm period in autumn is called "Altweibersommer" (de: "old women's summer") in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Lithuania, Hungary (Hungarian: vénasszonyok nyara), Estonia (Estonian: vananaistesuvi), and in a number of Slavic-language countries—for example, in Czechia, Ukraine, Poland, Slovakia, Russia, Slovenia, Serbia, and Croatia—it is known as "old woman's summer" (Czech: babí léto, Ukrainian: бабине літо, Polish: babie lato, Slovak: babie leto, Russian: бабье лето, IPA: [ˈbabʲjə ˈlʲetə], Serbo-Croatian: bablje ljeto). In Bulgaria, it is known as "gypsy summer" or "poor man's summer". In Sweden, there's "Brittsommar" (out of "Birgitta" and "Britta", having their name days around the time, October 7). In Finland,[9] the period is today called "intiaanikesä", a direct translation, but historically a warm period in autumn was named after Bartholomew, his saint day being in late August. In Gaelic Ireland, the phenomenon is called "fómhar beag na ngéanna" (little autumn of the geese).[10]

In temperate parts of South America—such as southernmost Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay—the phenomenon is known as "Veranico", "Veranito" or "Veranillo" (literally, "little summer"), and usually occurs in early autumn between late April and mid-May, when it is known as "Veranico de Maio" ("May's little summer") or as "Veranito de San Juan" ("Saint John's little summer"). Its onset and duration are directly associated with the occurrence of El Niño.

In other countries it is associated with autumnal name days or saint days such as Teresa of Ávila (Portugal, Spain and France), St. Martin's Summer (Spain, France, Italy, Portugal and Malta), St. Michael's summer (»Miholjsko leto«, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina), St. Martin's Day (Netherlands), St. Demetrius (Greece and Cyprus), Bridget of Sweden in Sweden, and Saint Michael the Archangel in Wales. In Turkey it is called pastirma yazı, meaning pastrami summer, since the month of November was considered to be the best time to make pastrami.[11]

In media

Board games
  • Indian Summer, designed by Uwe Rosenberg, is named and themed after the event, and involves players placing leaf-filled tiles on the forest floor.

Books
  • Indian Summer was written by Adalbert Stifter in 1857.
  • Indian Summer was written by William Dean Howells in 1886.
  • The Indian Summer Of English Chivalry written by Arthur Ferguson in 1960.
  • Indian Summer by John Knowles, published in 1966.
  • An Indian Summer: A Personal Experience of India was written by James Cameron in 1974.
  • Engine Summer written by John Crowley in 1979, is named after and refers to the event, with the spelling changed to reflect the post-apocalyptic setting of the book.
  • The graphic novel Indian Summer was written by Hugo Pratt and illustrated by Milo Manara in 1983.
  • Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire was written by Alex von Tunzelmann in 2007.
  • Indian Summer: The Tragic Story of Louis Francis Sockalexis, the First Native American in Major League Baseball was written by Brian McDonald in 2003.

Comics

Music

Movies and television

Poetry

See also

References
  1. Deedler, William (Fall 1996). "Just What Is Indian Summer And Did Indians Really Have Anything To Do With It?". Detroit/Pontiac, MI: National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office. Archived from the original on October 9, 2014. Retrieved September 24, 2014.
  2. Matthews, Albert (February 1902). "The Term Indian Summer". Monthly Weather Review. 30 (2): 69–80. Bibcode:1902MWRv...30...69M. doi:10.1175/1520-0493-30.2.69c.
  3. Sweeting, Adam W. (2003). Beneath the Second Sun: A Cultural History of Indian Summer. New Hampshire. p. 14–15. ISBN 978-1-58465-314-1.
  4. "Hints of an Indian Summer". BBC. Retrieved September 19, 2015.
  5. "Indian summer". Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved September 19, 2015.
  6. Commager, Henry Steele (August 18, 1940). "In New England's Lesser Days" (PDF). The New York Times. Retrieved October 6, 2012.
  7. "Indian summer: What exactly is it?". BBC. October 1, 2011. Retrieved September 24, 2014.
  8. Pasternak, Boris Leonidovich; Gutiérrez, Fernando (1994). El doctor Zhivago. Barcelona: RBA. ISBN 844730681X. OCLC 434433796.
  9. Kallio, Jussi (October 13, 2009). "Intiaanikesä". Kotimaisten kielten keskus (in Finnish). Retrieved September 12, 2015.
  10. "Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla (Ó Dónaill)" (in Irish). Retrieved November 11, 2017.
  11. "İstanbul'a kış 20 Ocak'ta gelecek!" (in Turkish). Retrieved November 11, 2014.
  12. Cooke, Chris (March 4, 2013). "Sweat It Out Records founder dies". Complete Music Update. Retrieved September 12, 2019. he launched his own label Sweat It Out Records, which signed the likes of Indian Summer, Loot & Plunder and Yolanda Be Cool
  13. "Jai Wolf - Indian Summer". SoundCloud.
  14. "Too Much Rock Single Series".
  15. "Where Nobody Knows Your Name". IMDb.
  16. "Indian Summer". IMDb.
  17. "Indian Summers". IMDb.
  18. Sandeen, Ernest (December 1967). "Delight deterred by retrospect: Emily Dickinson's Late-Summer Poems". The New England Quarterly. 40 (4): 483–500. doi:10.2307/363554. JSTOR 363554.
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