Indian Summer Begins

September 16, 2006

Temperatures dropped into the mid-20s in Mammoth overnight on Friday, Sept. 15, putting a fresh layer of ice on lawns whose eternally absent (and absent minded) owners still have their automatic sprinklers turned on.

Up here, that's always the signal that Indian Summer has begun, which raises the annual question: What's the deal with Indian Summer, anyway? And did they have second homeowners in the 1600s?

I padded on over to the University of Mammoth campus to inquire, and after chewing the fat with some profs in the History and Anthropolgy departments, a couple of theories emerged.

It may be so named because this was the traditional period where North American First Nations/Native American peoples would harvest their fall crops.

Or ... in The Americans, The Colonial Experience, Daniel J. Boorstin speculates that the term originated from raids on European colonies by Indian war parties; these raids usually ended in autumn, hence the extension to summer-like weather was an "Indian" summer. This is unlikely, as the first recorded instance of the term happened in 1778, by which time such raids would have become uncommon.

Or ... it could be so named because the phenomenon was more common in what were then North American Indian territories, as opposed to the Eastern seaboard.

Or ... It may be of Asian Indian, rather than North American Indian, origin. H. E. Ware, an English writer, noted that ships at that time traversing the Indian Ocean loaded up their cargo the most during the "Indian Summer", or fair weather season. Several ships actually had an "I.S." on their hull at the load level thought safe during the Indian Summer.

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