I write this not long after New England’s first frost, when the temperatures have suddenly rebounded into the 70s. Everyone I know calls this Indian summer. Everyone I know loves it. And every year I wonder what to do about the potential racism.
Very few people say Indian giver; most preschool teachers now tell their 3-year-olds to sit cross-legged, not Indian style. These terms have been effectively identified as racist: a so-called Indian giver has purportedly given something only to snatch it back (the term deriving from notions of private property that were alien to many tribes’ culture and that Europeans used to their distinct advantage); someone sitting Indian style has only the floor or dirt for a chair.
People have spilled plenty of ink over the origin of the term Indian summer, beginning with an entire book by one Albert Matthews, published in 1901. Matthews dismisses the source that most people I know attribute to Indian summer, which is essentially the same bigoted notion of false promise that prompted Indian giver. That is, the “summer” arrives after the first real blast of autumn, but vanishes just as you begin to think winter has been staved off. Other countries apparently have equally offensive terms for this brief spurt of balmy weather. The Russians, for instance, apparently call it woman summer. (Think about that. No, don’t.) Other theories, like the idea that a brief period of warmth was the best time for a raid on white settlements, aren’t much more flattering to Native Americans.
But I’ve been asking my students about their connotations for Indian summer. About half of them know the term. The others — some international students, some from warm parts of the country — shake their heads quizzically. For the ones who do know and use it, I’ve asked why. “Because of Thanksgiving?” some say. Some say, “Because my grandmother uses it.” Others refer to the bright maple and sycamore leaves as being “Indian colors.” (Whether they mean the cartoonish idea of Indian skin color or something about feathers, I’ve neglected to ask.) They look forward to this week of warm weather; they don’t feel betrayed or cheated by it.
The question I’m raising for myself, then, may extend to other terms with derogatory origins that have lost their original associations. Google Ngrams shows the word spelled gyp declining drastically in usage, while the word spelled jip—meaning the same thing, but probably not rousing the same connotation — is rising. A Dutch treat is common practice and rarely connected to any idea of the Dutch being miserly. Few people think of the peanut gallery as a place where African-Americans were allowed to sit, nor do we associate being sold down the river with slavery. As a person of Irish ancestry, I give myself a (questionable) pass when I leave half a cup of orange juice in the bottle and tell my husband I’ve played a dirty Irish trick, but at least I know the term is derogatory. Should we restrain ourselves from employing a term whose derogatory origins are virtually invisible in contemporary discourse?
I don’t have an answer to this question, but I do know it would be easier to answer if an alternative were ready to hand. For gypped, we have cheated; for the peanut gallery we have the third balcony. But woman summer is hardly a better choice for this season. October summer or November summer might do, but I just made those up; I’ve never heard anyone use them. Even the English apparently don’t say St. Martin’s summer anymore. One of my students said she calls it a warm spell, which is both less evocative and less provocative. Another said it worries her. Why? “Makes me think of global warming,” she said.
Well, yes. There is that. Meanwhile, though, I’m going outside.
