Perhaps that is appropriate. Indian Summer is, after all, a season of deception. It tricks the trees into holding their leaves. It tricks the birds into delaying their migration. And the name itself tricks us into thinking it is a neutral descriptor, when in fact it is a 400-year-old story of a clash between the old world and the new.
When you step outside that perfect October afternoon and the sun warms your face against all logic, you are experiencing a genuine meteorological anomaly. But when you say the name, you are also invoking the ghosts of colonial history, the smoke of Algonquian campfires, and the fear of a settler peering into the haze. indian summer origin
When the settlers asked for the name of this strange, warm weather, the native translator, using broken English, might have said “the summer of the dead.” The settler, hearing the word for the people (“Indian”) rather than the word for the spirit (“Ancestor”), corrupted the phrase. Perhaps that is appropriate