From his pipe the smoke ascending
Filled the sky with haze and vapor,
Filled the air with dreamy softness,
Touched the rugged hills with smoothness,
Brought the tender Indian Summer . . .
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Oh dear! Bill just read this and said, “Rather than ‘native American,’ you used ‘used ‘Indian’ several times. People are sensitive about this.” What am I to do? Call it “native American summer”? I’m on deadline and don’t want to rewrite this. To heck with it! I am going to use the word “Indian.” I hope that no one is outraged!
Every October or in early November, I watch for Indian summer, a fleeting day or two of balmy, hazy weather that is a prelude to winter, and I revisit what I consider a charming portrayal of this brief time. Starting in 1907, John T. McCutcheon’s cartoon entitled “Injun summer” and its accompanying story appeared every fall on the front page of “The Chicago Tribune.” McCutcheon harkened back to his boyhood, the cornfields of Tippecanoe County and Indian lore.
The cartoon was discontinued after several decades because of objections to its language. Now, I was brought up to abhor derogatory words about people of other races, religions and nationalities. Thus, I am conflicted about McCutcheon’s story which includes words such as “Injun.”
There were native Americans present when my pioneer ancestors settled in Clinton County. According to family lore, their relations with the Indians were cordial. My mother’s grandfather told stories about how Indians would come to visit and borrow a large kettle when he was a little boy. Frightened, he would hide under the bed and squeeze against the wall. To tease him, one of the Indian elders would get down on his hands and knees and grin in at him.
I cannot think about the Old Home Place, the True North of my mother’s people, without wondering what became of those Indians when they were forced to leave Indiana, perhaps to follow the Trail of Tears. Also, according to family legends, one of our ancestors had an Indian wife. We were always proud to think that we had some Indian blood. Alas, according to an Ancestry.com DNA test, this isn’t so.
The scene in the first frame of McCutcheon’s drawing shows a field of corn shocks. On the other side of a split-rail fence, an old man who is smoking a pipe and holding a rake sits on a log and talks to a little grandson. Smoke from a little bonfire and his pipe rises, and the sun is obscured by haze.
The grandfather says that Indian summer is when all the homesick Indians come back. “. . . There used to be heaps of Injuns around here — millions, I reckon . . . They wuz all around here — right where you’re standin’. . . You just come out here tonight when the moon is hangin’ over the hill and the harvest fields is all swimmin’ in the moonlight, an’ you can see the Injuns and the tepees jest as plain as kin be . . .”
In the second frame Indian braves in feathered headdresses are dancing under a full moon, and the corn shocks have been transformed into tepees. “Jever notice how the leaves turn red? That’s when an old Injun sperrit gits tired dancin’ an’ goes up an’ squats on a leaf t’rest . . . “ He explains that war paint is rubbed off onto leaves by Indian ghosts. “Purty soon all the Injuns’ll go marchin’ away agin’ but next year you’ll see ‘em troopin’ back — th’ sky jest hazy with ‘em and their campfires smolderin’ away jest like they are now.”
Alas, I cannot see the spirits of Indians. They left Indiana long ago . . . long ago . . . I know no Indians to ask, and I have no answer, but I wonder if the litmus test should be intent — whether speech is meant to demean, defame, hurt people’s feelings or punish them. wclarke@comcast.net