It appears at last that perhaps the rainy season is here. Its patterns are not familiar to us yet, upending what we’ve mostly known. But after such a drought-ridden season thus far, it’s a relief to be able to hope, with some grounds for it, that “summer” is finally here.
And not a moment too soon. July winds down; August looms large and forbidding now. We are only five weeks out from the end of meteorological summer; six weeks out, allegedly, from the start of school even as pandemic numbers are spiking throughout the state.
Indian summer will look very different this year.
Yes, it’s a phrase we use, even though younger Indigenous generations dislike it. They are right to point out its inherent offensiveness, at least when used by non-Indigenous folks, and especially when that use is so ingrained and systemic as to be utterly without thought. I’ve come across two derivations, and I suspect it’s not a case of either/or, but rather of both at once. Both are rooted firmly in colonialism: one, that with a temporary return of good weather, Indigenous people were once again more visible to colonizing invaders as they hunted and gathered in preparation for winter (and of course, colonizers don’t like being reminded of their own evils); and two, the notion that the season’s fleeting and capricious nature was an example of trickery, a trait they imputed to our ancestors in a classic bit of projection that is the stock in trade of every colonizer population, which must demonize those from whom it steals in order to justify its actions to itself.
So yes, there are reasons to oppose its use, certainly by anyone else.
But Wings and I belong to a generation that reclaimed it even in childhood.
It’s hard for younger folks, and non-Indigenous folks of any age, to understand now, but we grew up in an era when our peoples were almost wholly (deliberately) erased from the national consciousness. To the extent we were recognized at all, it was usually negative. But it’s why some Native people of generations older still even now do not object to some portrayals: Back then, just to see ourselves represented at all seemed like a wonderful thing. As we grew older, of course, we would come to know, and intimately so, just how terrible such so-called “representation” can be when it’s both inaccurate and cast as a negative, but erasure is a powerful force, and so suddenly seeing oneself, in any form, feels like a gift.
It’s part of why those of us of a certain age still use “Indian,” although it’s not a word for non-Natives to use. If you use it in our presence, you’ll be lucky if side-eye is all you get. “Indian” is exclusively an in-group term, one that was hung on us and that we’ve reclaimed to refer to ourselves and one another, among our fellow Indigenous people who are close to us.
And for us (and likely many other folks in our age brackets), so it is with the phrase “Indian summer.” Learning it for the first time growing up, it seemed like an unqualified good: a return of warmth and sunlight in September (or here, even October), and with them the chance to play outdoors without our coats until the sun went down; of the pure unbridled joy of childhood.
And all of it named for us.
For us now, Indian summer is bound and braided inextricably with dreams, with all the joy of childhood autumn days, with the sights and scents and sensations that accompany it, from Indian corn to pumpkins to roasting chile and woodsmoke.
And, perhaps, the occasional late-season butterfly, monarch dressed in the regalia of Halloween.
And so we come to today’s featured work, one that embodies Indian summer less as we knew it then perhaps than as what might greet us now: late-season butterflies beneath a radiant sun that sets the leaves aflame, and late-season rains from cloud-webbed skies as a tardy monsoon season prepares to surrender space at last to autumn, thence to winter snows. From its description in the relevant section of the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
Indian Summer Dreams Cuff Bracelet
Before the snow flies, spirits of earth and sky dream Indian Summer dreams. Wings honors these visions and the spirits who dream them with his newest masterwork, a piece conceived in the deep symbolism of tradition and executed with 21st-Century élan. The focal point is a large, beautifully spiderwebbed rectangular cabochon of ultra-high-grade Black-Web Kingman turquoise, a robin’s-egg Skystone tightly matrixed with complex black chert webbing. It rests in a saw-toothed bezel, elevated atop the center of an exceptional hand-made band, flanked on either side by three separate rows of hand-stamped arrowhead symbols pointing down either side of the cuff, each stamped individually via more than one hundred separate strikes of the jeweler’s hammer. This edging is flanked on either side by a pair of lodge symbols, their apices pointed toward paired inverted sunrise symbols motifs that form an embrasure down the remainder of each side of the band. In the center of these rays of silvery light are the dreams and dreamers: a trio of late-summer butterflies alternating with the flowing waters of seasonal rains, all cascading downward to paired blossoms holding a heart at their center. Together, they bring a reminder that summer returns, life renews, and love outlasts all. The band is 1-1/16″ across; the cabochon is 1″ long by 13/16″ of an inch across (dimensions approximate). Other views shown above and below.
Sterling silver; ultra-high-grade Black Web Kingman turquoise
$1,750 + shipping, handling, and insurance
The dreams of Indian summer now are the dreams of the late-season rain: both their own hopes for actualization, and their answer to our prayers.
We are not there yet; there are many weeks left yet of ordinary summer, and no doubt plenty of heat and drought to accompany them. But it rained again last night, both early short storms in the evening and a longer, soaking rain overnight. Outside the window, the skies are more gray than blue now, the black webbing of the clouds fanning out across the turquoise expanse. The air feels heavy with moisture, and the forecast, should it materialize, is a good one.
It’s too late now for the spirits of early summer — even, to a not-insignificant degree, for those of midsummer. The drought has done its damage, and it is not finished with us yet. But we may still look forward to the rest of the season and the promise in the current monsoonal patterns . . . and, before the now flies, to Indian summer dreams, now the dreams of the late-season rain.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
