In Europe, a heat wave in the fall season can be marked by the name of a saint or with a colloquial phrase like " old woman's summer." By the 20th century, the term Indian summer had displaced European ones like St. Late summer? Add that one to the list of possible meanings. "Remember that it may not be your intention to offend anyone but the phrase has a history and by using this term you may have a negative impact on the people with whom you are trying to work." Many people in response have said 'But I use this phrase in the highest respect for a beautiful time of the year,'" the post reads. "Again, the inference can be that all Indians are late and that an Indian summer is a late summer. The website Indigenous Corporate Training, which enumerates culturally offensive phrases that business people should use at their own risk, specifically calls this phrase out. "It's like when people say, 'that's so ghetto' but it's not supposed to be seen as a negative thing." When Jolivette hears Indian summer said aloud, "I usually cringe," he said. The term "going native" also fits into this motif. He said using the term Indian summer might seem innocuous, but it's really part of a larger body of normalized euphemisms that keep Indians tied to nature and an imagined past in the minds of most Americans. In particular, Jolivette finds the term "tribalism" - a word rising in popularity to signify political gridlock in Washington - to have a very pejorative subtext for Native Americans. San Francisco State University American Indian Studies Professor Andrew Jolivette, who chaired the department until 2016, said there are a host of popular terms with negative subtext such as "circling the wagons," "Geronimo," "Indian burn," "going off the reservation" and "going on the warpath." 14 pre-dawn removal of the "Early Days" statue at Civic Center, a more than 100-year-old bronze sculpture which depicted a fallen, nearly naked American Indian lying at the feet of a vaquero and a missionary.Īlso: Why now is the time to see Yosemite's Bridalveil Fall Shuck was one of dozens who pushed for and celebrated the Sept. "In an environment where we're struggling to be addressed with any degree of respect at all, I'm not fussed," said San Francisco Poet Laureate Kim Shuck, a member of the Cherokee Nation. So, given the mystery of its history, do people actually find the term offensive? It depends on who you ask. More sinister is the theory that Indian summer somehow means "false summer" like the slur "Indian giver." There is even an international theory that places its origins in the Indian Ocean with cargo ships. One theory speculates that this period of hot autumnal weather was originally communicated to settlers by Native Americans, while another bases it on conditions when Native Americans hunted.