Enjoying Indian Summer

Autumn is good. Actually, in my opinion, seasons are good. As I've said many times before, I don't think I'd like to live in the tropics where sweltering summer is forever.I really like the variety and pattern of the changing seasons.

For me, the cool nights and warm days of fall are by far the best, though. Perhaps, it's just that I've always liked harvest time, Thanksgiving time and especially Indian Summer.

Y'all know all about Indian Summer, of course —that warm snap that occurs in late autumn, although there may be several occurrences of Indian Summer in a fall season or none at all. Usually, the trees are still adorned with some of the beautiful fall foliage, and the mellow, winey fragrance of fallen leaves pervades the air.The last couple of days have beenIndian Summer, and I wish I was camping somewhere in a forest of hardwoods so I could really drink it in!

I've often wondered what this warm, tranquil interlude really has to do with Indians.It seems there are many possible answers.I've readthe Native Americans did a lot of hunting and gathering in autumn and liked to utilize warm spells in late fall to dry and preserve meat and otherwise stock up on other winter provisions. The autumn months are, of course, still a favorite time for hunting.

One picture of autumn painted indelibly on my mind is the first Thanksgiving feast. It was held the following year after the Pilgrims' ship, the Mayflower, landed at Cape Cod, Mass. on Nov. 21, 1620. In this image, I see the Pilgrims in their black and white garb and funny hats, and stoic, buckskin-clad Native Americans gathered around long trestle tables filled with roasted turkeys, venison and other foods.

History tells us that the Pilgrims were so ill-equipped to survive the bitter-cold winter that half of them died of cold, starvation and disease. Then we read this account: "They met an Indian of the Pawtuxet tribe named Squanto who befriended them, taught them how to survive in their new wilderness home, showed them how to plant crops, and acted as an interpreter with the Wampanoag tribe and its chief, Massasoit."

Squanto had been captured by an English ship captain and taken to England. He was "bought" by an Englishman who sympathized with his desire to return home, and after 10 years, he was placed aboard a ship and returned to his people. Squanto probably was present at that first Thanksgiving celebration held by the Pilgrims.

Seems odd that the first English settlers of South Carolina had a similar experience with a Native American benefactor. At Charles Towne Landing, site of the first successful English settlement in America, there is a monument honoring "Assique," a Native American man of the Kiawah tribe. It relates the story of how he came to these new settlers, welcomed them, befriended them and taught them how to plant, hunt, build shelters and do other crafts needed for their survival.

The leader of the Charles Towne settlement stated the "Indians" were handsome,industrious, friendly and "exceedingly clean." He makes the comment that if the English were made to live in such a state of nature as these native people, "we would soon be overwhelmed by our own filth."

So, what has this to do with Indian Summer?Well, I'm not sure, except that I'm glad that someone labeled this lovely time with reference to a people that did so much to help our poor, wayfaring ancestors get a foothold in this land.

That illustration of the first Thanksgiving with Native Americans and Pilgrims feasting and fellowshipping together will always give me a warm, pleasant feeling.I wish it could have, and would have, always been so.