I think you’ve got the wrong idea about potlatching. Potlatching is about giving gifts away to prove your status. Giving gifts is the mark of a high-status person, recieving gifts is the mark of a low-status person. Gift givers are patrons, gift takers are clients.
Ever see the phenomenon of a couple of high-testosterone guys arguing over who has the privilege of paying the bill at a restaurant? Same impulse. The guy who pays the bill, or gives the big tip, shows his superior status.
Of course, in a culture that practices potlatching, if you were in need later, you could accept gifts from other people…but that would show that you had lost status.
Gosh, I hate to say it but your comprehension of this word might differ distinctly from the original meaning - an Indian Summer is a late-autumn summer, as might be experienced in India. It’s a British Raj word.
Seems to me highly unlikely, since the first use apparently was in the 1770s in New York state. This site compiles various theories, the idea that it refers to the Indian subcontinent rather than American Indians being one. But the date would seem to preclude that.
Well, not really, since English traders were in India in the 16th C. Though I concede that wouldn’t be definable as “Raj”.
It does seem strange to me that a meteorological phenomenon would be attributed to an ethnic group, rather than a sub-continent that actually experiences such a thing, but we’ve no way of proving or disproving it, and the first reference is American, so I’ll allow that I quite possibly am wrong.
However, regardless of its provenance, the definition of Indian Summer as “a false summer not as good as the real thing” is definitely not the common usage.
Indian summer as a false summer is very definitely the usage in these parts. It is the last summery spell in the fall-- a false promise, if you will, of warm weather. So it is easy to see how it could be related to “Indian giver.” It is something that is given, almost teasingly, and then taken back.
How does the weather on the Indian subcontinent relate to a temperate-zone late autumn warm spell? That makes no sense to me. I think you’re going to have to concede on this one jimm.
If this is true, then the “Indian Summer” would refer to the extremely hot weather of March through May, and has nothing to due with warm weather in autumn.
I think you might have become confused about where the late-autumn was taking place. If there is an extended period of hot dry weather after the traditional time for the *British * summer (i.e. late autumn) then it is referred to as an Indian Summer. Indian summers being generally hot with little rainfall (albeit at a different time of year).
I think you might have become confused about who said what earlier in the thread. jjimm was the one who said “an Indian Summer is a late-autumn summer, as might be experienced in India.” That is what I was responding to. I’m aware that the British use refers to a warm spell in autumn, which is good evidence that it is not derived from anything to do with India.
Anyone who has actually experienced a “summer” in India would find little similarity between that and weather at any season in Britain, no matter how warm. While it is possible that “Indian Summer” may have been used on occasion by the British to refer to the dry season weather in India, I think the usage to refer to an autumn warm spell in Britain almost certainly derives from its similar use in the US.
jjimm was the one who said “an Indian Summer is a late-autumn summer, as might be experienced in India.” That is what I was responding to. I’m aware that the British use refers to a warm spell in autumn, which is good evidence that it is not derived from anything to do with India.