A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words 1367 entries

geassi

GYEH-ah-see
Geassi is summer in Sámi, the language of the Indigenous people of northern Scandinavia, and it is one of eight named seasons. It runs roughly June through August, under a sun that does not set. Reindeer are on high or coastal summer pasture, calves are growing fast on new growth, and the work is calf-marking, which is done communally in corrals as families gather.
Etymology
The word is Sámi, and like the other season names its relatives are in Finnish and Estonian rather than in Norwegian or Swedish. It anchors two of the eight seasons on either side of it, since giđđageassi is spring-summer and čakčageassi is autumn-summer. Four of the eight seasons are compounds of this kind, which means the transitions get names of their own instead of being treated as the edges of something else.
Notes
The defining problem of geassi is not warmth but insects. Mosquitoes and warble flies drive reindeer to high ground, snow patches, and windy headlands, and herds move for relief rather than for grazing, which shapes where people go with them. See čakča for autumn and dálvi for winter.
animals grassland Indigenous Sámi
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