Eskimo Kisses

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Ryan from San Diego.

Hi, Ryan. Welcome to the program.

I had a question.

My five-year-old son the other night, we were putting him to bed, and we were doing the normal routine of giving kisses, and we did Eskimo kisses.

And he asked me how that word came about and what it really meant.

What I went ahead and told him was I wasn’t really sure, but that I thought that because it was cold, where the Eskimos were, that when they were to kiss like we would, that their lips would stick together.

So I wasn’t sure what the real definition was.

And so the other day I was traveling and heard the show, and I thought I would call in with my question.

To make sure you were right.

Was your kid buying it?

He was buying it, actually.

He thought it was kind of funny, but it was late at night and he was tired.

So he wasn’t sure, but I didn’t know the answer, and he’s five, so I thought I would follow through.

Right.

And you don’t have opportunities to get that cold here in San Diego.

No, I just remembered the movie A Christmas Story when the kid touched his tongue to the pole and it froze.

Oh.

Yeah, don’t want to do that.

Well, there’s sort of something like what we think of as an Eskimo kiss.

And people in that part of the world have something they call a kunik, which is more like pressing your nose and upper lip up against somebody.

Like I’m sure when your son was little and you would hold him, you would press your nose and upper lip, you know, into his cheek or the side of his head.

Because babies smell so good.

Yeah, because they smell so good.

You know, just take a real big whiff.

Right?

You did that when he was little.

Yeah, that’s the practice that people noticed, particularly when a movie came out in the 1920s called Nanook of the North, which was a documentary about life in, I think, Alaska.

It was definitely in this hemisphere among the Inuit, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And that practice was shown there.

And I think from that, people got the idea that that was, quote, unquote, an Eskimo kiss.

But it’s not really because it’s so cold.

It’s an adaptation of that really intimate greeting that you see also in the Maori of New Zealand.

They have something kind of similar called a hongi, which literally means shared breath, which I love.

You sort of put your forehead and nose together with the other person, and you share a breath for a second.

Yeah, it’s sort of a beautiful greeting.

We sure don’t have that here.

So does that make sense?

Yeah, it does make sense because we were kind of going along the lines of butterfly kisses and Eskimo kisses.

That’s why he was asking that.

So now I know I can clarify with him what it is and tell him that Daddy was wrong.

Won’t be the first time.

Yeah, take it from Grant.

It won’t be the first time or the last one, right?

All right.

Well, I appreciate your time today.

Okay, thanks.

Thanks, Ryan.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

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