To Breathe is To Make Poetry

by Ernie Stanley

"In the Amassalik Eskimo language, the word for "To breathe" is the same as the word for "to make poetry"

The Amassalik associate the power of song with that of breathing. Both are vital to life. This seems like an odd concept, possibly because I am used to a culture who has disseminated life done to the most abstract of things, atoms. However, to these people the power of song is equally important that vital bodily functions.

Perhaps it is because these people have a strong oral conscious, and revere the sacred far more than the ordinary civilized societies. To them, expressing the sacred and spiritual through song keeps their culture alive as equally as breathing. Thus to them, life is not simply a function, but an art. Though I would not impose such an unqualified hypothesis, I would love to conjecture that life is probably much more fulfilling and vibrant to these people than it is to our culture because of this artistic and sacred perspective.