Eskimo kiss

A gesture in which two people touch or rub noses together. It is commonly described as a traditional Inuit greeting, though that description oversimplifies diverse practices.

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Inuit: An Indigenous people whose homelands span Arctic regions of Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Chukotka. The gesture is often presented as an Inuit custom, although practices vary across communities.
Greeting: A conventional act or expression used to acknowledge another person when meeting or parting. The gesture is commonly framed as a greeting, but touch and affection can also motivate it.
Hongi: A Māori greeting in which people press noses and, in some accounts, foreheads together. This named greeting is a distinct Māori practice, not an Inuit version of the gesture.
Cultural diffusion: The spread of cultural practices, ideas, or objects between societies through contact. It offers one possible framework for investigating how similar nose-touching gestures spread or developed.
Cultural appropriation: The adoption or use of elements of one culture by members of another, especially amid unequal power relations. The gesture's popular label can turn a diverse cultural practice into a generalized novelty.
Olfaction: The sensory system that detects and interprets odors. Some explanations connect nose-to-nose contact with smelling, though that does not establish a single origin.
Eskimo: A term historically applied to Indigenous peoples of the Arctic, regarded as offensive or outdated by many people it describes. The gesture's name uses a broad label that many Inuit people do not prefer.
Inuit languages: A group of closely related languages spoken by Inuit communities across the Arctic. Different communities and languages complicate claims that one English phrase names a uniform tradition.
Ethnographic representation: The ways texts, images, and institutions depict and interpret cultures and social groups. Accounts of the gesture show how outsiders' descriptions can shape public ideas about Inuit life.
Touch: The sensory and physical interaction produced when objects or bodies make contact. The gesture depends on deliberate nose-to-nose contact rather than a spoken greeting.