Every shaman, an Indian holy man, has his own particular song which he sings when calling up his helping spirits. This was the song of Uvavnuk, an Eskimo woman shaman, celebrating the joy of being moved by nature. “To the Indian,” writes Natalie Curtis in The Indian’s Book, “song is the breath of the spirit that consecrates the act of life.”

The great sea
Has sent me adrift
It moves me
As the weed in a great river
Earth and great weather
Move me
Have carried me away
And move my inward parts with joy.

out of ‘Touch the Earth, A Self-Portrait of Indian Existence’, compiled by T.C. McLuhan, published 1971 by Promontory Press (reprinted by arrangement with Outerbrigde&Lazard)