Knud Rasmussen’s accounts of Inuit dreams and shamanic knowledge

Record summary

The Fifth Thule Expedition gathered accounts of Inuit dreams, spirit encounters, divination, healing and shamanic knowledge across Arctic Canada and Greenland. Rasmussen’s publications are important for comparing culturally organized extraordinary experience with Western psychical categories, while preserving the distinction between an Indigenous religious tradition and a laboratory claim. The records are mediated by translation, colonial-era ethnography and selective publication. Researchers should consult original Danish editions, field notes where available and contemporary Inuit scholarship.