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Knud Rasmussen – Across Arctic America

On my travels I have sometimes been present at a seance among the saltwater-dwellers, for instance among the coast people at Utkuhigjalik (Back River, or Great Fish River). These angatkut never seemed trustworthy to me. It always appeared to me that these salt-water angatkut attached more weight to tricks that would astonish the audience, when they jumped about the floor and lisped all sorts of absurdities and lies in their so-called spirit language; to me all this seemed only amusing and as something that would  impress the ignorant.

A real shaman does not jump about the floor and do tricks, nor does he seek by the aid of darkness, by putting out the lamps, to make the minds of his neighbours uneasy. For myself, I do not think I know much, but I do not think that wisdom or knowledge about things that are hidden can be sought in that manner.

True wisdom is only to be found far away from people, out in the great solitude, and it is not found in play but only through suffering.

Solitude and suffering open the human mind, and therefore a shaman must seek his wisdom there……