Ibn Fadlan Reports:
“I had always been told that when a chieftain of theirs died many things took place, of which burning was the least; I was very interested to get information about this. One day I heard that one of their leading men had died. They laid him in a grave and closed it over him for ten days, till they had finished cutting and sewing clothes for him. This is how things are done : for one of the poorer men among them they take a small boat and lay him in it and burn him, but when it is a question of a rich man, they gather his wealth and divide it in three parts-one third for his family, one third for making clothes for him, and one third to make the liquor they drink on the day his slave-girl is killed and burnt with her master. They are indeed much addicted to liquor, for they drink day and night; often one has died with a beaker in his hand. When a chieftain dies, his family say to his slave-girl and menservants: “Which of you will die with him?” then one of them says: “I will.” When he has said this, he is forced to do it, and is not free to retract; even if he wanted to, it would not be allowed. It is mostly the slave-girls who do this. So when the man I am speaking of died, they said to his slave-girls : “Which of you will die with him?”, and one of them said: “I will”. Two slave-girls given the task of waiting on her and staying with her, wherever she went and often they would even wash her feet and hands. Then they began sewing to the man’s things, cutting out his clothes and preparing everything that ought to be there, while the slave-girl drank and sang joyfully every day, and seemed to be looking forward to a coming happiness.”
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