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Comment by neaden | Hacker News Reader

"Norse historians claim that in at least one instance, a deceased chieftain’s concubines were slain so that they, too, could accompany him." I think This is a treference to Ibn Fadlan's account and it's important to note 1. They were slaves, not concubines. I know the latter can be a subset of a former but it's important to be clear about it and 2. It was after she was ritualistically drugged and raped by his friends. Here is a link to his account: https://www.mrtredinnick.com/uploads/7/2/1/5/7215292/ibn_fad...

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I read the account and thats not what it says, I think you are projecting onto it.

The girl volunteered for example.

There’s no way of knowing anything clearly from that account.

What exactly are you disagreeing with? An enslaved woman can't consent to sex by her captors by definition so it's rape and Ibn Fadlan further mentions her being drugged and then the men drumming on the shields to drown out the sound of her screaming so it doesn't scare the other enslaved women which shows they at least thought she would be screaming and no one would volunteer if they knew the truth of what happened.

I don't think the original article was in any way trying to imply that the "concubines" were willing participants, inasmuch as they call out their being "slain," which seems rather involuntary. I'm not sure why you felt it was important to call out that this was not only a ritual sacrifice, but also a rather perverse ritual sacrifice - it doesn't seem relevant to the original article.

Yes, according to slaveholders, their slave totally volunteered to do what the slaveholder wanted them to do. That's definitely a reliable account.

as pointed out in the source

> although it is clear in some places that inaccuracies and Ibn Fadlan's own prejudices have slanted the account to some extent.

Seems a bit silly to believe she volunteered for that while also stating that there's "no way to know anything clearly" (except possibly the most absurd part?)

>Seems a bit silly to believe she volunteered for that

People volunteered for some weird shit back in the day. Their morals and beliefs are nothing like ours.

you don't think it's at all likely that her life as a slave was so misreable this could've been a way out?

regardless my point is it's silly to try to reconcile "we can't know anything" with this one details they pulled out. Like why is the single detail that somehow is credible?

I wasn’t saying any of it was credible or not credible. I was saying it is unknowable and basically thread hijacking with a random point unrelated to the meat of TFA.

I could have written “the account claims she volunteered” and perhaps my comment would have made more sense.

Edit: This is applying: Our cultural values and context to: A translation of: A person’s (how credible?) account who was: From a long time ago and: Of a different culture than ours and was: Observing yet a third culture which was alien to him

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