Honour, Faith and Custom

1. Overview

To understand a Klingon, start with honour. Almost everything else follows from it: the importance of the house, the stories of Kahless, the hope of Sto-vo-kor, the fear of Gre’thor, the weapons a warrior carries, the way he greets a friend and the way he faces death. Federation officers who see only the noise and the violence of Klingon life miss the code beneath it, and Klingons notice when they do.

This article sets out the customs a Federation officer is most likely to meet: honour and the house, Kahless and the clone emperor, the Klingon afterlife, the rites of life and death, opera, food and drink, weapons as culture, the martial discipline of mok’bara, and how Klingons see the Romulans and the Federation. The bodily side of Klingon life is covered in Klingon Biology, and the language of address in Language, Names and Ranks.

A word of caution. Klingon custom is not uniform. The great houses keep their own traditions, the clerics of Boreth keep theirs, and Klingons argue among themselves, often loudly, about what honour requires. What follows is the common ground.

2. Honour

Honour, to a Klingon, is not a private feeling. It is a standing, held before others, that can be won, lost, challenged and restored. A warrior gains honour by courage, by keeping his word, by loyalty to his house and his Empire, and by facing death without fear. He loses it by cowardice, by lies, by treachery, and by failing to answer an insult or a wrong. A Klingon whose honour is questioned is expected to answer, and the answer is often a challenge.

Honour is also inherited. The deeds of a father are counted to his sons, and a dishonour can stain a family for generations. The gravest sentence the Empire can pass short of death is discommendation. A Klingon given discommendation is cast out of Klingon society: other Klingons cross their arms and turn their backs on him, and his family name is dishonoured for seven generations. Discommendation can be lifted, but only by the High Council, and only rarely.

Honour has its forms in law. When a Klingon is accused before the High Council, he may name a cha’DIch, a second who stands with him and may fight for him if the matter comes to blows. The part of a trial in which the evidence is put before the Council is called the mek’ba. Federation observers have often found Klingon justice hard to follow; the point to grasp is that a Klingon trial is as much about who has the honour to stand by his word as about the evidence. See The High Council and the Chancellor.

Klingon honour is real, and Klingons have died for it. It is also used. Klingon history is full of men who spoke of honour while acting without it, and Klingons know this as well as anyone. When a Klingon tells a Federation officer that the Federation has no honour, as a Klingon general did at the tri-border talks of 2390, he is making a political point as much as a moral one. See Qo'noS and the Empire's Worlds.

3. The House

A Klingon belongs first to his house. A house is a family line, with its head, its lands, its allies and its enemies, and its honour is shared by all its members. The great houses have seats on the High Council and speak for large parts of the Empire. Lesser houses look to greater ones for protection and advancement. Commoners, born to no house of standing, can rise, but they rise against the grain; the present Chancellor was born to such a family and was once refused officer training on account of it.

The head of a house speaks for it and answers for it. The matriarch of a house, the wife of its head, holds great authority within it. A woman who would marry into a house must be accepted by its matriarch. Custom long kept women off the High Council, though it has not always held: Azetbur, daughter of Chancellor Gorkon, led the Empire after her father’s death in 2293.

Houses rise and fall. When a small house dies out, its lands commonly pass to the strongest neighbour able to hold them, and Klingons have been known to suspect that a neighbour helped the dying along. In 2393 the house politics most visible to the Federation are those of the High Council, where House Vreth presses for a harder line with the Romulans and House Tarkesh for a steady alliance with the Federation. For the houses see The Great Houses.

4. Kahless

4.1 Kahless the Unforgettable

Kahless the Unforgettable united the Klingon people some fifteen centuries ago and gave them the code of honour by which they still claim to live. The stories told of him are the common inheritance of every Klingon, and they are told in the home, in the mess hall and in the opera house. Among the best known:

Kahless and Molor. Kahless overthrew the tyrant Molor and killed him, and so freed the Klingon people.

The first bat’leth. Kahless cut a lock of his hair, thrust it into the lava of the volcano Kri’stak, plunged it into Lake Lusor and twisted it into a sword, the first bat’leth. With it he killed Molor.

Kahless and Morath. Kahless fought his brother Morath for twelve days and twelve nights, because Morath had lied and brought shame on their family.

Kahless and Lukara. At Qam-Chee, Kahless and Lukara stood together against five hundred warriors, and won. The story is told at Klingon weddings.

The promise. Before he left his people, Kahless pointed to a star and told them to look for him there. The clerics of Boreth waited for him for centuries. See Qo'noS and the Empire's Worlds.

4.2 The clone emperor

In 2369 the clerics of Boreth presented a man who appeared to be Kahless returned. He was found to be a clone, made from the blood of Kahless preserved on an ancient relic, and taught the stories the clerics had kept until he believed them his own memories. The discovery could have shaken the Empire. Instead, he was installed as Emperor, an office that had stood empty for centuries, with a spiritual and ceremonial role. The Chancellor and the High Council keep the power of government.

Klingons are divided about the clone, and a Federation officer is wise not to offer an opinion. To some he is a fraud made respectable. To others he is the rightful heir of Kahless, whatever his origin, because he speaks with Kahless’s words and has given the Empire a focus for its faith. Most Klingons simply honour the office and the teachings, and leave the rest to the clerics.

5. Faith: Sto-vo-kor and Gre’thor

Klingons have no gods. Klingon tradition holds that the first Klingons killed the gods who made them, and Klingons say, with some satisfaction, that the gods were more trouble than they were worth. What Klingons do have is a firm belief in what comes after death.

Sto-vo-kor is where the honoured dead go: the afterlife of warriors, where those who died with honour fight and feast for ever, and where Kahless waits. The surest way there is to die in battle. A Klingon who dies otherwise is not lost for good. His family or comrades may win his place in Sto-vo-kor by a great deed or a victory in his name, and Klingons take that duty seriously.

Gre’thor is where the dishonoured go. Klingons describe it as guarded by Fek’lhr, and say that the dishonoured dead are carried there on the Barge of the Dead, steered by Kortar, the first Klingon, who killed the gods and was condemned for it to ferry the dead for ever. Klingons rarely speak of Gre’thor lightly.

These beliefs shape Klingon conduct in ways Federation officers should not underestimate. A Klingon who faces certain death may welcome it, if the death is honourable. A Klingon who has lost a comrade to a death without honour may go looking for a battle on that comrade’s behalf. And a Klingon who is told to stand down, when standing down looks to him like cowardice, is being asked to risk more than his life.

6. Rites of Life

6.1 Ascension

A young Klingon takes the first step toward becoming a warrior with the First Rite of Ascension, traditionally at about the age of thirteen. The Age of Ascension, later in life, marks a new level of spiritual attainment. In its ceremony the warrior declares his feelings and his intentions as a warrior, and then walks between two lines of warriors who strike him with painstiks. He is expected to endure the pain and go on to the end. Anniversaries of a warrior’s Age of Ascension are marked as well, and a Federation crew with a Klingon member may be asked to help.

6.2 Courtship and marriage

Klingon courtship is direct and physical. As one Klingon officer once explained it to a puzzled human, it is the women who roar and throw heavy objects; the man reads love poetry, and ducks a lot. Klingons call romantic love par’Mach. It is not a gentle word.

A Klingon marriage involves the houses as well as the couple. The bride must be accepted by the matriarch of the groom’s house. Before the wedding the groom undergoes the Kal’Hyah, four nights of ordeals. At the wedding the story of Kahless and Lukara is told, and the couple are joined by an oath. A Federation officer invited to a Klingon wedding should accept, should eat and drink what is offered, and should not mistake the shouting for a brawl unless someone draws steel.

7. Death

When a Klingon warrior dies, those with him open the dead warrior’s eyes, look into them, and roar together at the heavens. The roar is a warning to the dead in Sto-vo-kor that a Klingon warrior is about to join them. Starfleet crews who have heard it do not forget it.

After death the body is an empty shell. The warrior is gone, and what remains is of no further importance; Klingons dispose of it without ceremony. A Klingon is remembered by his deeds and his house, not by his remains.

Two rites concern a death chosen rather than met. The Hegh’bat is the ritual suicide of a warrior who can no longer stand and face his enemies; see Klingon Biology. The Mauk-to’Vor is a ritual killing by which a Klingon who has lost his honour may be killed by a family member, so that he dies with his honour restored and may enter Sto-vo-kor. Both are lawful in the Empire. Neither is lawful in the Federation, and Starfleet officers may not take part in either.

8. Festivals

The Kot’baval Festival commemorates the victory of Kahless over Molor, and is marked with re-enactments of the struggle, music and a great deal of bloodwine. The Day of Honour is a day of self-examination, on which a Klingon is expected to ask whether he has lived honourably in the past year, and to make good where he has not. Federation officers serving with Klingons will find the first easy to join and the second best left alone unless invited.

9. Opera, Song and Story

Klingons love opera. Klingon opera is loud, long and full of battle, betrayal and death, and its great works tell the stories of Kahless and of the heroes who followed him. Aktuh and Melota is among the best known to Federation audiences. Most humans find Klingon opera hard going. Klingons know this and are rarely offended, but a Federation officer who sits through a whole performance and can say something about it afterwards will have earned real respect.

Song is everywhere in Klingon life. Warriors sing in the mess hall and before battle, and drinking songs about the deeds of Kahless are a fixture of any Klingon gathering. Klingons also prize sayings, and some have reached the Federation: “Revenge is a dish best served cold,” said to be an old Klingon proverb; “Only a fool fights in a burning house”; and, most famous of all, “Today is a good day to die.” For phrases and their use see Language, Names and Ranks.

10. Food and Drink

Klingon food is strong, often served live or nearly so, and meant to be eaten with energy. Klingons believe that food should be fresh, and some dishes are at their best still moving. Klingons find most Federation food bland. A Federation officer offered Klingon food should try it; refusing is taken as weakness, and trying and failing is taken as a fair effort.

Bloodwine is the drink of honour. It is poured to seal agreements, to toast the living and remember the dead, and to mark victories. A Federation officer should drink when a toast is offered, and should be careful how much.

11. Weapons as Culture

A Klingon’s weapons are not tools only. They are part of his honour, and some are part of his family.

The bat’leth is the sword of honour, a curved, two-handed blade with grips along its back, descended in story from the sword Kahless forged. It is the weapon of formal combat and of ritual, and a warrior’s skill with it is a measure of his standing. The Order of the Bat’leth is the Empire’s highest company of honoured warriors.

The mek’leth is a shorter blade, a one-handed sword used at close quarters, favoured by warriors who like to fight close.

The d’k tahg is the Klingon dagger, carried by most warriors at all times. It is personal, often handed down, and many Klingons would sooner part with a hand.

The original Sword of Kahless was carried off when the Hur’q invaded Qo’noS more than a thousand years ago. It was found again in the 2370s, and then lost once more; its whereabouts are not known. Klingons tend to treat any claim to have found it with suspicion and hope in equal parts.

Federation officers should know three things. Do not touch a Klingon’s weapon without leave. Do not treat a ritual weapon as a curiosity. And assume that a Klingon who draws a blade means to use it.

12. Mok’bara

Mok’bara is the Klingon martial discipline. It is practised as a series of slow, controlled forms that train balance, strength and focus, and it is both exercise and preparation for combat. Klingons practise it daily if they can. Many Starfleet officers have taken it up, and Klingon officers serving with Starfleet have often taught it to their crewmates. An invitation to join a Klingon at mok’bara is a mark of respect and should be accepted.

13. How Klingons See Others

13.1 The Romulans

Klingons regard the Romulans as their oldest and bitterest enemy, and the hatred is returned in full. To a Klingon a Romulan is a liar and a coward who strikes from hiding, a view the cloak, the Tal Shiar and Romulan history have done much to confirm. Narendra III in 2344 and Khitomer in 2346 are named whenever the subject comes up. So is the Romulan support for the House of Duras in the civil war of 2367 to 2368. In one recorded case a Klingon officer refused to give tissue that would have saved a dying Romulan, and the Romulan said he would rather die than take it; both peoples tell the story with approval. See Klingons and Romulans.

13.2 The Federation

The Klingon view of the Federation is more mixed. For a century before the Khitomer Accords the two were enemies, and some Klingons still regard the Federation as soft, talkative and too fond of treaties. The break of 2372, when the Empire left the Accords, showed how quickly old suspicion could return. Against that stand Narendra III, where a Federation ship died for a Klingon outpost, the Dominion War, in which Klingon and Federation crews fought side by side in joint fleets, and decades of officer exchange. Many Klingons respect the Federation as an ally. Few understand it, and few think they need to. A Klingon commander who calls a Starfleet officer a friend means it, and will still tell him when he thinks the Federation is wrong. See The Alliance with the Federation.

13.3 A curiosity

Klingons have an old enmity with the tribble, a small animal that cannot abide them. Klingon hunts once drove the creature to the edge of extinction. Federation officers should not bring one aboard a Klingon ship.

14. See Also

The Klingon Empire · Klingon Biology · Language, Names and Ranks · The Great Houses · The High Council and the Chancellor · Qo'noS and the Empire's Worlds · Klingons and Romulans · The Alliance with the Federation · History of the Klingon Empire