This site is still under construction.

This page is still under construction.

1. Klingon Rituals & Traditions

2. Ships = ghobe, naDev vo' yIghoS  coming soon

Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam! -

IT IS A GOOD DAY TO DIE

Planet: Q'onoS (Kronos, the Klingon homeworld).

This warrior race has a genetic predisposition to hostility and a well-known streak of fatalism.  Klingons do not like to be "probed" by empathic species. The culture's warrior ethic runs so deep that rivals in the civil war can meet and drink as equal fighters for periods of time before or after battles, thanks to the Capitol City's neutrality. During these get-togethers, a great deal of growling, wrestling, snarling and generally loud revelry takes place, Klingons seeming to derive tremendous satisfaction from drinking with their enemies on the night before a battle.

A beard is a symbol of courage; a hammer is a symbol of power. A true warrior fights to the death and would rather be killed than taken hostage — an act which brings dishonor on himself and his family for three generations. Their most important historic symbol of leadership, Kahless, said Klingons should fight not just to spill blood but to enrich the spirit. Their scientists are not highly regarded in the culture. Shattering the cranial exoskeleton at the tricipital lobe brings instant death.

In the traditional sense, the Klingon people hold honor above life — although as with any culture, high-level politics and personal gain get in the way. In Klingon culture, lower-ranked officers consider it a duty to kill off a superior who is perceived as weak. Klingons notoriously neither surrender nor bluff. Despite the disillusionment and disrespect of some Klingons, Klingon honor still counts among the peoples.

Warriors and their families are responsible for each other's actions.  A challenge to clear a family's name, ends in death if unsuccessful. They believe that death is an experience best shared and view it as a joyful time for one who falls in the line of duty and earns a place among the honored dead, celebrating the release of a dead spirit rather than grieving over what they consider to be the empty shell of the body. One of the most honorable deaths is a kamikaze-like suicide that takes an enemy's life with it. Viewed through their Spartan perspective, illness (especially terminal) is not honorable.  One is not supposed to faint, at least as an adult, a bias that leads to a lack of both research and sympathy for such patients.  Usually cases of paralysis are left to die — or to perform the ritual suicide Hegh'bat.

Klingons usually mate for life, celebrated with a solemn Oath of Union, most often in private, rather than in a public ceremony like marriage;  initial issuance of the Oath of Union to K'Ehleyr, the Oath doesn't appear include much talking, and no dancing or crying as in human weddings.

Klingons apparently hold the Ferengi with almost as much disdain as they do Romulans, thinking them loud of talk, yet weak in action. Klingon officers do not let their children live with them as a general rule, although "the son of a Klingon is a man the day he can first hold a blade".

Klingons are remarkably skilled hunters, relying on their keen olfactory senses to pick up and stalk their prey. They eat their meat raw, seasoned more strongly than humans prefer, and find the human tradition of "burning their meat" to be somewhat repulsive.

The custom of naming godparents or other relatives is practiced among Klingons as well as humans. The Jem'Hadar, Third Talak'talan, expressed regret that his first experience with an Alpha Quadrant being was not with a Klingon warrior, but with Federation humans and a Ferengi instead, both of whom he considered weak.

Although they believe in an afterlife, Klingons perform no burial ritual and dispose of the corpse by the most efficient means possible — although some archeological digs on Qo'noS revealed different customs at one

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