Dothraki

From A Wiki of Ice and Fire

The Dothraki people are a culture of nomadic warriors in Essos. They range across the vast grasslands of the Dothraki Sea in hordes known as khalasars. The Dothraki are large people, copper toned skin and have dark almond eyes, with black hair.^[1]

Contents 1 Society, language, and Culture 2 Cultural, spiritual and social practices 2.1 Wedding and Bedding 2.2 Customs 2.3 Military 3 Inspiration 4 References and Notes

Society, language, and Culture

The Dothraki are a nomadic people with copper toned skin. They rely greatly on their horses as these beasts are an intrinsic part of their society. They use them for food, transportation, for clothing, as a source of materials for crafts, and their deity is the Great Stallion, mirroring the importance of horses in Dothraki culture.

The Dothraki are especially skilled in horse riding and mounted warfare. They traverse the Dothraki Sea in tribes known as khalasars and are led by a khal. which are each led by one of the khal's captains, called khos. When a khal dies, a new khal may take control of the khalasar or the khas may break away and form new khalasars led by their former khos.

Each khal has bloodriders. Part guardian, brother and companion, the bloodriders guard and accompany the khal in his daily routine. Ancient traditions proclaim that when a khal dies, his bloodriders die with him. Should the khal die in battle, the bloodriders live only long enough to avenge him and then die shortly after. Some khals are known to have shared not only their daily routines with their bloodriders, but their wives too. However horses are never shared among the khal and his bloodriders. The khal and his bloodriders commonly refer to each other as "Blood of My Blood".^[2]

Khalasars have no fixed settlements and rely heavily on raiding neighboring nations, and each other, for subsistence. Dothraki can erect large grass canopies for special occasions, but typically live in portable tents, always on the move. The Dothraki have only one permanent city, called Vaes Dothrak, which serves as their capital. While khalasars are typically rivals on the plains, in Vaes Dothrak all Dothraki must behave as brothers. No one may spill blood or draw a blade in the city, on pain of death. The wives of khals, called khaleesis, live in Vaes Dothrak after their husbands die. There they rule over all the khals as the dosh khaleen.

The Dothraki speak an eponymous language of their own.^[3] All horselords affect a bowlegged swagger when forced to dismount and stride the earth like common mortals.

Cultural, spiritual and social practices

The horse is in the heart of the lives of Dothrakis, who are sometimes dubbed the "horselords" It is both a deity, a mount, a power source for its meat and milk of mares, and an inspiration for all craft dothraki. The nomadic lifestyle, as well as many cultural taboos are directly associated with the horse. They fear the sea calling it the poison water because they distrust any liquid that a horse will not drink.^[4] They are also very wary of sea travel because they cannot imagine crossing large distances without riding their horses.

Socially, being able to ride a horse is associated with social prestige, they believe that only women, cripples, children, old men and eunuchs should ride on carts and carriages. When a Dothraki dies, his horse being slaughtered in the accompanying then sacrificed on the funeral pyre of his master. The Dothraki consume almost exclusively of horse meat, they prefer beef and pork^[5], and to which they attribute many properties, especially for pregnant women. They drink a low alcohol beverage derive from mare's milk mare's milk ^[6].

Dothraki has contempt of cities, they belief that anything of importance in a man's life must take place beneath the open sky.^[3] The Dothraki believe that the stars are horses made of fire and are a giant herd that gallops across the sky by night.^[6] However it is said by others that the Dothraki believe the stars are the spirits of valiant dead.^[7]

Wedding and Bedding

See also: Marriage

Weddings begin at dawn and end at dusk, an endless day of drinking and feasting and fighting, Women with veils of crimson and yellow and orange dance to drums at wedding feasts, and warriors may take them before the watching khalasar freely. If two men take the same woman, they fight to the death. A Dothraki wedding without at least three deaths is seen as a dull affair. The bride receives three traditional gifts: whip, bow, and arakh. She refuses them with traditional words, and the husband takes them, after bride gifts are given, and the sun has gone down, the marriage is consummated.

The Dothraki mate like the animals in their heads. There is no privacy in the khalasar, and their sense of sin and shame is different than that of the Free Cities and the Seven Kingdoms.^[3]

Customs

The Dothraki are a very superstitious group, the believe that touching the corpse of a man you have not killed yourself is considered bad luck, as well as the number thirteen.^[8] Witches, or maegi, are reviled as evil and unnatural. wearing armor is for cowards so they often fight with no shirt on or with only vests.

Riding in carts in a khalasar is reserved for eunuchs, cripples, women with child, the very young and the very old. To ride in a cart and not be a member of any of those groups is to be worthy of derision.^[2] Khalasars keep two sorts of healers. Barren women practice with herbs and potions and spells, and eunuch slaves use knife, needle, and fire. Dothraki leave deformed newborns behind them for feral dogs to eat.

The Dothraki may wear rich fabrics and perfumes in the Free Cities, however among their own people men and women garb themselves in painted leather vests over bare chests, horsehair leggings cinched with belts of bronze medallions^[3] and open-toed riding sandals that lace up to the knees. They do not wear armor, considering it craven. Dothraki women might wear robes of painted sandilk.

The Dothraki’s proof of valor is their braided topknots. Whenever they lose a battle they must cut their braids as a sign of defeat. They mark victories by putting bells in their braids, often taking bells from the Dothraki they have slain. Thus, a warrior's topknot is a symbol of his prowess.^[1]

The Dothraki do not build. A thousand years before, to build a house they would dig a hole in the earth and raise a grass roof over it (I: 327) The Dothraki eat horseflesh and drink fermented mare's milk. They also have black sausages, blood pies, and sweetgrass stews.^[3]

Traders are free to cross the Dothraki sea unmolested to Vaes Dothrak as long as they keep the peace, do not profane either the Mother of Mountains or the Womb of the World and give the traditional gifts of salt, silver and seed to the dosh khaleen.

Military

The Dothraki are nomadic warriors, they ride better than any knight. Light cavalry forms the backbone of their power, Warriors use curved cavalry swords called arakhs, curved bows and whips. They eschew armor as cowardly and typically wear painted vests and horsehair breeches.

While the khalasar on the move heir scouts range far ahead, looking for prey or enemies. Outriders guard the flanks.^[9] After the battles, The jaqqa rhan, the mercy men, move among corpses and use heavy axes to take the heads of the dead and dying alike and small girls with baskets will go about pulling arrows from bodies to be re-used later.

Inspiration

See also: Themes in A Song of Ice and Fire

GRRM stated that the Dothraki were fashioned as an amalgam of a number of steppe and plains cultures. Mongols and Huns, certainly, but also Alans, Sioux, Cheyenne, and various other Amerindian tribes... seasoned with a dash of pure fantasy. Resemblance to Arabs or Turks is coincidental, extent that the Turks were also originally horsemen of the steppes.^[10]

References and Notes

This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Across the narrow sea. The list of authors can be seen in the page history of Across the narrow sea. As with the A Wiki of Ice and Fire, the content of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.