The Citadel

The Archive of 'A Song of Ice and Fire' Lore

Concordance

12.4. The Dothraki
  • The Dothraki name the Seven Kingdoms Rhaesh Andahli, the Land of the Andals (I: 24)
  • The Dothraki keep slaves (I: 26)
  • Vaes Dothrak is the heart of the Dothraki sea and culture (I: 26, etc.)
  • The Dothraki are always carefully dealt with by the Free Cities, given gifts of all manner and manses to keep them from attacking. (I: 28. V: 80)
  • The Dothraki are copper-skinned and have dark almond eyes, with black hair. Dothraki lords wear thick mustachios (bound by rings), their hair oiled and braided and hung with bells. (I: 29)
  • The Dothraki are a large people (I: 29)
  • The great bands of Dothraki are called khalasars, and their chieftains are khals, whose wives are named khaleesi. (I: 24, 31, 87)
  • The Dothraki can swiftly raise 'palaces' of woven grass for special occasions (I: 82)
  • The Dothraki may wear rich fabrics and perfumes in the Free Cities, but among their own people men and women garb themselves in painted leather vests over bare chests and horsehair leggings cinched with belts of bronze medallions (I: 83)
  • Dothraki warriors grease their long braids with fat (I: 83)
  • The Dothraki eat horseflesh and drink fermented mare's milk. They also have black sausages, blood pies, and sweetgrass stews (I: 84)
  • The Dothraki have their own language (I: 84)
  • 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 (I: 85)
  • Dothraki use double-curved bows (I: 86)
  • The wealthier Dothraki wear garb of sandsilk (I: 87, etc.)
  • The Dothraki use saddles smaller and flatter than those used in the Free Cities (I: 87, 191)
  • The Dothraki hate and fear the salt ocean, believing no horse can cross what they call the black salt sea and poison water (I: 94, 487)
  • Khals spend their days and evenings with their warriors and bloodriders, racing prize horses, watching women dance and men die (I: 191)
  • A khaleesi has khas named to her, a personal guard (I: 193)
  • Scouts range far ahead of a khalasar when it is on the move, looking for prey or enemies. Outriders guard the flanks (I: 195)
  • The Dothraki prefer horsemeat to pork and beef (I: 272)
  • Feral packs of dogs are never far behind a khalasar (I: 272, 555)
  • Rhae Mhar means sore foot (I: 323)
  • Rhaggat is the word for cart (I: 323)
  • The Dothraki ride better than any knight (I: 325)
  • 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 heir to a khalasar is named the khalakka (I: 327)
  • The Dothraki wear open-toed riding sandals that lace up to the knees (I: 329, 589, 590)
  • The dosh khaleen wear the same garb as the rest of the Dothraki (I: 410)
  • Dothraki women might wear robes of painted sandilk (I: 412)
  • Among the Dothraki women ride almost to the moment of birth (I: 489)
  • The jaqqa rhan, the mercy men, move among corpses in battle fields and use heavy axes to take the heads of the dead and dying alike (I: 555)
  • After a battle, small girls with baskets will go about pulling arrows from bodies to be re-used later (I: 555)
  • The Dothraki do not wear armor, considering it craven (I: 556)
  • When a Dothraki lord is slain, the lord who has slain him has the right to add his bells to his own braid (I: 556)
  • Important men under a khal are named ko, and they have their own khas within the khalasar (I: 559)
  • Khalasars keep two sorts of healers. Barren women practice with herbs and potions and spells, and eunuch slaves use knife, needle, and fire (I: 560)
  • The bias against women is such that the bloodriders of a khal will not allow themselves to be commanded by his khaleesi (I: 588)
  • A khal who cannot ride cannot rule (I: 589)
  • The Dothraki will not follow a child khalakka. Instead the kos will fight among themselves to take the place of the fallen khal and the khalakka will be killed so as not to be a rival (I: 591)
  • The bloodriders of a khal will take his wife or wives to Vaes Dothrak to join the crones, before they join him in death. It is their last duty to him (I: 591)
  • Sandsilk might be used for tents of khals (I: 595)
  • "Shierak qiya" means bleeding star (comet). The Dothraki see such signs as ill omens (II: 138)
  • "Vaes Tolorro" means city of bones (II: 148)
  • The Dothraki call the Qartheen Milk Men, for their paleness (II: 311)
  • The Dothraki sometimes wear sandals of woven grass (II: 637)
  • The Dothraki use curved daggers (II: 637)
  • There have been Dothraki warriors; possibly slaves; who have fought in the fighting pits of Meereen (II: 646)
  • Four hundred or more years ago, the Dothraki first came out of the east to sack and burn every town and city in their path. The khal who led them was named Temmo, and his khalasar numbered 50,000 at least, half of them braided warriors with bells in their hair (III: 96)
  • The Qohorik knew that Temmo came and strengthened their walls, doubled their guard, hired two free companies (the Bright Banners and the Second Sons), and bought 3,000 Unsullied. As the Three Thousand came to Qohor after their long march from Astapor, they saw that a battle had ended and the Dothraki had sent the sellsword companies to flight and defeated much of the Qohorik army. The horselords feasted to sack the city on the morrow, but when morning came the 3,000 Unsullied were drawn up before the gates with the Black Goat standard flying over them (III: 96, 97)
  • Temmo, disdaining his foes on foot, charged the Three Thousand eighteen times. The Unsullied locked their shields, lowered their spears, and stood firm against the 20,000 Dothraki screamers. Three times the khal sent his archers past, arrows raining down on the Unsullied, but they only lifted their shields. In the end only 600 Unsullied remained, but more than 12,000 Dothraki were dead upon the field, including Khal Temmo, his bloodriders, his kos, and all his sons (III: 97)
  • After the battle of the Three Thousand, on the fourth day as morning broke, the new khal led a procession of the survivors past the gates. One by one, each man cut off his braid and threw it down before the feet of the Three Thousand. Since then, the city guard of Qohor has been made solely of Unsullied, every one of whom carries a tall spear from which hangs a braid of human hair (III: 97)
  • Dothraki warriors affect a swagger when they are forced to walk on the ground (III: 265)
  • The Dothraki think of oarless ships as water carts (III: 270)
  • Even a modest khalasar could take Astapor, but none ever has because of the Unsullied (III: 271, 272)
  • The Dothraki have not ridden against the Unsullied since they left their braids in Qohor (III: 272)
  • The Dothraki sea lies north of Slaver's Bay (III: 272)
  • There are two dozen or more khalasars on the Dothraki sea (III: 272)
  • The Dothraki have not attacked the slave cities in part because they are the readiest market for buying the slaves they take in their warring (III: 272)
  • Dothraki sometimes wear medallion belts crossed across their chests (III: 311)
  • The Flatlands are relatively sparsely populated, as the Dothraki occasionally pass through, as when a khal decides he will gaze upon the sea. The ruins of towns are testament to their passage (V: 80)
  • In the Velvet Hills one may find a huge Valyrian sphinx with a dragon's body and a woman's face, next to an empty plinth were a second sphinx had once stood; that sphinx was carried away by the Dothraki to Vaes Dothrak (V: 81-82)
12.4.1. Customs
  • Dothraki men only cut their braids when they are defeated in battle, to show their shame. Each time they kill someone of note, they add a bell of gold or silver or bronze (I: 30, 670)
  • The Dothraki believe that everything important in a man's life should be done under the open sky (I: 82)
  • When a khal marries, he most present his new bride to the dosh khaleen at Vaes Dothrak (I: 83)
  • Weddings begin at dawn and end at dusk, an endless day of drinking and feasting and fighting (I: 83)
  • Sitting beneath the khal's bloodriders is a place of honor (I: 84)
  • All dishes are served first to the newlywed pair, and then whatever they refuse is offered to the rest of the participants at the wedding feast (I: 84)
  • 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 (I: 84, 85, 672)
  • A Dothraki wedding without at least three deaths is seen as a dull affair (I: 85)
  • After bride gifts are given, and the sun has gone down, the marriage is consummated (I: 85)
  • The bride receives three traditional gifts: whip, bow, and arakh. She refuses them with traditional words, and the husband takes them (I: 86)
  • A khaleesi must ride a horse worthy of her place by her khal (I: 87)
  • It is the Dothraki fashion to use sand to cleanse oneself clean (I: 144. III: 649)
  • The Dothraki are unsentimental. They do not name their animals (I: 192)
  • A man who does not ride is no man at all, honorless and without pride (I: 194)
  • Khalasars leave deformed newborns behind them for feral dogs to eat (I: 272)
  • Carts are used only by eunuchs, cripples, women giving birth, the very young, and the very old (I: 323)
  • The horselords do not trade. They accepts gifts, and give gifts in return, but they do so in their own time (I: 325)
  • Shedding blood or drawing a blade is forbidden in Vaes Dothrak (I: 327)
  • Even warring khalasars put aside their feuds and share meat and mead together when in sight of the Mother of Mountains (I: 327)
  • Every khal has bloodriders, men who are guards, brothers, shadows, and friends to him in ways that run deeper than the oath of the Kingsguard to the king (I: 328)
  • Bloodriders and their khal name each other "blood of my blood" (I: 328)
  • Tradition holds that bloodriders die with their khal to ride at his side in the night lands. If he died at the hands of enemies, they live only long enough to avenge his death and then follow him joyfully into the grave (I: 328)
  • In some khalasars, the bloodriders share the khal's wine, tent, and even his wives, but never his horse. A man's mount is his own (I: 328)
  • Men may have more than one wife (I: 328, 411)
  • A man does not braid his hair until he has won a victory (I: 330)
  • When a khal dies, his khaleesi joins the dosh khaleen to rule the Dothraki nation with them. Even the mightiest khals bow down before the authority and wisdom of the dosh khaleen (I: 411)
  • Near the walls of a feasting place are those with short braids, men who have only recently done anything of merit (I: 413)
  • The seat near the center of a feasting hall, close to a firepit, is a place of respect if not high honor (I: 413)
  • In the corner of a feasting hall, the furthest place from the seat of khals so that better men need not look on them, sit the lowest of the low: raw unblooded boys, old men who cannot fight, the dim-witted, and the maimed (I: 416)
  • The Eastern Market is used largely by the caravans from the east (I: 490)
  • Bloodmagic is forbidden amongst the Dothraki, although the bloody rituals of the dosh khaleen are seen as different (I: 594)
  • When a man dies, his mount is kill and placed beneath him to burn with him on his funeral pyre, to carry him to the night lands (I: 595)
  • A funeral pyre is laid out in a great square, with a dead horse to be placed beneath the platform on which the dead man will be placed. The wood of the platform is laid east to west, from sunrise to sunset (I: 667)
  • The personal valuables of a man are placed on his pyre (I: 667)
  • The third level of a funeral pyre is made of thin branches laid north to south, from ice to fire (I: 668)
  • Only a khal can ask a man to become his bloodrider, by saying "I ask your oath, that will live and die as blood of my blood, riding at my side to keep me safe from harm." (I: 669)
  • Only a man can name a ko (I: 669)
  • When a body is laid on its funeral pyre, the head is turned in the direction of the Mother of Mountains (I: 670)
  • The burning of a funeral pyre does not begin until the first star is seen (I: 671)
  • The funeral pyre with slain horse is done only for the khals of the Dothraki (I: 671)
  • The response of a man who would be bloodrider to a khal who asks him to be one is simply, "Blood of my blood" (I: 674)
  • Few men have the honor to die with their hair never having been cut in shame and defeat (II: 144)
  • Handmaidens share beds with their khaleesis and it is not unknown for them to help relieve sexual tension as part of their duties (III: 268, 270)
12.4.2. Vaes Dothrak
  • The Horse Gate of Vaes Dothrak are two gigantic bronze stallions, hooves meeting a hundred feet above the road way to form a pointed arch, but Vaes Dothrak has no walls. (I: 323)
  • The Horse Gate, when seen directly and from a distance, frame the great purple mountain which the Dothraki name the Mother of Mountains (I: 323, 327)
  • The path beneath the Horse Gate is the godsway (I: 323)
  • The godsway is decorated with plunder from many lands'; statues of dead cities brandishing thunderbolts, stone kings, young maidens on marble plinths, monsters of all sorts (I: 324)
  • The Western Market of Vaes Dothrak is where the merchants from the Free Cities, and even those of the Seven Kingdoms, come to trade (I: 325)
  • Entering Vaes Dothrak from the godsway means starting at the Western Market (I: 326)
  • Vaes Dothrak is at least ten times larger than Pentos, its streets paved with grass and mud and carpeted in wildflowers. Vaes Dothrak sprawls languorously and its buildings are well-separated (I: 326)
  • The households are strange; pavilions of carved stone, manses of woven grass as large as castles, rickety wooden towers, stepped pyramids faced with marble, log halls open to the sky, and some palaces are surrounded by thorny hedges (I: 327)
  • The buildings of Vaes Dothrak have been built by slaves from many lands, so they built after their own fashion (I: 327)
  • Only the crones of the dosh khaleen live permanently in Vaes Dothrak, with their slaves and servants (I: 327)
  • Vaes Dothrak is so large out of the belief that one day all the Dothraki will die and return to the holy city. It must be ready to receive them all (I: 237)
  • The Eastern Market is filled with caravans from Yi Ti, Asshai, the Shadow Lands, and the lands from beside the Jade Sea (I: 327)
  • From the pit where important ceremonies are done in Vaes Dothrak, processions move along the godsway which runs through the center of Vaes Dothrak, from the Horse Gate to the Mother of Mountains (I: 411)
  • The lake along the godsway is named the Womb of the World (I: 412)
  • Some traders at Vaes Dothrak have huge eunuchs as guards, who strangle thieves with strips of silk so as not to break the laws of Vaes Dothrak and spill blood (I: 414)
  • The Western Market of Vaes Dothrak is a great square of beaten earth surrounded by warrens of mud-baked brick, animal pens, and whitewashed drinking halls. The square itself is a maze of stalls and aisles shaded by awnings of woven grass (I: 489)
  • The caravans that come to Vaes Dothrak come more to trade with one another rather than with the Dothraki. The Dothraki tolerate them so long as they do not break the peace of the sacred city, do not profane the Mother of Mountains or the Womb of the World, and honor the dosh khaleen with the traditional gifts of salt, silver, and seed (I: 490)
12.4.3. Religion
  • Vaes Dothrak is the heart of the Dothraki sea and culture (I: 26, etc.)
  • When a khal marries, he most present his new bride to the dosh khaleen at Vaes Dothrak (I: 83)
  • The Dothraki believe that the moon is a goddess, wife to the sun (I: 198)
  • It is death to draw a blade in Vaes Dothrak (I: 296)
  • Only the crones of the dosh khaleen live permanently in Vaes Dothrak with their slaves and servants (I: 327)
  • The dosh khaleen have prophesized that one day all the Dothraki would die and return to the Mother, so the city must be ready to receive all its children (I: 327)
  • Shedding blood or drawing a blade is forbidden in Vaes Dothrak (I: 327)
  • In Vaes Dothrak, all Dothraki are of one great khalasar (I: 327)
  • A khal will ascend the Mother of Mountains to sacrifice to the gods for his safe return (I: 328)
  • Only men can set foot on the Mother of Mountains (I: 328)
  • In the heart-eating ceremony, a khal's bloodriders will kill a stallion and cut out its heart with stone knives. The khal will sit it before the khaleesi (I: 409)
  • When a khaleesi is pregnant, she must eat the entirety of the heart of a stallion before the crones of the dosh khaleen, to make her child a strong and fearless son. If she chokes or retches up the flesh, the child might be stillborn, weak, deformed, or female (I: 409)
  • No steel is allowed in sacred Vaes Dothrak, beneath the shadow of the Mother of Mountains (I: 410)
  • When the khaleesi successfully completes the eating of the heart, ritual phrases are said: "Khalakka dothrae mr'anha"(a prince rides inside of me), the response being "Khalakka dothrae" (the prince is riding) from the eldest of the dosh khaleen. The rest repeat that he rides and exclaim "Rakh! Rakh! Rakh haj!" (A boy, a boy, a strong boy) (I: 410)
  • Bells ring, warhorns sound, and the crones chant after the ritual phrases (I: 410)
  • The dosh khaleen read prophecies in the rising of smoke from the burning of dried grass (I: 411)
  • When a khal dies, his khaleesi joins the dosh khaleen to rule the Dothraki nation with them. Even the mightiest khals bow down before the authority and wisdom of the dosh khaleen (I: 411)
  • After the ceremony, the khaleesi will cleanse herself in the Womb of the World (I: 411)
  • Only those some may watch the heart-eating ceremony: the khal and his blood riders, the crones of the dosh khaleen, other khals of import and their wives, the chief men of the khalasar of the khaleesi, the handmaids of the khaleesi, and the servants and slaves of the khals (I: 411, 413)
  • The dosh khaleen is traditionally honored by newcomers to Vaes Dothrak with the traditional gifts of salt, silver, and seed (I: 490)
  • The Dothraki believe that the horses of fire that make up stars are ridden by dead Dothraki warriors. The more fiercely the man burned in life, the brighter his star would be in death (I: 671)
  • If a young child too young to ride should die, he will not ride in the nightlands but instead be reborn to begin life anew (II: 140)
  • The Dothraki believe in hell (II: 637)
  • The Dothraki pray (III: 86)
  • The Dothraki believe in a horse-god (SSM: 1)
12.4.4. Legends and Beliefs
  • The Dothraki believe that someday ghost grass will cover the world, and then all life will end (I: 190)
  • It is believed that a woman able to eat the entire heart of a stallion without retching or choking will have a strong, fearless son; if she cannot, the child will be weak, deformed, stillborn, or female (I: 409)
  • The Dothraki believe that the stars are horses of fire, a great herd racing across the sky (I: 410)
  • The Dothraki believe that the first man came out of the waters of the Womb of the World (I: 412)
  • The Dothraki believe that one day the dosh khaleen will pronounce that the khal of khals, the stallion that mounts the world, will be carried in the womb of a khaleesi. He will unite the Dothraki people and conquer all the world (I: 415)
  • The Dothraki have a word, maegi, applied to women who they believe lay with demons and practice the blackest of sorceries, evil and soulless creatures who visit men in the dark of night and take their strength and life (I: 560)
  • The Dothraki believe in magics involving grass, corn, and horses (I: 561)
  • The Dothraki believe that the horses of fire that make up stars are ridden by dead Dothraki warriors. The more fiercely the man burned in life, the brighter his star would be in death (I: 671)
  • If a young child too young to ride should die, he will not ride in the nightlands but instead be reborn to begin life anew (II: 140)
  • The Dothraki believe that when the gods are gone from places, evil ghosts feast by night. Such places should be shunned (II: 143)
  • The Dothraki say that the people from the Shadow are spawn of shadows (II: 426)
  • The Dothraki believe it is bad luck to touch a dead man, unless you are the person who killed them (V: 31)