A Cardassian custom in which a dying person confides their secrets to a family member, so that the knowledge can be used against the family's enemies.
Shri-tal is a Cardassian rite of the deathbed. The dying entrust what they know to a relative, who is expected to turn it to account against the family's enemies. It expresses the Cardassian devotion to family and to information alike.
It is the frame of Ties of Blood and Water in 2373. The dissident legate Tekeny Ghemor, terminally ill with Yarim Fel Syndrome, comes to Deep Space 9. He regards Kira Nerys as a daughter and asks her to receive his shri-tal, which would give Bajor and the Federation valuable intelligence on Cardassia under Dominion rule.
Kira sits with him for days, haunted by memories of her own father's death, which she had not stayed to see. Dukat then reveals that Ghemor took part in a massacre at a Bajoran monastery, and she walks out. She returns in time to be with him at the end and buries him beside her father.