The Sao are the legendary giant first-people remembered across the societies of the Lake Chad basin, credited with the region's oldest settlements and earthworks and with a stature and strength beyond that of later inhabitants. The tradition is most fully elaborated among the Kotoko and Kanembu neighbours of the Buduma and is shared, in outline, by the lake's island peoples. Sources treat the Sao collectively rather than as a single individual, and their relation to any real earlier population remains debated.