Sogolon Condé, also called Sogolon Kedjou, is the mother of Sunjata Keita and one of the central women of the epic. A hunchbacked and outwardly repellent maiden of Dò, she is claimed by the hunters who slay the buffalo-woman and given in marriage to King Naré Maghann Konaté in fulfilment of the prophecy that she will bear a great king. Sogolon carries the occult inheritance of the buffalo-woman of Dò, whose living double she is said to be, and it is by her tenacity and hidden power that the infant Sunjata, born unable to walk, is protected through years of humiliation by the rival queen Sassouma Bereté. Driven into exile with her children, she sustains the family until her son rises, and her death in a foreign land becomes the price Sunjata must pay for the right to bury her there. She is regarded in the tradition as the true source of her son's greatness.