They are the olive or dark-skinned peoples that dwell in the deserts of old Hyrule. What makes the Gerudo unique is that their population is made up of all women, and that there is only one man born into the Gerudo's ranks every one-hundred years. This particular characteristic has two effects: one beign that it forces the Gerudo to seek out non-Gerudo mates in order to keep thier numbers at a sustainable number, and secondly it always keep a certain threat over the entire race's head that they could be wiped out if no willing mates could be found.

The Gerudo are natural thieves and often excel at this particular craft, in fact using the superior agility that comes in tandem with this skill to further their battle prowess. Along with their superiority in war, the Gerudo society is very warlike in its ethos, valuing the strong over the weak, and utilizing their isolating terrain to keep themselves apart from the other "decadent" races, like the Hylians.

An Isolated Tribe

Since the very beginnings of Hyrule the Gerudo Tribe has always been particularly taken to a mysterious urge to separate themselves from the other races and tribes of the world. In the age of the Imprisoning War, they dwelled in the Gerudo Desert, across the canyon formed by the Zora's River on its way to Lake Hylia, as such giving them a perfect demarcation to keep outsiders away from their land. To further reinforce this point, the Gerudo warriors mantained a fence on the only bridge crossing the chasm, and introduced a zero-tolerance policy on any non-Gerudo infiltrators—if they caught an outsider in their lands, they would typically be thrown into jail.

This particular isolation worked all well and good as long as the entire tribe stayed out of trouble. Unfortunately for the pragmatists amongst them, the Gerudo were cursed when Ganondorf Dragmire was born into the tribe as their sole King and Sovereign Leader. And thus, once he was of an age where he could assume the mantel of his divinely granted position, Ganondorf worked tirelessly towards causing trouble for the other races of Hyrule.

The Favored Son

In the aftermath of the Great War Between the Races, the Gerudo were herded (much to their chagrin) under the banner of the Hylian Royal Family and joined the Kingdom of Hyrule. Ganondorf was suddenly no longer a sovereign royal and more or less a local governor with authority derived not from a serpent goddess, but rather from a fat, jolly old Hylian miles away in his lofty castle. While this insult proved a slap in the face of the Gerudo, and more importantly, Ganondorf’s ego, it also provided the young Sand King a wonderful idea—namely, that a united and centralized Hyrule was ripe for conquest if one could overcome the central authority at Hyrule Castle.

Therefore, Ganondorf sought to gain the trust of Hyrule’s King, and by extension the Royal Family. He joined the King’s inner circle of advisors (which gave him access to the archives of the Hylian scholars, a fatal mistake in the end) and lost no chance to feign allegiance to this man that he hated so much. With his prestige and access secured, Ganondorf learned of the location of the legendary Triforce, and what followed is history.

The Flight

One can imagine that, having just endured a long and painful war caused by the Gerudo king, the sand people were suddenly not looked upon as fondly as they may have been years earlier. It is therefore feasible that, rather than face the hostility of their neighbors, the Gerudo exiled themselves away from Hyrule and toward a new land where they would face less hostility. Nevertheless, even if they did remain (and this scenario is equally plausible, if only because one of the seven Sages that brought down Ganondorf’s regime was Nabooru, herself a Gerudo), the sand people would be forced to move in light of Ganondorf’s break from his seal and the terrible ruin he rained upon Hyrule, which culminated in the Great Flood.

During the events of Four Swords Adventures, the Gerudo are encountered once more in the Desert of Mystery?, in the southwest corner of Hyrule. There they have built a small camp of tents and shanties, a striking contrast to the vast complex that was Gerudo Fortress. Unfortunately for them, the accursed King of Evil returned to their tribe, as the next born male child. When he finally reached the age where he could oncemore enact his plans against the Hyrulian Crown, Ganondorf and a group of his acolytes fled deeper into the desert and began defacing the ancient Pyramids of the desert in search of ancient, evil artifacts which could help their cause. Ganondorf found the power he sought within the Dark Tribe’s lost Trident of Power, which then in tandem with other Dark Tribe artifacts, Ganondorf unleashed a horrible torrent upon the Kingdom. Only through the valiant efforts of Link and the Four Sword was Ganondorf sealed away once more, this time to be imprisoned in the Dark World (which he had perverted centuries ago from the once-idyllic Sacred Realm).

A Twice-Scorned Tribe

How many times must the male heir of the Gerudo, in whom so much hope is invested, betray the trust and ambitions of his people? Ganondorf, having struck twice against his own people, and twisting their loyalty to achieve his own evil aims, must have surely soured the Gerudo against the concept of the male child being the destined King.

By the time of A Link to the Past, which followed FSA only by a few years, the Desert of Mystery is devoid of any trace of the Gerudo tribe. It seems as if the entire lot of them packed up and left once more. Perhaps this time they went to a far-off island where they could not harm another nation with their progeny?

No one knows for sure what happened to the Gerudo people. Unlike the other races which evolved, moved away to known lands, or went into hiding, the Gerudo simply disappeared without a trace.

And thus, history lips betray two different tales of these enigmatic sand amazons—the first being of a tribe of thieves and warriors who followed their evil king in his march of conquest, the other being an accursed nomadic peoples who contributed to the rescue of Hyrule from the clutches of Ganondorf during the Imprisoning War. The former lives on in every breath Ganondorf takes, the latter in the white brick structures of Nabooru Town.