Sayyadina Ramallo

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Sayyadina Ramallo, or Reverend Mother Ramallo, is a fictional character from the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert.

Ramallo is the spiritual leader of the tribe of Fremen that Paul Atreides and his mother Jessica meet when they escape into the desert of Arrakis in Dune. Jessica soon realizes that Ramallo is a 'wild' version of a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother. When she knows her own end is near, Ramallo has Chani administer the Water of Life to Jessica so she may also become a Reverend Mother/Sayyadina, inadvertently making Jessica's unborn daughter Alia what the Bene Gesserit call an Abomination. Ramallo shares minds with Jessica, passing on her own life experience (and presumably her collective Other Memory), and then dies.

Ramallo first appears in the Dune chronology in Dune: House Harkonnen, when Bene Gesserit Lady Margot Fenring seeks out the Fremen, looking for a group of Bene Gesserit sisters working on the Missionaria Protectiva on Arrakis who disappeared in approximately 10,070 A.G. (Reverend Mother Ramallo among them).

The following quote is attributed to Ramallo via an epigraph in the Dune: House Harkonnen:

We create our own future by our own beliefs, which control our actions. A strong enough belief system, a sufficiently powerful conviction, can make anything happen. This is how we create our consensus reality, including our gods. — Reverend Mother Ramallo, Sayyadina of the Fremen

[edit] In adaptations

Ramallo was portrayed by Italian actress Silvana Mangano in David Lynch's 1984 film adaptation, and by Drahomira Fialkova in the 2000 Dune miniseries (a younger version of Ramallo was played by Petra Kulikova in this TV adaptation).