KAPAI'S CORNER: Moko my bro, Tangaroa has called you home

KIWI kids have an insight into the environment that we big kids seem to lose as we get older and supposedly wiser.
In November last year, when I held a week of creative writing workshops for Gizzy kids, I was introduced to this special insight by the tamariki of Tai Rawhiti and their environmental warrior called Moko.
Moko was the chosen character of a story the kids created about environmental awareness and how he had come to help us clever Earthlings clean up our act.
A character I knew very little about until he showed up forever here in Tauranga Moana a few months later.
On Saturday I joined a group of Moko's mates on Matakana Island to send him off to wherever it was he came from, and I got to listen to those who had had an encounter with a mammal who many said changed their lives forever.
After Saturday I too am a dolphin devotee like the Gizzy kids who believe they can connect with man and help us clean up our act.
I heard the story how Moko would sleep between the twin hulls of Ika Roa, the wave waka then moored in Pilot Bay.
How Moko would gnaw at its mooring chain as a rescue remedy for the infected teeth in his mouth. The broken down teeth that helped identify him when he was found by searchers looking for Ika Roa after its mooring finally gave way and it too was washed up on Matakana Island.
Moko and his mate Ika Roa together forever on Matakana Island ... Pretty cool kids' story huh?
But many say Moko was just that ... make believe by a group of dolphin hugging greenies and didn't deserve the send off he got last Saturday.
In fact one local columnist dismissed it all as hocus pocus hori hooha.
I am picking he had never had an encounter with anything more wairua than waipiro - or spiritual than what comes in a glass mixed with tonic and a twist of lemon.
Ironically with or without a twist, laughing it off and rubbishing Moko was exactly what the Gizzy kids were writing about.
So was Moko special?
And did he warrant the status of kaitiaki (guardian) bestowed upon him?
Was he indeed a rainbow warrior sent by Tangaroa, to tell us to stop rubbishing his playground?
You make up your own mind.
For my two bobs worth of whale watching and dolphins dying, I now know what I know now and that is Matakana means to watch over.
A sentry to stand guard over - and now at the entrance to the safe anchorage of Tauranga Harbour Moko will always watch over those who understand what he stood for.
Moko was more than just a dolphin as many have said.
He joins an elite trio of Te aihi (dolphins). Unlike Polorous Jack who met a cruel death and Opo who was only around for three months, Moko stayed and played for more than three years, which is unheard of anywhere on the planet let alone Aotearoa.
Some of us swam with him, some of us surfed with him and some of us danced on the waves and played with him - and some of us never knew him at all.
On the sand hills of Matakana last Saturday there was a send off fit for a king and it was a day I will never forget for reasons I still struggle to understand.
From Mahia to Matakana, Moko was a mate who opened up the gates to Tangaroa's world, and allowed thousands to walk in.
"Moko and Matakana" - te aihi the dolphin and his island guardian, it sure sounds like a legacy that should be protected first and then promoted for future generations to learn from.
Generations who care about our environment.
Just like the Gizzy kids who knew a rainbow warrior when they swam with one.
Swing low - Moko my bro, Tangaroa has called you home.
When we looked over Mahia what did we see, coming for to carry you home? We saw a choir of kuia calling out to thee. Their karanga was calling you home.
And when we looked over Gizzy what did we see, coming for to carry you home? We saw a team of tamariki telling tales of thee. Telling us to clean up our sea.
When we looked over Whakatane what did we hear, coming for to carry you home? We could hear the waiata of Wairaka singing out to thee. Singing for to carry you home.
And here on Matakana Island what did we see, coming for to carry you home.
A band of rainbow warriors who lived and loved the sea - they had come to carry their mate Moko home. Pai marire
broblack@xtra.co.nz