Kokiri

The Kokiri tribe are a group children under the protection of the Great Deku Tree in the hidden Kokiri Forest, deep within the Lost Woods of Hyrule. The Kokiri children dress in Kokiri Tunics, and have guardian fairies which look over them. Link's mother brought Link to the Great Deku Tree when he was a baby, and asked it to care for him. After Link's mother passed away, the Great Deku Tree decided to raise the baby Hylian as a Kokiri. This was the first Link chronologically, which explains why it is traditional for the Link family line to dress in Kokiri Tunics. It was said that true Kokiri die if he/she leaves the forest; however, there is an unexplained inconsistancy at the ending of Ocarina of Time in which the Kokiri are seen in Lon Lon Ranch along with other characters to celebrate Ganondorf's defeat. Because of this, it is thought that Kokiri do not instantly die upon leaving the Forest, they simply age like any other person, and therefore eventually die if they do not return. If a Kokiri gets trapped in the Lost Woods for too long, the magic of the forest turns him or her into a Skull Kid. The leader of the Kokiri tribe is named Mido.

They appear predominantly in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and return in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker as the Koroks. A set of carpenters in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past are sometimes said to be Kokiri, to help explain their absence in games considered to be later in the timeline. The symbol of the Kokiri can be seen in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess in the doors of the Forest Temple.