xx TEETH 329 



elaborate fashion, is to point the teeth, and file out notches 

 from the anterior surface of each side of the upper part of 

 the crown, so as to leave a lozenge -shaped piece of enamel 

 untouched; as this receives the black stain less strongly 

 than the parts from which the surface is removed, an 

 ornamental pattern is produced (5). In Borneo a still more 

 elaborate process is adopted, the front surface of each of the 

 teeth is drilled near its centre with a small round hole, and 

 into this a plug of brass with a round or star-shaped knob 

 is fixed (6). This is always kept bright and polished by the 

 action of the lip over it, and is supposed to give a highly 

 attractive appearance when the teeth are displayed. A skull 

 with the teeth treated in this way may be seen in the 

 Barnard Davis Collection, now in the museum of the Eoyal 

 College of Surgeons. 



The Javan practice appears also to prevail in fashionable 

 circles in the neighbouring parts of the mainland of Asia. 

 The Siamese envoy who visited this country in 1880 had 

 his upper incisor teeth treated like No. 4, Fig. 18, and one 

 of his suite had them pointed. 



Perhaps the strange custom, so frequently adopted by the 

 natives of Australia, and of many islands of the Pacific, of 

 knocking out one or more of the front teeth might be 

 mentioned here, but it is usually associated with some other 

 idea than ornament or even mere fashion. In the first- 

 named country it Constitutes part of the rites by which the 

 youth are initiated into manhood, and in the Sandwich 

 Islands it is performed as a propitiatory sacrifice to the spirits 

 of the dead. 



The projection forwards of the front upper teeth, which we 

 think unbecoming, is admired by some races, and among the 

 negro women of Senegal it is increased by artificial means 

 employed in childhood. 1 



All these modifications of form of comparatively external 

 and flexible parts are, however, trivial in their effects upon 

 the body to those to be spoken of next, which induce per- 

 manent structural alterations both upon the bony framework 

 and upon the important organs within. 



1 Hamy, Revue d'Anthropologie, January 1879, p. 22. 



