31G IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



through the gums this is a sign that the baby when grown up 

 to manhood will be successful in all undertakings. On the 

 other hand, if the teeth appear soon and without difficulty, 

 the child is doomed to an early death, according to the old 

 English proverb " Soon toothed, soon turfed." Some savage 

 African tribes go so far as to kill those infants whose upper 

 teeth appear before the lower ones, or else these children are 

 sold to slavery, in order to save the tribe from the misfor- 

 tunes which are sure to overtake them in after life.* 



When one of the children of a Lapplander loses a first 

 tooth, this is to be cast into the fire, while a petition is recited 

 that a new tooth be given in place of the one that has been 

 committed to the flames. Another version of this old su- 

 perstitious rite prescribes that on throwing the tooth into the 

 fire the following words should be pronounced : "Fire ! Fire ! 

 here you have a worthless tooth, give me a silver tooth. "f 



A ghastly tooth-amulet is reported to be worn by natives 

 of the Island of Kiriwini, one of the Trobriand group in the 

 South Pacific. Here the widow is said to wear, suspended 

 from her neck by a string, the lower jaw of her late husband 

 with its full complement of teeth or as many as he was 

 blessed with when he died.t Whether this is designed to 

 frighten away possible suitors and thus better enable the 

 widow to guard sacredly her husband's memory, or whether 

 it is supposed to ensure her the protection of the departed 

 spirit, is not easy to determine; possibly the teeth may serve 

 both ways. 



Although the strange preference for black teeth that exists 

 in some Oriental lands may not be due to any superstition, 

 but rather to what we must regard as a perverted taste, one 



*Pannele, "Tothe-lore," International DentalJournal, January, 1899, p. 2. 



fTorsen Kalmodin, "Lapparne och deres Land; Skildringar och Studier," Stockholm, 

 1914, Pt. Ill, p. 8. 



JBrown, " Melanesians and Polynesians," New York, 1910, p. 238. 



