Tooth Tales !

Read this blog of mine as the continuation of the previous blog, in which I wrote about my havoc teeth and its caring rituals.

I don’t know if you all remember the time when you lost your first birth tooth. I still vividly remember that. This was one of our first childhood incidents which was the progression towards the adulthood. For a long time I had this first loose tooth and in spite of all kind of assurance of a new tooth coming back, I was not ready to let go this tooth. My mother would sit me down on her lap and tell me all kinds of stories, every kind of temptation and then digressing, and distracting my sole attention from that tooth, she would gently touch it. But I was smart enough, as soon as I would feel even a wee bit of force; I would hold her hand and won’t let her do what she intended. But as naughty kid I was once while playing it came off just like a popcorn. It bled for 1 minute and then every thing was copasetic. That was the first window in my mouth.

After it came out I was befuddled about what to do with that tooth. I ran to my mother, holding that precious thing. Mother asked me to burry it in the ground. The reason she explained me was that if I bury the tooth in the ground, new tooth will come out in my mouth same as a new tree. But my small brain didn’t connect the dots of rituals and culture. I didn’t understand that what she said was a figurative explanation. I thought a real tooth tree will grow.After that tooth burying,it was my regular routine to check whether the teeth plant has grown. I was in a delusion, that like we saw seeds and after a while tree grows and then after some time fruits. For me burying the tooth signified the same belief. I was hoping that after some time, a tooth tree will grow and later will be laden with teeth. Just imagine how perfect my brain worked. But alas tooth tree never grew. But I didn’t loose hope .After that tooth, I would bury every tooth in the ground. I was so obsessed with that ritual that the time when I would go to the dentist to extract any of my birth tooth I would take it back from the doctor. And then come home and bury that tooth too. Now I can’t envisage my self so stupid.

Any way, it has been a long time I forgot about all that. It is only that after I heard the same kind of ritual related to a child loosing his first tooth in the U.S., reminded me of my story. And my curiosity kept growing to know about the different rituals performed in different parts of the world. What I found out might interest you too, so I thought of writing this post.

In the U.S typically, upon losing a tooth the child places the tooth under his or her pillow before going to sleep. In the morning the child finds a coin, small banknote, or a present in the place of the tooth. In reality, this is usually done by the child's parents. And for a long time child thinks that the tooth is replaced by coins by the tooth fairy.

My expedition didn’t stop .Recently I went for a hair cut .My hair dresser was a Chinese, and I asked her what they do in their country. She said that When a Chinese child loses a baby tooth; it doesn't get tucked under the pillow for the tooth fairy. If the child loses an upper tooth, the child's parents plant the tooth in the ground, so the new tooth will grow in straight and healthy. Parents toss a lost bottom tooth up to the rooftops, so that the new tooth will grow upwards.

According to my British friend in England it is held that if a child's tooth fell out, that child must drop it into a fire, to avoid having to look for it after death, and this may be the origin of the importance of a lost tooth. A Hungarian friend of mine said that in Hungary the baby tooth was put into a bottle with water, and the tooth melted in about two years time.

I do not know how far I will go collecting these folk rituals but I have realized that more or less people are the same all over the world. every one has some believes and faiths to follow. These stories make me feel better that I was actually not all that stupid.