Note 45 — Chapter VI · Magic Rites as affecting the Life of Man (continued 3)

“Both sexes have the extraordinary custom of filing and otherwise disfiguring their teeth, which are naturally very white and beautiful, from the simplicity of their food. For files they make use of small whetstones, and the patients lie on their backs during the operation. Many, particularly the women of the Lampong country, have their teeth rubbed down quite even with the gums; others have them formed in points, and some file off no more than the outer coat and extremities in order that they may the better receive and retain the jetty blackness with which they almost universally adorn them. The black used on these occasions is the empyreumatic oil of the cocoa-nut shell. When this is not applied the filing does not, by destroying what we term the enamel, diminish the whiteness of the teeth.... The great men sometimes set theirs in gold by casing with a plate of that metal the under row; and this ornament, contrasted with the black dye, has, by lamp or candle light, a very splendid effect. It is sometimes indented to the shape of the teeth, but more usually quite plain. They do not remove it either to eat or sleep.”—Marsden, Hist. of Sumatra (ed. 1811), pp. 52, 53. ↑