Deciduous Teeth - Cultural Traditions

Cultural Traditions

Various cultures have customs relating to the loss of deciduous teeth. These were most commonly associated with mice or other rodents on account of their sharp, everlasting teeth.

In Britain, lost teeth were commonly burnt to destroy them. This was partly for religious reasons connected with the Last Judgement and partly for fear of what might happen if an animal got them. A rhyme might be said as a blessing:

Old tooth, new tooth
Pray God send me a new tooth

The legend of the tooth fairy is that of a fairy that gives a child money and/or gifts in exchange for a baby tooth that has fallen out. Children typically place the tooth under their pillow at night. The fairy is said to take the tooth from under the pillow and replace it with money once they have fallen asleep. In some places in Australia and Norway, the children put the tooth in a glass of water.

Tooth tradition present in the United States sometimes comes under different names. A Ratón Pérez appeared in the tale of the Vain Little Mouse. The Ratoncito Pérez was used by Colgate marketing in Venezuela and Spain. In Italy, the Tooth Fairy (Fatina) is also often replaced by a small mouse (topino). In France and in French-speaking Belgium, this character is called la petite souris ("The Little Mouse"). From parts of lowland Scotland comes a tradition similar to the fairy mouse: a white fairy rat who purchases the teeth with coins. In medieval Scandinavia there was a tradition, surviving to the present day in Iceland, of tannfé ('tooth-money'), a gift to a child when it cuts its first tooth.

In Turkey and Greece, children traditionally throw their fallen "milk teeth" onto the roof of their house while making a wish. Similarly, in some Asian countries, such as India, Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines, when a child loses a tooth, the usual custom is that he or she should throw it onto the roof if it came from the lower jaw, or into the space beneath the floor if it came from the upper jaw. While doing this, the child shouts a request for the tooth to be replaced with the tooth of a mouse. This tradition is based on the fact that the teeth of mice grow for their entire lives, a characteristic of all rodents. In Japan, a different variation calls for lost upper teeth to be thrown straight down to the ground and lower teeth straight up into the air; the idea is that incoming teeth will grow in straight.

In parts of India, young children offer their discarded baby teeth to the sun, sometimes wrapped in a tiny rag of cotton turf. In southern India, children bury their teeth in the soil hoping for a newer one to grow. The Sri Lankan tradition is to throw the milk teeth onto the roof or a tree in the presence of a squirrel (Funambulus palmarum). The child then tells the squirrel to take the old tooth in return for a new one. Some parts of China follow a similar tradition by throwing the teeth from the lower jaw onto the roof and burying the teeth from the upper jaw underground, as a symbol of urging the permanent teeth to grow faster towards the right direction.

The tradition of throwing a baby tooth up into the sky to the sun or to Allah and asking for a better tooth to replace it is common in Middle Eastern countries (including Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Egypt and Sudan). It may originate in a pre-Islamic offering and certainly dates back to at least the 13th century, when Izz bin Hibat Allah Al Hadid mentions it.