Queer Things About Teeth.

Evening Star, Volume 8505, Issue 8505, 2 May 1891, Page 4

Queer Things About Teeth.

Teeth have been worshipped, and, in fact, are venerated as relics in some religious shrines. Buddha’s tooth is preserved _in an Indian temple; the Cingalese worship the tooth of a monkey ; while an elephant’s and a shark’s tooth serve a similar purpose among the Malabar islanders and the Tonga islanders respectively. The Siamese were formerly the possessors of the tooth of a sacred monkey, which they valued very highly. In a war with the Portuguese they lost the holy grinder, along with much gold and precious stones. They cared nothing, comparatively, for tha real valuables, but made every effort, it is said, to recover the tooth, offering as much as 700,000 crowns for its safe return. The Portuguese were not slow to see the bargain and let the worthless relic go. It is now kept in a small gold box, enclosed in six other boxes, in one of the many sacred temples of the Siamese capital. There is a tradition that the human jaw was formerly provided with forty-two teeth, and that the number was reduced to thirty-two when Chosroes, the Persian King, stole the piece-of the true cross enshrined at Constantinople.