WEBVTT - Tooth, Mind and Soul: Dental Modification 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:05.920 Welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind from house stop 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:15.640 works dot com. Hey, welcome to stuff to Blow your mind. 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:18.800 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Christian Sager. Hey, Robert, 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:22.720 have you ever had any like extensive dental work done before? Who? 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:25.960 I mean, any kind of dental work feels extensive? That's true. Yeah, 0:00:26.560 --> 0:00:28.080 you know, a little bit here and there. I guess 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:30.920 it's um. It's always a weird issue from me because 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:33.919 my dad was a dentist, and so at least for 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:36.279 a few years there when I was having my had 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:39.920 my my wisdom teeth yanked out. Yeah, it was had this. 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:42.320 It was in a super weird kind of headspace about 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:45.919 it because for most of my life my dad had 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:48.840 been my dentist, and so I'm kind of getting these weird, 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:51.640 like illogical feelings of like, you can't be my dentist, 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:54.040 you're not my dad, yeah, kind of thing going on. 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:56.760 And then and then yeah, it sucks to have your 0:00:56.880 --> 0:00:59.240 your teeth worked on. Yeah, And well that's that's a 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:02.080 perfect sort of allegory actually, because you know what we're 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:04.959 gonna be talking about today is the cultural ramifications and 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:09.200 connections to modifying your teeth. Uh. In my case. I 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:11.240 you know, I haven't had a ton done, but I 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:13.520 did have my wisdom teeth taking out as well in 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:16.959 my early twenties, and it was a nightmare. I remember, 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:19.480 you know, I was a poor college student at the time, 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:21.679 and I like had the procedure done and I woke 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:25.360 up and was just like bleeding everywhere, and my girlfriend 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:27.280 at the time had to take me back to her 0:01:27.360 --> 0:01:29.720 place where I was supposed to like rest up for 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:31.960 two days, you know. And it's just I wasn't like 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:36.360 equipped maturity wise to deal with that kind of a procedure. 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:39.600 And like weeks later, like I forget what they call 0:01:39.640 --> 0:01:42.880 it in dental practice, but like fragments of tooth would 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:44.800 like work their way up through my gums. It was. 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:48.000 It was horrifying. Yeah, when I had mine out, my 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:51.760 my wife picked me up from the procedure and uh 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:56.440 and almost fainted when I took the bloody gauze out. Yeah. Yeah, 0:01:56.480 --> 0:01:59.960 Oh that's the weirdest, is the bloody gauze. So we're 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:04.360 gonna be talking about the body modification of teeth in 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:07.560 various cultures around the world, but I think it's a 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:10.919 good starting point for us to sort of compare our 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:15.480 own dental horror stories in Western culture because it's fairly similar, 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:17.240 you know, Yeah, I mean it scenario where a lot 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:20.560 of people have a lot of well deserved anxiety, and 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:24.239 not only because dental surgery kind of sucks and dental 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:27.440 pain sucks, but also because these are the only teeth 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:29.920 you have, and when you start having problems with them, 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:33.880 it's this damning reminder of your mortality. Yeah. I think 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:37.400 it was Tina Fey and her autobiography. She had this 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:40.120 great line that I remember above all else in that book. 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:43.360 She says, the mouth dies first, talking about just as 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:46.480 older and like not not even necessarily procedures you have 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:48.959 to have done, but just like like dealing with like 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:51.480 the breath of an older person. You know, it's like, oh, 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:54.200 my breath smells so bad in the morning. What's going on? 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:57.399 And this feeling that that the rest of me still 0:02:57.440 --> 0:03:00.280 feels young, but my my teeth are on this uh, 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:03.840 this irreversible path to the grave. Well, Tina fe then 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:06.280 would probably understand some of the cultures we're going to 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:09.400 talk about today, especially when it comes to tooth extraction 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:12.720 and which is also referred to as ablation, uh, and 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:15.560 the idea that you know, by preemptively yanking them out 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:17.720 of your head, you're sort of cutting off disease at 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:21.079 the past. Yeah. So we're gonna talk about different cultural 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:26.120 rituals and practices that involve the the the shaving of teeth, 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:28.800 the filing of teeth, the sharpening of teeth, the removal 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:31.560 of teeth. But before we even get into the details 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:33.720 of any of these practice, I think it's important to 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:39.120 really connect those practices to our modern dental obsessions. And 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:42.440 we have a wonderful quote here, um that you're about 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:44.480 to read, and it's from one of the sources that 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:49.280 we use on this episode, the Cultural Modification of Teeth 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:52.600 by Clark Johnson, d D, s pH D. Yeah, he 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:54.680 really nailed it, and I think that it provided an 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:59.160 excellent overview that seemed to be mostly for people in 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:02.480 school for dent a practice, but giving them an idea 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:05.400 of you know what without there in the larger scale. Okay, 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:08.760 So he says, an alien visitor to Earth might describe 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:12.840 a tooth related cult now common in many industrialized societies. 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:16.680 The people believe in the tooth cult so unquestionable they 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:20.880 call the Holy Doers doctor. The cult requires an initiation 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:24.640 wherein the holy material objects are fastened to their teeth. 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:28.039 Then they go through to two difficult years of trial 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:32.160 until they emerge purified and the holy material objects are 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:35.240 taken off in a right of passage. These people live 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:38.600 in a society that admires what it sees on billboards 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:43.080 in magazines, in a mystical place they call Hollywood. Both 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:47.400 believers and priests learn their ideals there. The practitioners of 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:51.599 the cult have an obsession with lines and angles. I 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:54.200 really like that that and I think that it's an 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:59.040 important distinction for us to set up to as Westerners. 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:01.920 And we may have some listeners out out there who 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:04.240 are familiar with some of these cultures that we're gonna 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:07.200 be talking about, but as Westerners, we mess around with 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:09.679 our teeth just as much as some of this stuff 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:12.120 that we're about to talk about. That's gonna seem weird 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:14.440 and sort of cult dish, right, Yeah. I mean it's 0:05:14.600 --> 0:05:17.240 especially when you look at the cult of the Hollywood smile, 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:21.840 Like how much time and energy goes into the straightening, whitening, 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:24.360 and not only just the physical manipulation of the teeth, 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:28.159 but then placing uh, you know, essentially fake teeth over 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:31.640 those teeth. And sculpting them down and just getting everything 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:35.520 perfectly lined up for that magazine worthy smile. So before 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:37.839 we dive into the first chunk here where we're going 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:41.960 to talk about everything except for the extraction, let's remind 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:45.000 uh you the listener out there, if you're new to 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:47.160 the show, there's a bunch of stuff that we do 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:50.520 other than just podcasting. So Stuff to Blow Your Mind 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:55.599 is Robert myself and Joe McCormick, and we podcast, but 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:58.640 we also do videos. We also write articles. We all 0:05:58.680 --> 0:06:01.720 work out of how stuff works, and you can find 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:05.679 us on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumbler where we're all blow 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:08.840 the Mind as our handle, and we curate throughout the 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:13.040 week various weird science, kind of bizarre oddity articles as 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:16.000 well as our own content and Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:20.320 Dot com is the mothership where you can find most 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:22.880 of that content, right Yeah, So let's get down to it. 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:25.000 Let's just start with teeth. Well, what are some of 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:28.840 the main reasons we have teeth to begin with? Yeah, well, 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:31.160 you know, when we think about it, the essential functions 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:34.640 for our teeth are mastication, speech, and then there's the 0:06:34.680 --> 0:06:38.520 aesthetic part, right um, And you know here in Western society. 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:41.520 I know that most of us worry about the whiteness 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:43.440 of our teeth, or the shape of our teeth, or 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:46.640 or how they smell, right, all of those kinds of things. 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:50.040 But there are also anthropological what are referred to as 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:55.120 para masticatory functions of teeth. And this is where teeth 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:59.919 are altered by intent or sometimes in what's called like 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:03.640 an unconscious accident or maybe some kind of behavioral result. 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:07.720 Right now, okay, you might be reeling from this idea already. 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:10.360 You might be one of those people who doesn't like 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:12.800 going to the dentist, and there's that you know, there's 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:18.280 that special kind of person persons. Now you know what 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:20.960 I mean. Isn't there like a particular kind of dentist 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:22.520 you can go to if you have a little bit 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:26.040 of trauma associated with dental practice that's like quiet and 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:28.880 they play soft music and they're like very gentle about 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:30.840 the way they go about things. I forget what there's 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:32.880 a name for it, but I've I've read about it before. 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:36.640 But so if you're that, you know, type of patient 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:39.480 for dentists, you might be reeling from this idea already 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:43.520 about body modification culture in general, especially when it comes 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:46.680 to your mouth. Yeah, Like I know, having read a 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:50.239 lot of Stephen King, especially in my junior nine teen years, 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:52.120 I feel like that was something Keen would come back 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:54.080 to time and time again. It's the image of an 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:57.840 individual with with sharpened teeth because on one hand, it's 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:00.600 it's like they've completely given themselves over to some sort 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:04.080 of animalistic uh quality, and and at the same time 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:07.440 it's irreversible. Right, you've how could you try teeth? Yeah, 0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:12.000 And you know, there's our fascination with vampires. There's just 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:14.680 the idea of exactly like kind of what you're mentioning, 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:18.000 like the the canine teeth of the human being sort 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:21.000 of a representation of our primal nature, right, Yeah, because 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:23.920 of course we have teeth for tearing, teeth for crushing, 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:30.080 all important for our omnivorous diet. But h yeah. And 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:33.520 then also it's worth noting that you know, historically teeth 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:36.440 have come in handy for tool use. We don't recommend it, 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:38.400 but it is they can be used as a tool, 0:08:38.400 --> 0:08:40.400 and that's another way they can be altered for sure, right, 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:42.600 if you're like chewing on rope or something like. Right, 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:46.880 But then also you know, self defense, um, situations as 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:51.560 well as a last ditch scenario, humans can bite. So 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:54.280 what the important thing to remember here as we're going 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:57.760 over this is that, you know, teeth are artifacts of 0:08:57.840 --> 0:08:59.800 human behavior, just in the same way as like our 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:03.840 clothing are, and as such, we modify them in ways 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:09.839 to communicate with others nonverbally. My experience in in communications 0:09:09.880 --> 0:09:12.679 theory is this is referred to as artifactual communication. Right, 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:16.280 So whereas like we might brush our teeth or wear 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:19.560 braces or um white in our teeth or something like that, 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:22.720 and other societies they're drilling holes into their teeth and 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:26.839 mounting jewels in them, or they're dyeing them black, right, 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:30.000 or they're ripping them out of their gums. And that's 0:09:30.000 --> 0:09:33.120 what we're gonna be talking about today. One theory about 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:36.640 this is that it's a form of costly signaling theory, 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:41.200 and this theory argues that in certain cultures, individuals employ 0:09:41.520 --> 0:09:47.720 what are usually costly, monetarily wise signals that help one 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:51.559 receive rewards, and usually that's in the form of a mate. Okay, 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:53.320 so you this is the kind of thing you would 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:56.360 see if you went down to the beach and you saw, 0:09:56.559 --> 0:09:58.640 say a dude who has really put in a lot 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:00.920 of time and money on his zeke, and maybe he's 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:03.800 covered with a bunch of tattoos to boot exactly. Yeah, 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:07.640 and even to some Western dentists, these practices that we're 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:10.240 going to talk about today are going to seem totally 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:13.679 weird and and maybe unhealthy in some situations too. Right, 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:15.960 But you know, we have to remember that our own 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:20.040 traditions are considered absolute in our culture, and our ideas 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:23.000 about teeth are just as culturally determined as say the 0:10:23.040 --> 0:10:27.199 Balinese or the Acadian French Canadian population we're going to 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:30.440 talk about today. So okay, let's let's get into it. 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:35.280 We've got chipping, filing, staining, banding, jewel inlays. Let's start 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:39.000 with how human beings modify their teeth, right, So what 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:41.360 is so? What are some of the earliest known examples 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:43.480 of this when we look back at the at the 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:47.720 archaeological data. So the oldest known example are the Etruscans, 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:51.440 and this is in seventh century b C. They took 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:54.880 flat gold bands and they would hold their real teeth 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:58.080 or sometimes fake teeth in place with these gold bands 0:10:58.080 --> 0:11:01.880 in their mouths. Now, only women wore these devices, and 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:05.200 the surviving pieces have been found in dig sites in 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:09.040 the Italian region of Lazio. Uh. It's thought that these 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:12.200 generally denoted wealth in some kind of high status, because 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:13.959 those were the kind of grave sites that they were 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:17.680 found in. Um. But there's also been examples from ancient 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:20.960 cultures of covering your teeth in gold everywhere from Rome 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:23.560 to China. So that's that's a fairly common thing that 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:25.400 goes back a while. It's not just like a new 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:27.959 fat and of course, yeah, and to your point, continues 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:31.480 on to this day. Yeah. So it's just a perfectly 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:35.839 human obsessions since time out of mind, right, Yeah, I mean, 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:39.280 like the the the current culture of like caps and 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:43.640 grills is especially like similar to these kinds of things. 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:46.720 And here in Atlanta, I mean just downtown Atlanta. There's 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:49.080 several places I used to work down there when I 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:52.200 was working at the university. There's all kinds of places 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:53.880 where you can just walk in and get your grills 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:57.120 set up. Um. So it is a you know, common 0:11:57.160 --> 0:12:00.800 cultural phenomenon today as well. With the golden lays. Now, 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:04.720 one of the examples of dental modification that that that 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:07.560 I've found particularly fascinating and have blogged on in the 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:11.880 past is a Balinese tooth filing. So this takes place 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:16.000 in the Indian Indonesian island of Bali. And uh, this 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:19.360 is in in in this particular society. It's those carnivorous 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:23.719 teeth that we've we've touched on already, the canines and incisors. 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:26.319 So these are viewed as sort of you know, be 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:30.959 steel teeth is representing the b steal nature of humanity. 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:33.800 And so here we find tooth filing is a rite 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:37.360 of passage into adulthood and a key indicator of social, 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:41.440 aesthetic and spiritual well being. Okay, and the key here 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:43.960 is that they're not filing their teeth into points. They're 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:47.280 actually filing them down to they're flatter, right right, it's 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:50.080 almost you know, to create a more um you know, 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:54.719 vegetarian dental arrangement. Yeah. They smooth away the thing like 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:57.520 qualities of of the human teeth, and in doing so 0:12:57.600 --> 0:13:00.319 they smooth away that the savage aspects of their soul. 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:04.200 That's the approach here. Uh. And ideally the ritualized procedure 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:07.600 is performed by a Brahmin priest, though you can actually 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:11.600 get your local Balinese dentist to manage it as well, 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:14.560 and if you can't afford to filing this is this 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:17.400 is amazing. They are charitable organizations or you may be 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:21.280 able to get a sponsor, an individual to sponsor you 0:13:21.600 --> 0:13:23.640 so that you can receive the procedure. Like that's the 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:28.400 cultural way that it is. Yeah, so it's that important society. 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:31.000 And so from what I was reading, my understanding was 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:34.920 that this is a practice that has both localized traditional history, 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:39.480 but then it also has some Hindu uh religious qualities 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:42.040 that got merged into it when Hinduism became popular in 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:44.559 the region. Yeah, it's a it's an ancient custom predates 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:49.160 Hinduism's arrival on the island in the fifth century BC. Uh. 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:51.160 And as often, you know, as the case, the the 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:54.160 old ways merged with the new ways and it becomes 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:57.040 this uh, you know, this hugely important things so important 0:13:57.400 --> 0:14:00.840 that if you if you die with un modified teeth, 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:04.160 then then the teeth of your corpse can even be 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:07.120 filed down to ensure your passage into the spirit room. 0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:09.160 And you probably don't need a specialist for that at 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:11.400 that point. They can just you know, like your brother 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:13.840 can do it. Yeah, I'm guessing maybe it requires a 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:17.440 little less care and finesse the symbolic power. This is 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:20.320 pretty crazy too, because if anyone out there is familiar 0:14:20.400 --> 0:14:22.960 with Balinese art, like then I should be able to 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:25.520 just say, bolly Balinese art and you should get certain 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:28.960 pictures of they're they're more common motifs in your mind, 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:32.480 you know, particularly you see this. There's a character named Boma, 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:34.680 the Son of the Earth, and he's the awards off 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:38.200 evil uh spirits and uh and and he looks like 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:41.040 some sort of a demon to sort of Western eyes, 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:43.560 and he has these big h you know things and all. 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:48.520 According to British anthropologist Anthony Forge, that's a great name 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:52.560 for an anthropologist by the Forge of anthropology. Here he's 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:57.200 noted that this dental obsession manifests itself in the art. 0:14:57.280 --> 0:14:59.720 And so you see the teeth of supernatural entities such 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:04.080 as the gods and spirits take on exaggerated, uh be 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:08.960 stual form, you know, giant canines to symbolize the opposite 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:12.200 of desired human qualities. Okay, I'm thinking of like some 0:15:12.240 --> 0:15:16.120 of the kind of like um tribal masks that I've 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:19.880 seen from certain Pacific island cultures. Yeah, exactly, that kind 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:23.280 of you know, like huge things because it's beautiful stuff. 0:15:23.920 --> 0:15:26.240 But it's interesting how in looking at the way that 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:29.960 the teeth of their spirits are represented in their art. Uh, 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:34.520 Like that reflects too in their their body modification and 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:38.520 the the alteration of their teeth for for purely aesthetic 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:42.160 spiritual and you know, in cultural reasons. Yeah, that makes sense. 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:44.600 And there's a couple of other examples that we're going 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:46.880 to talk about in the episode today where that that's 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:50.480 similar and that the deification of the of the teeth 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:55.840 shows up in visual representations of gods or myths. Yeah, okay, Well, 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:59.920 another brief look here at some people who file their 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:06.040 teeth for dental modification is the I've been people of Borneo, uh, 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:09.200 and they further beautified their teeth by they both blacken 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:10.960 and file it. But then what they do is they 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:13.840 drill a hole in the middle of each tooth and 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:17.800 then place a brass stud in this hole, so every 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:22.080 tooth has like a tiny little breast stud in its center. Also, 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:25.960 the May people of Vietnam, they have their incisors chipped 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:29.120 and ground down to the gum line. Uh. And this 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:32.760 is something that was deliberately done in in terms of 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:35.520 like staining back when they were. This is before it 0:16:35.560 --> 0:16:38.720 was Vietnam, when it was referred to as French colonial annam. 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:41.720 I think I'm saying that right, uh, And every person 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:45.040 was expected to have their teeth blackened by what was 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:49.520 quote a very painful process. Um. So for for those 0:16:49.520 --> 0:16:51.200 of us who are afraid of going to the dentist, 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:53.800 can you imagine just you know, somebody going at you 0:16:53.840 --> 0:16:56.080 with in a lot of cases easier just with like stones. 0:16:56.520 --> 0:16:59.080 That's how they're they're filing their teeth down. And then 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:02.440 the blackening usually occurs with some some kind of combination 0:17:02.480 --> 0:17:05.800 of like charcoal or plants. Yeah, they're actually one of 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:10.800 the practices in modern Mayanmar is the the chewing of 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:15.280 particular um, you know, root substances to to black to 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:17.800 help black and yeah, well the moy did it as 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:20.639 like a beautification thing basically, and the idea was that 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:23.119 if you didn't do it, you weren't an adult and 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:26.480 you couldn't get married. So nobody again, like it's like 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:29.320 it's our version of the Hollywood smile, right, Like, like 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:34.159 they weren't considered on equal level of maturity until they 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:37.200 had done this, And some tribes even gave their lower 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:41.040 jaws like a saw shape with the filing combination, so 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:44.960 that's kind of interesting, and then meso American teeth filing. 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:47.320 There there was a lot more research on on this 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:49.920 from what I could find, but basically it's a combination 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:54.200 of the filing cross hatch designs like carving cross hatches 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:57.320 into your teeth, and then the jewel inlays as well. 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:02.359 So this was frequent in young adults in what is 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:06.160 referred to as late Classic Mayan sights. And I went 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:08.239 and looked that up to to you know, some kind 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:11.160 of placement here in history. It's around a D five 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:15.879 fifty to eight thirty. Okay. Uh. Many investigators believed at 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:20.199 the time that dental mutilation correlated with high social position, 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:22.280 So we're seeing a theme here, right. This seems to 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:25.040 be going along with almost all of these. It's a 0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:27.959 social status. You need to be able to pay a 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:32.840 doctor slash artisan to transform your teeth into the desired form, 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:36.280 which is the same thing that we have today. Yeah. Yeah, 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:39.840 uh So there's a collection actually at the Institute o 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:44.880 National day Anthropologia a Historia in Mexico City where they 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:47.480 have a thousand, two hundred and twelve teeth that's a 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:51.840 very specific ammounity from this period of time. But yeah, 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:55.320 mainly these were filed down with stones. The cross hatch 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:58.160 patterns were carved into what's referred to as the labial 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:00.800 surface of the tooth, and then they would put in 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:07.040 jewel incrustation or inlays um. They're basically grills that aren't removable. Uh. 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:10.080 And they would use all kinds of different stones for this. 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:16.440 They used pyrite, j dite, turquoise, hematite, serpentine, mother of pearl, cinnabar, 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:19.400 or gold set into the surface of the teeth. The 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:23.359 most popular and common where the iron pyrite and the jade. Though, 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:26.080 and the way that they did this, this is the 0:19:26.080 --> 0:19:29.439 part that's crazy to me. Like I normally don't have 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:31.320 any problems when I go to the dentist. I'm pretty 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:33.640 cool with them, you know, doing all the stuff in there. 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:36.040 And they could the little suction host and stare at 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:39.639 the ceiling. Yeah. The TV, which always bothers me a 0:19:39.640 --> 0:19:42.040 little bit because I don't really want to watch the TV. 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:44.359 I don't know if I want you watching the TV 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:48.520 exactly while you're working on my mouth. Yeah, I've had 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:50.960 people like comment like can you believe that? Like, while 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:53.080 they're working on my mouth, and I'm like trying not 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:55.760 to pay attention to the TV. But yeah, uh so 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:59.520 in Misso America Mayan culture, what they would do is 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:01.280 they didn't of the TV, but they would take a 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:04.439 rotating fine tube of quartz or some other kind of 0:20:04.480 --> 0:20:08.600 resistant stone and they would rotate it slowly against the 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:11.960 surface of the enamel of your teeth. They'd add water 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:15.560 in an abrasive powder or sand to help drill it out. 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:18.240 For this inlay, they would possibly use what's called a 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:20.720 bow drill as well, which I looked this up. It 0:20:20.840 --> 0:20:22.760 basically looks like what you would think. It looks like 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:24.879 a bow for a bow and arrow, and then in 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:27.399 the middle, instead of having an arrow, there's there's this 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:31.879 quartz tube thing that kind of spins apart sometimes that 0:20:32.080 --> 0:20:35.520 used as a fire making up. Yeah, exactly, yep. Uh. 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:38.719 And so this was probably somewhere around seven hundred nine 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:44.399 d and one theory is that this filing occurred because okay, 0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:46.240 here we go again with the d D thing. The 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:49.679 Maso Americans were honoring a particular solar deity who is 0:20:49.720 --> 0:20:52.960 depicted as having filed teeth. So this was a way 0:20:53.000 --> 0:20:56.199 to show their admiration for him. Some of the skeletons 0:20:56.200 --> 0:20:59.920 that are found in the archaeological record there show incomplete 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:02.760 inlays as well. Uh, and they think that this might 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:05.199 be because the pain was actually so much that some 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:08.719 people couldn't go through with it, or that the individual 0:21:09.119 --> 0:21:13.159 died before it was finished. And death was also possible 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:16.439 fairly soon after because there was a high risk of 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:20.680 bacterial encephalitis after these procedures. So one of the pieces 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:24.080 that we read for this is a thesis paper by 0:21:24.080 --> 0:21:26.800 a woman named Daniel Barnes, and we're gonna come back 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:28.800 and cite this a lot, but I want to insert 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:32.760 this here because the main argument of her thesis was that, 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:36.160 and I'm quoting her here, since death is a possible 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:40.040 outcome of intentional dental modification, it should be considered a 0:21:40.119 --> 0:21:43.639 high risk procedure. So her point with all of this 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:47.240 was she sort of showcases all of the different anthropological 0:21:47.640 --> 0:21:51.480 modifications of teeth and then says, you know, think about 0:21:51.520 --> 0:21:53.960 this in context of today and how we modify her 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:57.679 teeth today, and that there's some danger involved there. But 0:21:57.800 --> 0:22:00.240 she does point out that things like add and grows 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:02.919 and caps or modern dental procedures you know that that 0:22:03.040 --> 0:22:05.040 that's not what she's talking about here. She's talking about 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:08.840 instances like trying to file your teeth down with stone, 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:11.560