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attracts and retains dirt of all kinds in a high degree. Their teeth also, disgustfull as they must appear to an European from their blackness occasiond by their continual chewing of Betele, are a great object of their attention; every one must have them fil’d into the fashionable form, which is done with whetstones by a most troublesome and painfull operation. First both the upper and under teeth are rubbd till they are perfectly even and quite blunt, so that the two jaws lose not less than ½ a line each in the operation; then a deep groove is made in the middle of the upper teeth, crossing them all and itself cutting through at least one fourth of the whole thickness of the teeth, so that the Enamel is cut quite through - a fact which we Europeans who are taugh[t] by our dentifricators that any damage done to the enamel is mortal to the tooth, find it difficult to beleive; yet among these people, where this custom is universal, I have scarce seen even in old people a rotten tooth. Much may certainly be attributed to what they chew so continualy, which themselves and indeed every one Else agree is very beneficial to the teeth. The blackness however causd by this, of which they are so proud, is not a fixd stain but may be rubbd off
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from State Library of NSW Transcription of Banks's Journal page (vol. 2) 493, February 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-banks_remarks-419.html