This superstition is world-wide;
instances of it in regard to hair and nails will be noticed later on
in this work.
Among the Australian tribes it was a common practice to knock out
one or more of a boy's front teeth at those ceremonies of initiation
to which every male member had to submit before he could enjoy the
rights and privileges of a full-grown man. The reason of the
practice is obscure; all that concerns us here is the belief that a
sympathetic relation continued to exist between the lad and his
teeth after the latter had been extracted from his gums. Thus among
some of the tribes about the river Darling, in New South Wales, the
extracted tooth was placed under the bark of a tree near a river or
water-hole; if the bark grew over the tooth, or if the tooth fell
into the water, all was well; but if it were exposed and the ants
ran over it, the natives believed that the boy would suffer from a
disease of the mouth. Among the Murring and other tribes of New
South Wales the extracted tooth was at first taken care of by an old
man, and then passed from one headman to another, until it had gone
all round the community, when it came back to the lad's father, and
finally to the lad himself.
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