A boy comes of age gradually and unconsciously, but the first
menstruation of a girl (nyatial) is an important event and when
this condition arrives to the daughter of a prince, the village
kulkul is beaten to announce that the little princess is now
a woman of marriageable age. As soon as the fact is discovered,
the girl is secluded in the sleeping-quarters, and the veranda
is enclosed with screens of woven palm-leaf, leaving a small
entrance. Men are strictly forbidden to go into the place. The
girl becomes automatically sebel, unclean, and remains in seclusion
until the menstrual period is over and until the auspicious
day when she will be purified by the, priest. Then a great feast
is given by her family to celebrate her reappearance into the
world as a mature woman.
The custom of filing the teeth has also a deep significance
among primitive peoples, usually as-a form of initiation ceremonies
at puberty. Others tattoo or scar their bodies, and even Westerners,
who are horrified at the absurd customs of savages, practise
initiation tortures in the form of sabre duels, beatings, featherings,
or simply breaking their noses at college football games.
The Balinese file their teeth when a boy or a girl comes of
age; not in sharp points like some Africans, or down to the
gums like the Sumatrans and other Indonesians; but they simply
file off a small portion of the upper incisors and upper canines
to produce an even line of short teeth, also wearing them down
to smooth their outer surface. Undoubtedly the custom of filing
the teeth (mesangih mepandes) had its origin in initiation rites.
As. We have seen, the teeth are not only filed to make them
beautiful, but also blackened, and it is possible that, like
the custom of cutting the rice stalks at harvesting-time with
a small blade. carefully hidden in the palm of the hand, the
filing and blackening of the teeth may in some way be connected
with the fear of offending, or hurting, the rice soul. Today,
as I have said, young people are giving up chewing betel-nut,
and the custom of blackening the teeth is disappearing. It is
mostly elderly people who display black caverns for mouths,
oozing with blood-red betel juice.
The filing should be performed preferably at puberty, but the
ceremony is expensive because of fees, guests, banquet, offerings
and so forth, and usually only the well-to-do can afford it
then, Although it is not longer regarded as essential, many
people have their teeth filed later in life if they were not
filed during youth. It is believed that a person may be denied
entrance into the spirit world if his teeth are not filed, and
often the teeth of a corpse are filed before cremation so that
be will not look like a demon, a raksasa, the long canines of
whom stick out through the cheeks like a wild boar's.
