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After they have been ground down to the desired length, the line of the teeth is filed until all unevenness disappears. This filing is known as asah. Baja (soot) is then laid on the surface so formed as a curative. Baja Kléng (Kling) is to be found with the medicine-sellers, but many make the baja themselves by catching the soot off a burning cocoanut-shell on a wet knife or other steel weapon.
The people of Pidië file their teeth in such a manner as to make it appear as if they projected outwards, and end by making them entirely black, as the Javanese used to do in earlier times. Some fops and women of light reputation use baja every day to blacken the space between each pair of teeth[1].
§ 6. The Parents as Bringers-up of their children.
Share of the father and mother in the bringing up of the child.As we have already seen, the woman after marriage continues to live in her own house or that of her parents. Thus the children are as a rule brought up in the house of their mother, in which the father is in a certain sense a stranger. In a certain sense, for though some Achehnese institutions bear clear traces of an earlier "matriarchate," they are still traces and nothing more. In Acheh no one would dream of prohibiting the father from seriously concerning himself in the bringing up of his children, and reserving that right for the mother's brother, as is done in the highlands of Padang. As we have already seen, the wife's family are only too anxious to leave the ground free to the husband, and it is not till after years of wedded bliss that the ban which severs the latter from his wife's people is gradually removed to some extent. Thus the father has as great a share as he pleases to take in the bringing up of his children.
On the whole, however, it may be asserted without hesitation that the children grow up more under the protection of the mother and her relations than that of the father. The latter has many reasons which cause him to be repeatedly absent from home for long periods. When, for instance, he has more than one wife, his spouses are gene-
- ↑ The operation of tooth-filing is equally popular among the Malays of the Peninsula. A full description of the Malayan tooth-filing ceremony will be found in Skeat's Malay Magic, p. 355 et seq. (Translator).
