Decorative Dentistry in Pre-Colonial Philippines
The idea that only wild animals had white teeth was widespread in Southeastern Asia. Human beings were thought to be distinguished by cosmetic refinements like filed and stained teeth.
The Visayans called tooth filing sangka, leveling, and it was done by an expert with a slender stone file, who sometimes removed half the tooth in the process. Variations included opening the space between teeth, or grinding them to saw-toothed points, but the desired effect was always to render them even and symmetrical. This involved correcting or obviating natural misalignment, and the reduction of those eye teeth so suggestive of fangs or tusks.
Once filed, the teeth were colored in different ways. Regular chewing of anipay root made them black, or the application of a tar-based coating called tapul gave them the appearance of polished ebony, and probably had a preservative effect. Red lakha ant eggs were used to color teeth–and kaso flowers, both teeth and fingernails–a deep red, an effect heightened and preserved by habitual betel nut chewing.
The most impressive examples of Visayan dentistry were its goldwork. Gold-pegged incisors were noted by Pigafetta in Lamasaw and by Urdaneta in Lianga Bay, and plenty of beautiful specimens have been recovered from archaeological digs. Pusad was the general term for teeth goldwork, whether they were inlays, crowns, or plating. The mananusad was the dental worker, a professional who got paid for his services. As the Sanchez dictionary (1617, 434v) puts it, “Pilay sohol ko nga papamusad ako dimo [How much will you charge me for gold teeth]?”
Halop, covering, included both plating held on by little gold rivets run through the tooth, and actual caps extending beyond the gum line, also secured by pegs. Bansil were gold pegs inserted in holes drilled with an awl called ulok, usually in a thumbnail-shaped field that had been filed into the surface of the incisors beforehand. If they were simple pegs without heads they looked like gold dots on ivory dice when filed flush with the surface of the tooth. (Si Awi, king of Butuan, had three in each tooth.) But if the pegs were tack-shaped, their flat heads overlapped like golden fish scales; or if round-headed, they could be worked into intricate filigreelike designs similar to beadwork. Of course, this goldwork was considered all the more effective if displayed on teeth polished bright red or jet black.
Such dentistry figures in the epic literature of Mindanao: a common image is the flash of golden brilliance when the hero opens his mouth to speak or smile. A lyrical passage in the Manobo Ulahingan describes how it is highlighted by the blood red of a chew of betel nut:
He then picked up
the ready-made mema'an [quid].
Tenderly he pushed this through
His teeth artistically designed,
Gently he pressed it in between
His molars with lovely pattern.
There is nothing you can see
Except the flashing of crimson…
No need to be surprised!
Because what is sparkling
Are his shining gold-crowned teeth,
What is glittering all over
Are the shining empenetek [caps] (Masquiso 1977, 183).
Source: Barangay: 16th Century Philippines Culture and Society by William Henry Scott.
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