This isn't his first lost tooth, so I asked what he did with his other teeth when he lost them in Ethiopia. I half expected him to just act confused, since he doesn't generally answer questions regarding Ethiopia, but through a few words and lots of hand motions, he informed me that teeth are thrown on the roof after you lose them (Sam seemed to agree with lots of jumping and "Yes! Yes!").......if any Ethiopian could confirm his story, I would greatly appreciate it! I just had to laugh...A lot of the roofs there are just flat and I can just imagine climbing onto the roof and finding piles of teeth from the occupants of the house. Sounds a little disgusting and a tad weird, but who are we to judge...we put our lost teeth under our pillow and expect that a token of appreciation from a magical fairy will appear by morning...if that's not weird, I don't know what is!
I told Charlie we would put his tooth under his pillow tonight and see what happened. Or I wonder if the tooth fairy will be looking for it on the roof.....
6 comments:
Funny! He seems sure of it....
ooh this is interesting...during my 6 months in Ethiopia this topic never came up. But I'm sending all my Ethiopian friends an email to ask them about the tradition. I'll let you know what they say! In the meantime, I say let them throw it on the roof!!! ;)
Nati lost 8 teeth in Ethiopia and yes, they through them on the roof. (Some areas throw bottom teeth on the roof and bury top teeth in the dirt or under the house. Supposedly telling the new tooth which direction to grow so they will be nice and straight.) There is actually a children's book titled "Throw Your Tooth on the Roof" that tells about the traditions with teeth in lots of cultures, so I was not surprised when Nati told me he threw them on the roof. That being said he is looking forward to loosing another tooth because putting it under your pillow and getting a small present sounds way better in his book. David is going to be first though -- he is working hard on his first tooth.
M told me that in the PI kids threw their teeth on the roof and a rat would come and collect it! How weird is that?????!!!!! We did find the book that Beth was talking about...I didn't believe M, but after searching around about tooth traditions, of course, I was wrong....that is what they did in PI....so roof/pillow. As long as my kids find a treat for loosing the tooth, that is all that they care about. LOL!!! Charlie is so cute :)
Yes, Mickey also would throw his teeth on the roof b/c he said birds would take your old teeth and bring you new ones :)
-April
Not that you don't already have all the answers you need, but this is what my friend, Shambel, replied:
"In our culture when children loose their teeth, the throw it on the roof of a house saying
“Bird...Bird,,,, Took my teeth & Give me yours"
Just it is a legend that; if you do this your teeth grow fast. This is the culture."
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