E very night, children in houses all over the U.S. crawl into their beds with anticipation, their recently lost baby teeth stashed carefully under their pillows. Why? They await the arrival of the tooth fairy, of course! Nearly everyone has at least one memory of falling asleep with a tooth under their pillow and waking up a dollar or two richer. While the tooth fairy we know and love didn’t flutter her way into the American social consciousness until the 1920s, other countries around the world have their own tooth-centric traditions dating back several centuries. MY DOG ATE MY … TOOTH? Rather than sliding the tooth under your pillow, throughout Central Asia, it’s traditional to put the tooth into a The Tooth Fairy Goes International TOOTHY TRADITIONS AROUND THE WORLD
EL RATÓN DE LOS DIENTES One of the most beloved myths in many Spanish-speaking countries involves a magical mouse. This mouse goes by Ratón Peréz or El Ratón de Los Dientes, and he is exactly what his name suggests: a mouse who collects teeth. Like the tooth fairy, Peréz gets the teeth only after they’ve been lost and put under children’s pillows. In Argentina, a lost tooth is placed in a glass of water before bed. When Peréz shows up, he’ll drink up the water, grab the tooth, and leave his gift in the empty glass. TOSS THOSE TEETH In countries like China, India, and Japan, kids will toss their teeth rather than hide them under their pillows. Teeth lost from the lower jaw are usually thrown up onto a roof, while teeth from the upper jaw are tossed onto the floor or ground. The logic behind this practice is that the strategic placement of the old tooth will help the new tooth grow in strong.
delicious fatty snack and feed it to a dog. Children take part in this tradition to ensure that their adult teeth grow in to be as strong as the dog’s teeth. No dog? No problem! The next best practice is to bury the tooth by a tree so that the new tooth has strong roots.
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