"You take your teeth out with a knife... without anaesthetic?" My dental bunny ears switched swiftly to alert mode as I clarified that I had correctly heard the young Maasai man, who was working at the safari camp where I was holidaying in Kenya. It sounded harrowing but of ghastly interest, and he took my continued dental grilling in good spirits.
Traditionally the Maasai tribe remove the lower front teeth soon after they erupt, in the belief that these teeth cause vomiting and diarrhoea. This ritual is dying out. However, if a Maasai today succumbs to a toothache, they turn to the appointed village dentist to remove the tooth with a specific knife and nothing more than the lionheartedness of the stricken patient.
The camp employee then graciously explained the normal tooth care routine. They use the branches of a special tree named the toothbrush tree. One end of the minty-tasting branch is fashioned into bristles by making small slashes which are then dipped in a charcoal slurry with which to clean the teeth – super cool...
Taking me to the garden he showed me the toothpick tree. On the African savannah the thorny acacia tree is home to the yellow weaver birds – it's a perfect choice for their nests as the branches aren't strong enough to hold the weight of preying hawks and the 1-inch thorns make predators think twice. I duly tried the toothpick thorns and was tickled at how perfectly suited they are to clean between teeth.
For millennia Maasai have lived off three main foods: meat, blood and milk mixed with herbs. Decay has not typified the teeth of traditional Maasai as their diet and cleaning routines have been in perfect harmony with health. Many of their elderly people die with their teeth intact although worn.
Unfortunately, the disastrous 'modern' diet has infiltrated and the habit of adding sugar to daily tea is now commonplace. Inevitably tooth decay is rearing its painful head. With little access to modern dentistry, the ground-up leaf paste that Maasai people insert into rotten teeth is tragically unlikely to be a match for the obnoxious power of sugar.
