Sacred tiger teeth
In the forest, tigers are the most ferocious and terrifying animals! If you unexpectedly encounter a tiger while hiking, you're very likely to be eaten! Wherever "the thirty-year-old" goes, the forest becomes silent and deserted, even the birdsong ceases. No one dares to enter forests inhabited by tigers for their daily hunt…!
(Baonghean)In the forest, tigers are the most ferocious and terrifying animals! If you unexpectedly encounter a tiger while hiking, you're very likely to be eaten! Wherever "the thirty-year-old" goes, the forest becomes silent and deserted, even the birdsong ceases. No one dares to enter forests inhabited by tigers for their daily hunt…!
Tigers can enter villages to hunt pigs, dogs, buffaloes, cows, and even humans, in broad daylight. Because of this direct threat to human life, even though everyone knows that tigers are becoming increasingly rare in the forests and are at risk of extinction, listed in the State's Red Book and needing protection, it is very difficult for tigers to be adequately protected by humans (especially those in mountainous areas – ethnic groups always closely associated with mountains and forests).
A tiger's canine tooth was found by a Thai family.
It has been kept in Quy Hop (Nghe An) for over 100 years.
In the past, hunting a fierce tiger was considered a great achievement that brought peace to the entire village and community. When a tiger was caught, the villagers would divide its teeth among themselves, carefully storing them in chests or boxes containing clothing. Only when misfortune struck and a ritual was performed would they bring the teeth out to the shaman to ward off evil spirits. Many shamans wore tiger teeth on their chests as a kind of "amulet" of their shamanic profession, earning the respect of all who saw them. If they had to carry a small child on a long journey from one village to another, they would often wear a tiger tooth around the child's neck throughout the trip, only removing it upon arrival. The villagers believed that with the tiger tooth on their person, all kinds of evil spirits and "mountain mist and miasma" along the way would not harm the child's soul during the long journey.
From fear and terror of tigers to the "spiritualization" of their teeth, this gradually became a custom and unintentionally created a "spiritual culture" that has been passed down to this day! Although tigers are no longer as numerous in the mountains as before, sometimes it takes decades for news of tigers returning to this or that forest… only to disappear again, the teeth of these tigers remain intact for many ethnic minority families in the mountainous areas of Nghe An, like a paradox between tigers and humans: They cannot live together, but they can never forget each other!
Thai Tam