Analysis Of The Article ' Body Ritual Among The Veldt ' By Horace Miner Essay

Effective communication has many aspects that can be described as either transparent or a hidden unknown, which in many readings it describes how ambiguity is a necessary evil in communications. The “Triangle of Linguistic Structure” can give phonology meaning form, semantics the value of meaning, and pragmatics that feature the intention to uncertain communications. The direct statements of saying someone is dead, can be harmful so they use etiquette to give reason to use a buffer and instead say they have moved away. For a literary example I will use “Who am I this time?” by Vonnegut and “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” by Miner, for both readings use ambiguity to hide an allegory of communication concepts. The “Body Ritual among the Nacirema”

In 1956 a professor from the University of Michigan, Horace Miner, wrote an article in The American Anthropologist that has become a mainstay of learning for anthropology students. Miner published the article to show a fictional exotic society called “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” as an example of how one’s own limited perspective might affect the perception of a foreign culture (Miner, 1956, p. 503). The article uses subtle humor to make the reader more comfortable in examining cultural behaviors, physical appearance, and health as the reader soon discovers that the actual society being examined is the American society. To the reader, the article begins to sound very familiar after each paragraph is

Body Ritual Among the Nacirema What is the precise geographical location of this strange tribe, the Nacirema? The Nacirema is a North American group living in the territory between the Canadian Cree, the Yaqui and Tarahumare of Mexico, and the Carib and Arawak of the Antilles. Little is known of their origin, though tradition states that they came from the east.

Horace Miner, a American Anthropologist wrote an academic essay titled “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema.” In this article Miner described some of the bizarre rituals and practices of the “Nacirema” which the reader comes to find out that he is talking about North Americans. The way Miner goes into detail about how these people live makes them seem foreign. Thus making the norm for an American lifestyle seem odd because the certain type of lingo Miner uses to make this “tribe” more exotic then the actually are. His point in doing this is to show the reader how obnoxious anthropologist can be when they are explain a different culture. As a western civilization we are guilty of making other cultures seem strange and unrelatable by describing their

In the article “Civil Rites” by Caroline Miller, she stated that civility has become a more or less elusive proposition. Although I am not sure whether I over-react about certain etiquette that I find uncomfortable, or if there is really a general dissolution of civility in today’s modern world. I’d like to think not, but in reality of this may be true; civility has been long gone in today’s modern world, and some of the older ones that still exist, are either offensive or confusing.

In the essay “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema”, anthropologist Horace Miner depicts a group of people known as the “Nacirema”, but is referring to Americans, whose cultural beliefs are deeply rooted in the perspective that the human body is prune to sickness and disfiguration. Consequently, a substantial part of their lives is spent on unusual rituals and customs to improve conditions of the body that are filled with magical components. Moreover, Miner uses the Nacirema’s unusual culture to establish his view that we simply could not judge another culture that it is different from our own, as opposed to another anthropologist Malinowski’s point that we can judge another culture since we are

Horace Minor applied satire in his article “Body Ritual among the Nacirema.” to the culture of the American people. Several ways in which “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” relate to the core concepts of sociology are through the use of sociological imagination, ethnocentrism and cultural relativism. The American culture is described by Minor in a very unique and humorous way. The author uses satire to examine the rituals that are every day in American culture. The reader thinks at the beginning of the article that they are reading about some uncivilized tribe of people but soon realized that the “rituals” that are being performed are just everyday events that take place in every American household.

In Horace Miner’s article, “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema”, he talks about a tribe and describes their odd behavior. He tells about how the tribe performs these strange daily rituals and how their peculiarity is extreme, but in fact he is actually speaking of Americans as a whole (Miner). Miner uses this style of writing to more effectively prove his point: that Americans are ethnocentric.

After reading Horace Miner’s Body Ritual Among the Nacirema I cannot say that I would want to be part of the tribe. A huge reason would be that I could never go from my own Christian faith to the religious practices of the Nacirema. My second reason for not wanting to be part of the tribe is that I could never be subjected to the horrific medical practices and “magical potions” used on every citizen in the tribe.

A ritual is defined by anthropologist as actions that are intended to symbolize cultural events and myths for a specific purpose. The Aztecs had a ritual of sacrifice for their sun god, who was believed to eat humans . When these sacrifices were made the aztecs would use an obsidian knife in the shape of a tongue to represent the sun god eating his sacrifices. In turn for their sacrifices the sun provides seasons and good harvest. Horace Miner, an anthropologist, writes of American underlying morals in a different light intended to convey American idealistic thoughts.

Ritualist individuals are the ones that never break social norms to get ahead but instead give up on the goals society holds for success. Brain, working at the Mustang Ranch as a bartender was a ritualist. A previous Mustang Ranch bartender informed Brain of the job opening and with the pay increase; he found it better than working as a security guard at the local casino. He was a forty-nine-year-old ex-cop from California, who never expected to become a defender of prostitution at

Every Culture has a set of rituals that they partake in, that are often constructed over a long period of time. Simple Actions, and special moments contain so much meaning and make everlasting memories. All rituals despite the locations they originate from, or the location they are carried out in contain the same components, they are repetitive, symbolic, remind a certain group of people about their values and beliefs, and these rituals commemorate a significant moment. For example christians commemorate the birth of christ by attending mass, and many other cultures celebrate this moment in many different ways that have in depth symbolic meaning. In the book “Guests of the Sheik” by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea rituals play a major role. Fernea’s husband Bob is an anthropologist studying the occupants of a small village named El Nahra and their culture. Fernea has documented her experiences, and adventures, and her perspective of the many rituals that the townspeople participate in such as, Ramadan, Muharram, weddings, and pilgrimages. In Muslim culture pilgrimages are immensely important and can even lead to an elevated status. Such as the pilgrimage to Mecca. Fernea is able to participate in a pilgrimage to Karbala with a couple of the towns women she had befriended. The Pilgrimage to Karbala is a symbolic, and cultural ritual in the aspect that it is reenacted every year, and is full of symbolic meaning, commemorates an important occasion and reminds a culture about their

This study examines Horace Miner’s essay “Body Rituals Among the Nacirema. While using the participant observation approach, he gives us a new perspective on the daily behaviors within this group of people. Exploring ethnocentrism and how we view cultures outside of our own.

I also asked the witches about the last time they performed a ritual. The first witch performed a ritual quite recently in support of the witch who introduced her to Paganism. Not only does this witch have lupus; her husband was very ill and had been hospitalized. The informant performed a healing ritual on their behalf. She described her altar, which she adorned with healing objects, such as blue and white candles to promote healing and protection, amethyst crystals for healing, quartz crystals for protection, and different incenses to aid healing and protection. She also placed a photo of her friend and her friend’s husband on the altar so that she may “be in tune with their souls” so she could send her spell to them directly. During the ritual, she recited her healing chant and meditated to help focus her energy on her spell.

In order to fulfill an individual’s constitutional right to a trial overseen by a jury of his or her peers, the process of juror selection is repeated every day in courtrooms around the country. The process is not only vital to the American justice system as a whole; for the prospective juror it is also a defining feature of their U.S. citizenship. Juror selection and the accompanying voir dire, when examined for more than its procedural parts, reveals itself to be more complex than a set of ordinary practices. The frameworks established by Emile Durkheim, Arnold Van Gennep, and Victor Turner help to separate the ritual elements present in jury duty from aspects that are more representative of “technological routine”.