The Body Ritual Of The Nacirema Summary

Horace Miner’s “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” was a very entertaining essay. The essay made made fun of American culture without directly stating the name of the culture, other than including the word American spelled backwards. Miner bring to the reader’s attention the odd rituals practiced in America that the normal citizen would not find strange at all. However, by presenting his essay in this form he shows how strange American customs are from the view of someone in a different country.

The daily ceremonies, like the rites of the holy-mouth-men, involve discomfort and torture. With ritual precision, the vestals awaken their miserable charges each dawn and roll them about on their beds of pain while performing ablutions, in the formal movements of which the maidens are highly trained. At other

The author here has mentioned “Shrine”, which in fact, is not a temple or any religious place but rather it is a bathroom and the ritual performed in the shrine are the daily activities that we do in the bathroom. The author has focused on the chest or a box that is built in the wall of the shrine. It refers to the cabinet and the charms and the magical potions in the chest are the medicines. The medicine men and the herbalist, by this, the author means the pharmacists who can understand the labels written outside the medicine bottles. The font under the charm box is the sink where we wash our hands and face with the water from the tap. The water temple of the community is the water tank from where the water is distributed in different houses.

Furthermore, the Nacirema seek help of the “temple” or “latipso” for other serious illnesses, comprised mainly of medicine men and other female specialists. The culture’s devotion to rituals is undeniable as a considerable sum is required for the service of the “temple,” although “these temple ceremonies may not cure, and may even kill the neophyte, in no way decreases the people’s faith in the medicine men” (173). This belief of the “temple” constitutes checking in to the hospital to treat diseases in the American culture. Often times a significant hospital fee needs to be paid for even a short visit and it is not guaranteed that one would be healed as a result. The American culture’s “ fundamental belief…human body is ugly and its natural tendency is to debility and disease” can help explain the society’s faith in hospitals

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.

The article “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” by Horace Miner easily sparks strong opinions among the readers. Miner invokes a sense of puzzlement in his reader by his description of the Nacirema practices concerning the human body.

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.

Miner’s 1956 ‘Body Ritual Among the Nacirema’ is an account of a fictitious tribe which displays negative dispositions of the human body and how it is regarded as sick and hideous. Miner describes how the entire ritualistic practices of the Nacirema revolve around this core issue of the body and “an example of the extremes to which human behaviour can go” (Miner, 1956). Vanity and self-image are evident throughout the account, the “Nacirema” people are using body modification from the “holy-mouth man” and “medicine men” to alter their self- image. “The human body is so bland and unexciting… just as we possess no natural weapons or protective armour, so too must we resort to techniques of our own invention in order to be visually striking.” (Polhemus and Morenko, 2004). This suggests the body is central to the ‘I’ who speaks and it is also fundamental to how we are recognised by others. Sometimes aspects of the body only appear important to us when things go wrong but, hence the tribe’s continual visitation to these “medicine men” because as humans they are trying to modify their self-image.

The term Anthropology refers to the study of mankind as a whole. In the article “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” by Horace Miner, the introduction of a new cultural perspective crosses the boundaries of today’s societal norms. Horace Miner is mainly known for his studies in mankind, and as an anthropologist he must take into consideration, without preconceived opinions the variety of unique cultures within the human race. The Nacirema is a group living in North America whose culture, through the perspective of Horace Miner showcases human behavior taken to its highest degree. There is a common belief among the people of Nacirema in which it is the human body is prone to weakness and disease; therefore, in becoming the focal point of the

Mate choice is a product of mate preferences form in the environment of evolutionary adaptiveness (EEA). Sexual selection suggests that females prefer males who they can gain benefits from such as gifts. This is shown in male birds who make nests for females in order to mate with them and also in insects who give nuptial gifts.

1) Horace Minor’s Nacirema was taking a look the American public in the 1950’s when Minor wrote the article. It was a satirical piece to give an objective look ‘to’ Americans, and Westerners alike, from the outside perspective without the immediate knowledge that it was western culture, but instead trying with the façade of a tribe. This article was riddled with symbols and symbolism that drew direct connections from a mysterious tribe to a well known western culture. For example the doctors, dentists and psychologists were all forms of medicine men: the doctors were actually named medicine men, the dentists were named ‘Mouth men’, and the psychologists were knows as ‘the listeners’. All three practitioners, just like in western society, were held in high regard, were higher up on the social latter and were very important to the entire tribe. This mirrors the respect and social structure that western society has for these types of professions. Also, the body shaming of the women in the tribe and the lack of respect that man has for women in the work place and otherwise in western culture, especially in the 50’s, draws more connections to identify the tribe as Americans. I really loved the attempt to make our forefathers into tribal gods. Washington being named Notgnihsaw, a man who couldn’t and didn’t lie when being confronted about the cherry tree he cut down. He also crossed a frozen river to fight a war. Everything from the unrealistic vanity the tribe would experience

Twain examples cited in Body Rituals Among the Nacirema to describe the question of “what is the author doing,” by using satire to show the ethnocentrism, is the rendition of the Medicine Men and their functions served that contributes to the non compos mentis of abstraction to the culture, in which the reader finds contrasting of one's own beliefs and the ongoing acts of the appropriated modus operandi of women in the Nacirema

For us to properly learn about culture, we must understand the meaning of cultural relativism and ethnocentrism. The two concepts challenge one another. Reading the article, we must pull away from our ethnocentric views and think critically about the Nacirema people's. However, the description of the culture creates an ideology that is hard to agree with. For example, the Nacirema peoples take part in a rite that involves hog hairs and magical powders. The Nacirema rituals do sound strange and displeasing but, we have to learn to recognize our ethnocentric judgments.

There is a constant sexual tension among members of the North American people. Every interaction and piece of imagery is filled with sexual innuendos and undertones. If the environment of these people are an expression of their hidden desires, then they could be described as sexually driven from the core of their beings. They partake in daily grooming rituals, and engage in certain behaviours to gain approval from the opposite sex. The mating process for these natives begin with the displaying of an attractive physical appearance which then lead to the three stages of mating that involves meeting, revealing, and cohabitation