Essay on Truth Exposed in Body Rituals among the Nacirema

While reading the Nacirema I could not help to think how different they were and question the different rituals and customs they practiced. After finding out the meaning behind the allegory I was shocked and surprised. I was surprised int the similarities that are visible after knowing that the parable of the Nacirema was actually about America. My brain started making connections to the American culture. One of the first connections that immediately made to the reading was the part where Miner talked about how the human body was viewed as disease and an ugly thing. How could someone view this of their own body? But that is exactly the way Americans consciously or not view our bodys. The way that we go to the doctor often and take vitamins or shots against viruses and disease. Often we are even required by schools that we have certain vaccinations. This could appear different to people who do not get vaccinated as often as Americans do. People grow up viewing everything they do on a daily basis as normal and what's correct. That when we see different from one's ordinary practices we are alarmed, but our own culture or even habits are also different from others.

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

Over those years, I believe that their culture has undergone social changes or even degreased it member. For one reason could be that outsider would want to stop their extreme ways compared to their culture. In other factor that might have been exposures to our culture and the technical advances from recent years. Culture is dynamic meaning it can have adopted to new changes, but it can also loose traditional knowledge in the process (Blanco). I believe this has been the case for the Nacirema, but I also believe that our culture is not that different from theirs. One example as mention earlier is that we both trust a “medicine men” or a doctor that prescribes us medicine or “magical potion” that is suppose to heal us. Another example how are society protrude our body. “… pervasive aversion to the natural body and its function. There are ritual fasts to make fat people thin and ceremonial feast to make thin people fat (Miner). Similarity, we set unrealistic standard for people which makes people want to go on diets or seek breast surgery to achieve that ideal body image imposed my society. It may not be as extreme as their culture, but many cultures aspect do overlap one other. We are not as different or as righteous as we envision our culture to

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

In this article, Miner takes the role of an outsider and judges the Nacirema just as we judge other cultures. Miner does an exceptional job of wording things in such a way that we don’t even recognize our own culture. Miner wants us to realize that when someone, such as an anthropologist describes another culture, we can interpret that into being abnormal but in actuality, it is, by all means, very normal.

Horace Miner wrote the article “Body Ritual among the Nacirema”, in which he described and detailed the various body rituals practiced among the Nacirema culture. Horace starts the article by explaining that anthropologists encounter all types of cultural and ritualistic extremities, but the Nacirema body rituals are among some of the most extreme observed. The

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.

This is about a culture called Nacirema that is practiced in many different place and was brought to the attention of the Anthropologist attention by Professor Linton to talk about this culture that was poorly understood. The Nacirema is a type of culture that is summed up as that these people that believe in this culture that the human body is ugly and that the natural tendencies are meant to debilitate and cause disease. They are also big believes in rituals and ceremonies in the household to preform these ceremonies either as a family but in most cases it was privately. Where they would receive charms and other items form the medicine man of the community that would help with a certain problem. They would use these magic items to help with

"Body Ritual Among the Nacirema" is significant as it establishes the issue of representation in ethnography. The purpose of the article is to raise the question of how can we study a different culture from the outside and how can we understand our own culture from within. Culture can be defined in many ways, Tylor (1871) stated that culture is; “…that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” Therefore, the article presents the topic of cultural relativism, arguing that there is no impartial viewpoint from which to assess cultures, that every culture should be interpreted and understood from the

Horace Miner describes the people of the North American tribe the Naciremas as persons “devoted to economic pursuits (Body Ritual Among the Nacirema. Miner. 503.3.2)” and ritual activities of the human body. Miner uses a satirical style, play on words to abnormally describe such cultural upon this tribe. Throughout the text, Miner uses words and or phrases such as: “sadism, masochistic, neophyte, awls, and objects in the exorcism of the evils of the mouth involves almost unbelievable ritual torture of the client.” Horace Miner, uses those such words and phrases to describe the various everyday rituals conducted by the Naciremas by producing ethnocentrism through the readers of his text.

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.

NAGPRA promises Native groups that remains would be returned to them if the remains were associated with their group, however Kennewick man does not necessarily “belong” to any specific group at this point in time. There are two perspectives to this dilemma: the Native perspective valuing the sacredness of the remains, and the scientific perspective valuing the eagerness to study the remains (Lee, 2008). Stories written by Donald Sampson and Rechanda Lee give insight on the Native perspective arguing that science is degrading Native American identity and disrespecting the culture and religion (Lee, 2008). They do not like that the graves of their ancestors are disturbed and dissected to be studied (Sampson, 2008). Traditional histories are important to Native American communities as it provides identity and lineage linked to their respected communities. Natives feel that a group of scientists should not be telling them what their history is as they have faith in what is passed down to them orally (Lee, 2008). Many Natives feel as if scientists need to show respect and let the Native communities be heard. (Lee, 2008). Scientists, however, are addressing Principle No.2 of the Principles of Archaeological Ethics as identifying the remains and associating them to a certain group determines who the remains actually belong to. Both Lee and Sampson argue that using the cranial morphology of Kennewick man to determine his race is the result of irrationality and imagination. Both of the passages that they wrote claim to be addressing the scientific aspect of Kennewick man, however they seem to be writing with a strong emotional language rather than scientific. In Sampson’s case, for example, he seems to be personally attacking the scientists involved with Kennewick man rather than the scientific evidence provided. The only scientific evidence that was addressed in these two

The author’s purpose in writing this article was not to show the “Nacirema” as an example of how extreme human behavior can become, but how an outside perspective can affect your perception of an alien culture. If one were to look at the “Nacirema’s” cultural behaviors regarding physical appearance and health without any insight or knowledge of the specific beliefs or values of that culture, they might seem bizarre and even incomprehensible. By showing behaviors and “rituals” performed by this unknown tribe, Miner allowed others to see that the way studies were representing distinctive cultures was narrowminded and defective. Without the proper comprehension of the basis of any society, huge cultural misunderstandings could occur. Of

It was believed that patients who suffered symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions, disorganized speech and behaviour, and other symptoms that cause social or occupational dysfunction; characterised as Schizophrenia in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.; DSM–5; American Psychiatric Association, 2013), were said to be suffering from demonic possession, mental retardation, or from exposure to poisonous materials. During this time there was no social support systems such as community based treatment like we have today. In addition, treatments that where available where barbaric and ineffective in helping the

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.