Exploring Nacirema Body Rituals: Cultural Insights and Reflections

1 Body Rituals among the Nacirema Student Name Student ID Professor Name Course Name January 22, 2023

2 "Body rituals among the Nacirema" is an article written by Horace Miner that recounts the history of the indigenous Nacirema people who lived in North America. The idea that the human body is intrinsically prone to illness is fundamental to the traditional worldview of the Nacirema people, who are also often referred to as "Americans." They spend a considerable amount of their lives performing bizarre rituals following this concept to improve their bodies' state. In addition, to demonstrate that we have no right to cast judgment on cultures that are manifestly distinct from our own, Miner uses the strange practices of the Nacirema as an example. He does this to show that we have no business doing so. Nacirema cultural ceremonies are founded on a stringent devotion to severe food and health regimens. The Nacirema believe that the human body is "ugly and its basic predisposition is debility and disease." The Miner will go into depth about the rituals that the Nacirema do daily starting from this point on since the Nacirema are a highly ritualistic people (Miner, 1956). The principal ritual area, sometimes known as the "shrine," for the obsession is often a toilet. The description of this space reveals a large number of charms (medicines, magical artifacts) that are kept there and employed in the rituals that take place there daily. One of the rituals performed regularly, and most often by men, is described as "scraping and lacerating the surface of the face with a sharp tool" (shaving). As part of the "quick ritual of ablution," every household member purifies themselves by washing their hands and faces in a fountain situated just below the shrine (washing of the hands or body). As part of their commitment to the human body, the Nacirema make two trips each year to individuals they refer to as "holy mouth men" (dentists). These fine guys are the ones to thank for the excellent condition of our lips (Miner, 1956).

3 There are also reports of the "latipso," which is the Nacirema equivalent of a hospital. In these accounts, the Nacirema suffer from unfair treatment at the hands of their medicine men despite their unshakeable faith in the medicine men's ability to cure them. These and other examples of bodily rituals in Miner's article help us realize, ultimately, that culture and society are founded on the point of view and that describing members of a different culture does not imply that they are inferior to members of our own culture, but rather that they are different from us. In addition, how one observer observes a culture or civilization will differ from how another follows it. Because Horace Miner showed the American fixation with physical appearance in an overblown manner, the essay Horace Miner wrote was very amusing (Miner, 1956). When we contemplate how much time we spend on ourselves each day and each morning as we prepare to face the day, it is both eye-opening and ludicrous to think about how much time we spend on ourselves. I know from personal experience that we spend much time focusing on our physical selves. When Miner was talking about the things we do to take care of our bodies, such as taking a shower, shaving, brushing our teeth, going to the dentist, etc., he was talking about the Nacirema. It took me a little while to realize that he was talking about the Nacirema. When we understand that our perceptions of people change when we see behaviour that differs from our cultural norms, we can learn a lot from the Nacirema practice of body rites about how we and other cultures regard one another. This is because we know that our perceptions of people change when we see behavior that differs from our cultural norms (Miner, 1956). It illustrates that other cultures are not inferior to our own, which teaches us not to look down on civilizations that are not ours and not to look down on societies that are not ours. Because of the great distance that separates their practices from our culture, some of the rituals

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4 and ceremonies common in other communities may seem strange to us. Our traditions are the ones that we believe to be "proper," so to speak (Miner, 1956). In conclusion, the norms of our culture shape how we perceive and make sense of the practices of other civilizations. It may not be easy to accept that other people's standards are not the same as ours. Consequently, we end up trying to impose our beliefs and ideals on other people without taking into account the specifics of their situations. We have no choice but to accept that every civilization will have distinctive qualities.

5 References Miner, H. (1956). Body Ritual among the Nacirema. American Anthropologist , 58 (3), 503–507. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1956.58.3.02a00080

Body Rituals among the Nacirema

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