In Body Rituals of the Nacirema, Horace Miner demonstrates through his study of the North American tribe Nacirema that “attitudes about the body” have a significant influence of human behavior within the people and can give a glimpse into some of the most extreme behaviours humans can reach. He argues that the beliefs and practices of the Nacirema, which have a sort of magical connotation, are so bizarre that members assume an extreme in human behavior is very easily within their community. The Nacirema, a North American tribe of people whose origins are ambiguously tracked to some place within the continent, are a people who practice rituals incessantly on the basis of the human body, perceived negative aspects of the body, and countering …show more content…
These kind of problematic elements the reader notes incite the initial spark of doubt or confusion on the true state of the Nacirema and the perhaps ethnocentric bias of Horace Miner in publishing his research. However, a closer inspection of the pattern in which Nacirema live creates a further spark of confusion as the reader will note this pattern eerily resembles that of the American way of life and the details of which precisely match the practices of the American people. The reader notes that the shrine room is indeed a conventional bathroom, the holy-mouthman a Dentist, and that Notgnihsaw is actually Washington and the Nacirema are the America spelled backwards. Interestingly, deeper analysis shows that Miner’s satire, rather than the American condition, is truly concerning the way in which Anthropologists observe peoples with an ethnocentric bias or a clear definition of a normal versus abnormal. Miner suggests that Anthropologists often enough write off any “abnormal” practices as having supernatural or religious rites without any real reason apart from their unfamiliarity rather than deducing the true meaning which is already present within the community. He shows this by naming tap water, dentists, and medicinal practice as holy water, holy-mouthman, and rituals. In the film Margaret Mead and the Samoa, taking the account of Derek Freedman, we saw how a common and familiar concept like teenage mischief could be easily overlooked and evidenced as some culturally significant practice or law for a population simply due to the bias and “othering” of the peoples by the Anthropologist as was with Dr. Margaret Mead and the sexuality of the girls of Samoa.
Further, prayer and medicine interplay to paint a classical image of the Native’s creed, yet, for many obsolete or preposterous existences of the shaman. To re-install beliefs present in the world for thousands of years, but have been disappearing, writers such as Neidhardt introduce the element of the
forefront of time, never waning and never dying out. It has evolved overtime to include interesting ways of worship and faith basis. From the standard worship of God, or he who is all powerful, to the ideological notion that our bodies are occupied by alien spirits who were brought to earth long ago and killed off due to overpopulation of their planet, religion has definitely come a long way. One such interesting religious practice that I’d like to discuss, is the snake-handling Pentecostal Christians of the Appalachian Mountains. Furthermore, I will discuss the relevancy to the groups’ stereotype and attempt to showcase how it’s virtually nonexistent in today’s society as it used to be by comparing and contrasting Mary Lee Daugherty’s piece
In the rough and tropical island of Papua New Guinea, lived an exceptional aggregation of individuals called, The Gebusi. In the 1980's, The Gebusi tribe was anything besides up to date and acculturated. The Gebusi had their own particular singular and special customs and conventions that they rehearsed and accompanied. The Gebusi tribe took part in custom homosexuality, divination or witchcraft was exceedingly respected and polished, and they partook in particular sister-trade relational unions. By 1998-99, The Gebusi tribe had made another lifestyle. The Gebusi had gotten accustomed with new social convictions, modernization due to “western ways” that had changed their lives until the end of time especially changing their ways and view on gender roles and sexuality.
He describes the American health system and many aspects of the an American’s personal health as inhuman and uncivilized. Simply changing the way a word is spelled makes this culture seem far away and distant but in reality it is the culture in which we live every day. The article, “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” by Horace Miner makes the readers think about what they know to be true and evaluate how strange the many aspects of their lives
In the story “Listening to Ghosts” Malea Powell talks about the native Americans on challenges and educational practices. The story is about the native American living in America before the British came to ruin their lives. This effect caused the Native Americans to disappear for good and became shadows. Afterwards there were different theories about the beliefs such as white guy philosopher's theory and western culture theory.The white guy’s philosopher's theory states that the stories were special and central civilized.Western culture, people thought that they were “savages” and “civilized”.
“The Sambia: Ritual, Sexuality, and Change in Papua New Guinea” is a book written by Gilbert Herdt. It is based on a case study Herdt did during the 1970’s of the culture of the Sambia people. His study took place in Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. He didn’t know much about their language, however through out his time there he was able to learn their language and customs. As he settled into their village, he mostly slept in the clubhouse with the other Nilangu villagers; however, eventually they built a house for him to stay at. Herdt had a great interest in gaining new knowledge about the Sambia culture.
As a scholar invested in the progression of the field of Native American material cultural studies, I consistently recondition my understanding of both epistemology and the appropriate ways to approach cultural circumstances of the so-called “Other” through personal encounters and the shared experiences of my contemporaries. My own ethical position is forever fluid, negotiated by both Native and non-Native sources as I attempt to find ground in what exactly I intend to do (outside of an occupation) with the knowledge I accumulate. Perhaps the most vulnerable facet of existence in the world of academia is the ease that comes in the failure to compromise one’s own advancement for the well-being of those being studied. Barre Toelken is an encouraging exception to this conundrum, considering his explicit analysis of both Navajo and Western ethics in the case of the Hugh Yellowman tapes. His essay argues for an approach that surrenders the fieldworker’s hypothetical gain to the socio-emotional needs of subjects’ epistemological structure and, most intriguingly, he treats ethnographic materials as praxis rather than data. After years of apprehension with the objectifying habits of cultural anthropology, a discipline internally dithered by the bickering of Science vs. Humanities, I am finally moved to disengage from such authoritatively based methods altogether as a result of Toelken’s example.
One of Magliocco's main arguments is that these Neo-Pagan cults all have roots in both anthropology and folklore in their early development. Magliocco offers a detailed historical analysis and examines influences found all the way back to classical traditions. She concludes this analysis by bringing her reader back to the contemporary and offers us insight into how both the fields of anthropology and folklore have helped shape Neo-Paganism into what it has become today.
Margaret Mead is one of the most influential anthropologists to modern society due to her anthropological research and her outspoken demeanor on any topic. Mead’s research was groundbreaking in an era where places like Samoa were still seen as the paradise away from the civilized world. Her efforts to transform the unknown societies of the Samoans into visual imagery for the Western world were successful and resulted in the book, Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilization, originally published in 1928. This book made the exotic and misunderstood cultures of the Samoans tangible for the general population. Mead’s special effort to debunk the myth of unavoidable childish adolescence was paramount in her work in Samoa, specifically adolescent females. Margaret Mead established in her work, Coming of Age in Samoa, that adolescence does not need to be the unwieldy and uncomfortable period in life that Western culture portrayed as “stormily” (Mead 5).
In reading one, Body Rituals Among the Nacirema, since this is my second time reading this article this year I have a clear understanding of what the Nacirema tribe believes to be deviant and how they seek to get the deviance out of their daily lives. This community believes that their bodies are deviant, hence men and women would visit a godly like medicine man to perform what we would consider as deviant medical
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.
Nanda, S and Warms, R.L. (2011). Cultural Anthropology, Tenth Edition. Belmont, California: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning. ISBN – 13:978-0-495-81083-4.
In this essay I will include the relation with anthropology and the disorder. The striking similarities between the form and content of normal ritual and the ritualistic behavior of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
Lehmann A. C. & Myers J. E. Magic, Witchcraft and Religion – An Anthropological Study of the Supernatural (Fourth Edition) (Mayfield Publishing Company, 1997). Miner, H. Body Ritual Among the Nacirema. American Anthropologist 58 (1956). Tambiah, S. J. & Co., Ltd. Magic, Science, Religion and the scope of Rationality (Cambridge University Press, 1990). Taylor, C. Rationality.
III. Smithson, Jayne. “Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion.” Class lectures. Anthropology 120. Diablo Valley College, San Ramon 2004.