In the article “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” by Horace Miner, the author describes that the Nacirema civilization connected by their social believe through the mythology of their cultural hero. According to the analysis of the author, the Nacirema culture uses different people to maintain their social believes and exercise their power to create social solitary. The people of Nacirema society believes their civilization was originated by a cultural hero, and they believe they should follow their rituals in order to survive (2, Miner). In my view, the peoples of Nacirema were connected by the tales of their religion. However, the people outside their religion might disagree their tradition, but the believe system of Nacirema still help this …show more content…
However, the ceremony of exorcism is painful to the Nacirema people, but most of people still accept the pain from the ceremony without questioning. According to the article, “As part of this ceremony, women bake their heads in small ovens for about an hour. The theoretically interesting point is that what seems to be a preponderantly masochistic people have developed sadistic specialists.” The ceremony is painful beyond our imagination, but the Nacirema people believes the exorcism can bring peace and safe to their society, that’s the reason they accept their pain to show their loyalty to the religion. On the other side, the medicine men torture people to follow their exorcism ceremony, in which they believe the pain can keep evil away their society. Which means the medicine men and the normal people believe their character in their society. It reminds me the Stanford prison experiment, which claims that the people will adapted their given character in a certain situation, such as when a medicine men torture people, they will not feel he’s doing a wrong thing, what he believes is this is for the good of society. Also, when Nacirema people suffer the pain from the ceremony of exorcism, they will accept the pain because they believe the pain can help themselves to avoid the
“Body Ritual among the Nacirema” by Horace Miner was a very interesting read. It took me a while to actually, fully understand the meaning of the article. The first time that I read through the article I was dumbfounded on how strange the rituals described in the article were. I genuinely thought that the author was describing a very primitive culture found in a remote area of the Americas and did not have the slightest clue that the author was talking about the American culture found in the United States. Originally, the article made me wonder how, in such an advanced world, there could still be such a primitive culture as the one described in the article. The article “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” by Horace Miner opened my eyes to how another person may look at the American culture and how strange it may seem to them.
Human needs are similar- health, physical appearance, human body and economic resources to meet these needs. Nacirema culture bears some semblance to more civilized culture. While reading this article it seems most of the practices are similar with modern culture. A major difference is the magic, ritual and the crude method of doing things. One of the cultural practices that stood out for me is the “holy-mouth-men” ritual, which seems like what a dentist will do. I also find interesting the diagnostic ability of the diviner.
Although not much is known about the Anasazi Pueblo religion, it is said that the religion is based on maintaining harmony with the natural world. The Anasazi were said to hold public and private ceremonies, at these different groups were in charge of different portions of events all important to the spiritual well-being of the society. In modern day rituals, villages would divide themselves into 2 separate groups each assuming different responsibilities, this is said to be similar to how the ancient Ana...
The “counselor will validate the individual’s experiences”, and “entertain blame of others” for his or her “problems” (Rose, 2015). “Providing analysis”, and “interpretation of what the individual has experienced (Rose, 2015). Similarities and Differences of Indigenous Healing and Western Psychotherapy The similarities of both Naikan Therapy and Western psychotherapy are that they both help individuals with their suffering, and help them to feel better about themselves, and their lives. Both approaches can and have worked together in some form or another.
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
The article equips the reader with the tools needed to better understand other cultures, in terms of their own beliefs and rituals. Miner’s original approach does create a certain level of confusion that forces the reader to critically evaluate his purpose. “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” by Horace Miner ultimately brings people together, by illuminating the eccentricities present in all
The Makah were very creative and smart. They were successful in making clothing, and shelter. They were able to hunt and gather food for themselves. The Makah were able to make good medicine and very good wood work. There real name is Qwidicca-Atx which means people who live among seagulls. The Makah live on the northwest coast. This is on the Pacific Ocean. Let us see what the Makah did.
“Religious exclusiveness was the foremost principle of their society. The spiritual beliefs that they held were strong. This strength held over to include community laws and customs. Since God was at the forefront of their minds, He was to motivate all of their actions. This premise worked both for them and against them” (Kizer).
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 haudenosaunee, also known as the Iroquois, were a tribe of Indians who are mainly situated in the American Northeast as well as the Great Lakes region including southern Canada. They have a rich cultural heritage which includes how they lived and governed, what they believed in, and even a form of medicine. Their lives were permeated with religious practices such as the sun and healing rituals.
In the US., the therapeutic group seldom has approaches to correspond with individuals of societies so drastically unique in relation to standard American society; even a great interpreter will think that it troublesome deciphering ideas between the two separate societies' reality ideas. American specialists, not at all like Hmong shamans, regularly physically touch and cut into the collections of their patients and utilize an assortment of capable medications and meds.
Ruth Benedict’s anthropological book, Patterns of Culture explores the dualism of culture and personality. Benedict studies different cultures such as the Zuni tribe and the Dobu Indians. Each culture she finds is so different and distinctive in relation to the norm of our society. Each difference is what makes it unique. Benedict compares the likenesses of culture and individuality, “A culture, like an individual, is a more or less consistent pattern of thought or action” (46), but note, they are not the same by use of the word, “like.” Benedict is saying that figuratively, cultures are like personalities. Culture and individuality are intertwined and dependent upon each other for survival.
The Mbuti people are known as foragers because their main source of survival lies on hunting and gathering as they move from one place to another. They originated from a region in Africa called Congo. The Mbuti people even with their fairly decent population prefer to be grouped into smaller groups or bands which are mostly made up of close relatives. They live in the rainforests of central Africa, where they have lived popularly for more than 6000 years now.
Their convictions were not comprehended and the intricacy of their religion was not seen. This was somewhat the aftereffect of not having a composed arrangement of rules. In the place of ministers and pastors were shaman and medicine men. These men were sometimes said to speak with the divine beings. They were astute and experienced and they delighted in a larger amount of status among their groups. They had essential parts in choices, functions, and customs. "The culture, values and traditions of native people amount to more than crafts and carvings. Their respect for the wisdom of their elders, their concept of family responsibilities extending beyond the nuclear family to embrace a whole village, their respect for the environment, their willingness to share - all of these values persist within their own culture even though they have been under unremitting pressure to abandon them(Berger, paragraph
Elaine Scarry in her book The Body in Pain delves into this phenomenon; “that pain is so frequently used as a symbolic substitute for death in many tribes is surely attributable to an intuitive human recognition that pain is the equivalent in felt-experience of what is unfeelable in death” (Scarry 1987).Whether the conscious intent of the use of pain is to symbolize death can be contested, however the fact remains that pain, and therefore the recognition of death, is present within the initiation ritual. This gives new power to pain, Scarry reasons that physical pain has the ability to be all encompassing, meaning that it can obliterate all forms of psychological feeling, it has the power to “end all aspects of self and world” (Scarry 1987). Here is where the body and the individual intersect, the body is both the platform for which pain is inflicted and death is experienced as well as the place in which the individual is housed. The body is essentially the only thing that truly belongs to the individual, therefore the infliction of pain within the confines of the ritual demands that one sacrifice the self in order to be accepted within the desired societal group (Morinis 1985). The liminal state which the individual is forced into before the introduction of pain allows for the initiate to experience the new self-awareness