Body Ritual Among The Nacirema Analysis

“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.

Many parts of the article were well designed to make me truly think about how someone who does not understand the way of life, particularly how Americans take care of their bodies, could see the rituals as strange and even somewhat barbaric. For example, the article states, “ This part of the ritual involves scraping and lacerating the surface of the face with a sharp instrument” (Miner 505). In this section, the author is describing the habits of men and he describes the simple act of shaving as a very graphic and gruesome event that involves a man cutting and mangling his face. However, to someone who does not understand

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