The article, Body Ritual among the Nacirema, spoke of the many ritualistic activities a native people known as the Nacirema undergo on a daily basis. As described by Horace Miner, the Nacirema’s daily life involved rituals that focused on the appearance and health of the human body. According to Miner, the Nacirema people believe that the human body is ugly therefore; they try to diverge from this fate by engaging in different rituals and ceremonies. For example, the Nacirema have special shrines where private ceremonies are held that involve a charm box. The charm box is filled with potions and charms given to them by herbalists and medicine men. These charms and potions are said to cure ills and the Nacirema natives believe that they cannot …show more content…
These rituals are said to have an influence on social relationships and ultimately prevent their teeth from falling out along with other incidents. Furthermore, the holy mouth men performs harsh procedures by sticking objects in the mouth and getting rid of holes in the teeth by filling them with magical substances. Men and women also undergo different rituals. Men scrape their face with sharp instruments while the women are said to bake their head in ovens for a short period of time. A special temple known as the Latipso is also a part of the ritualistic activities. It is reserved for the very ill and it involves torturous ceremonies but the Nacirema natives still undergo these ceremonies to achieve purification. In addition, listeners are also said to help those who have been bewitched by speaking to them of their troubles and …show more content…
Durkheim spoke of social facts, or patterns of behavior that characterize a social group, and how social forces can affect peoples lives. This is a reflection of what I believe was Miner’s attempt to showcase how our society and the mass media has a strong influence on our behaviors. Because these standards of beauty exist in American culture, people engage in behaviors to meet those standards and in turn make the American culture become linked to these cultural patterns. Furthermore, I enjoyed that Miner was able to showcase the idea that someone’s culture can be seen differently when looking at it from a different point of view. This is also similar to the sociological concept of cultural shock and cultural relativism. Many may experience cultural shock and become confused, as I did when reading this article for the first time, when coming into contact with a culture other than their own that seems unfamiliar. In these circumstance cultural relativism, or trying to understand a culture on its own terms, is important. Miner emphasized cultural relativism by placing a different light on the American culture and emphasizing the fact that everyone’s perspective is different and everyone’s culture is different. Therefore, we must take a step back and be sensitive of the many beliefs, behaviors, values, and norms that people hold all around the
“…The search for holiness is dramatized by their willingness to suffer terrible pain from snake bite, or even death itself, to get the feeling of God in their lives” (Daugherty pg.82 Para 2). Many individuals seem to search for this meaning, largely due to the fact that most are economically disadvantaged, work in extremely dangerous conditions (miners), and usually uneducated because of their rural isolated backgrounds. In addition, all of the aforementioned characteristics gave cause to the proliferation and acceptance of this faith basis because it’s not a private matter and their strife/frustration with life unites them on common grounds in praise. Mainly, as stated in the article, their powerlessness is taken out of the equation when they’re together in church and filled with the Holy Spirit (Daugherty pg.83 para 2), and in a sense the worship itself is based off of its people gathering together to uphold and uplift each other with their faith. Moreover, beside their ritualistic snake handling, is their tendency to drink strychnine and lye. This ritualistic habit is more puzzling in my eyes, because they’re essentially drinking straight poison that should kill a
The focal point of the shrine is a box or chest which is built into
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
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.
Rituals are held as a very important part of any society, including ours. They go back to ancient times, or can be as simple as maintaining one’s hygiene. Non-western societies have rituals that may seem very foreign to us, but they have been engrained in their communities and are essential to their social structure. This interpretation will focus on the Great Pilgrimage, a ritual performed by Quechuan communities. We will be looking specifically at a community in the Sonqo area.
“The contents of Vodou rituals – from private healing consultations to public dances and possessions-performances- are composed from the lives of the particular people performing them. When I began to bring my own life to the system for healing, I began to understand more of what it meant for Haitians to do that (Brown, 134).”
In the article “Body Ritual Among the Nacerima” by Horace Miner wee see the framework for social construction of the Nacerima culture. The Nacerima fundamental belief is to avert their bodies debilitating characteristics with powerful
In 1697, another Christian mission of Franciscan priests attempted to set up shop in Calusa Territory. Father Lopez, the mission’s leader, described seeing a “house of masks”. I will discuss, and give details of, a mask found at Pineland Site Complex later in this paper. During the Franciscan’s short stint in Calos, the Calusa were observed participating in their masked
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 “Body Ritual among the Nacirema”, Horace Miner (1956) revisits the rituals of a North American group, the Nacirema, as first described by Professor Linton in the early 1900s. Miner depicts these people as quite vain; obsessive over money, appearance and health. While the economic status of a Nacirema individual is extremely important, nothing compares to the significance of the rituals of the body. These rituals tend to involve various steps that allow the Nacirema people to present themselves to the world in their fittest, most beautiful form. The majority of these rituals are performed by the individual in their own home, in extreme privacy. The body is viewed as a disgusting vessel, in need of constant upkeep to be presentable to others. The Nacirema home contains one or more ‘shrines’, devoted to transforming the body into the definition of health and beauty. The main purpose of the shrine is to hold charms and magical potions, bought from
2) There are many rituals carried out by the Indigenous people but in particular there is one called
“Rituals and Traditions; It Takes a Tribe,” written by David Berreby and “Indians: Textualism, Morality, and the Problem of History” written by Jane Tompkins, both exemplify a typical controversial topic in the United States of America today. The US prides there self on the basis of freedom, and how Americans are made up of individuals with backgrounds from all around the world. Many consider the US to be a “melting pot”, a society where cultures are just blended together and not recognized fully on their own, where as others consider the US to be a “salad bowl”, where people of international cultures hold fast to their traditions and practices and coexist with the cultures around them. Both authors of the readings propose that generally speaking,
Miner does an exceptional job in disguising the Nacirema as Americans. Some of the things he disguises are the bathroom, which he says is a cleansing shrine. He disguises the medicine chest as the main device in the shrine, a bundle of hog hairs on a stick as a toothbrush, and magical potions as medicine (Miner).
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.
The word ordeal has been used several times when talking about initiation rituals and it is fitting to do so. Ordeal implies an extremely serious and severe situation of test or trail, which in its simplest description fits that of initiation rituals perfectly. In fact several anthropologists have used the word ordeal to describe the events of initiation rituals, while most do not limit their use of the word to only the experience of pain but rather the ritual in its entirety. When describing the Gisu circumcision rituals Suzette Heald brings to the reader’s attention clarity of the ordeal like nature of initiation rituals. Within the Gisu community this rite of passage for adolescent males is described as being a test of the individual (Heald 1982). The process is drawn out over several months of preparation, the earliest stage involving the preparation of costumes and dancing; this stage of the ritual is associated with “searching for imbalu” or in other words the gradual awaking of intent in the individual, boys have the opportunity to drop out at this stage without the consequences of societal disgrace (Heald 1982). The costume is especially significant as its purpose is to make the boys appear ‘wild’ (Heald 1982), and thus plays an important role in the liminal stage of the ritual (Morinis 1985). The liminal period is essential when it comes to the infliction and