Body Rituals Among the Nacirema

Effective communication has many aspects that can be described as either transparent or a hidden unknown, which in many readings it describes how ambiguity is a necessary evil in communications. The “Triangle of Linguistic Structure” can give phonology meaning form, semantics the value of meaning, and pragmatics that feature the intention to uncertain communications. The direct statements of saying someone is dead, can be harmful so they use etiquette to give reason to use a buffer and instead say they have moved away. For a literary example I will use “Who am I this time?” by Vonnegut and “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” by Miner, for both readings use ambiguity to hide an allegory of communication concepts. The “Body Ritual among the Nacirema”

Anthropologists also have various theories to help support and direct a study. One such theory attributed to Alfred Radcliffe Brown of Great Britain is known as structural functionalism (Clure, 2011). The primary focus of structural functionalism theory is social structure rather than the biological relations of individuals in a culture. The social construction and levels of this theory

Body Ritual Among the Nacirema What is the precise geographical location of this strange tribe, the Nacirema? The Nacirema is a North American group living in the territory between the Canadian Cree, the Yaqui and Tarahumare of Mexico, and the Carib and Arawak of the Antilles. Little is known of their origin, though tradition states that they came from the east.

In the essay “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema”, anthropologist Horace Miner depicts a group of people known as the “Nacirema”, but is referring to Americans, whose cultural beliefs are deeply rooted in the perspective that the human body is prune to sickness and disfiguration. Consequently, a substantial part of their lives is spent on unusual rituals and customs to improve conditions of the body that are filled with magical components. Moreover, Miner uses the Nacirema’s unusual culture to establish his view that we simply could not judge another culture that it is different from our own, as opposed to another anthropologist Malinowski’s point that we can judge another culture since we are

Horace Minor applied satire in his article “Body Ritual among the Nacirema.” to the culture of the American people. Several ways in which “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” relate to the core concepts of sociology are through the use of sociological imagination, ethnocentrism and cultural relativism. The American culture is described by Minor in a very unique and humorous way. The author uses satire to examine the rituals that are every day in American culture. The reader thinks at the beginning of the article that they are reading about some uncivilized tribe of people but soon realized that the “rituals” that are being performed are just everyday events that take place in every American household.

In this article, Miner takes the role of an outsider and judges the Nacirema just as we judge other cultures. Miner does an exceptional job of wording things in such a way that we don’t even recognize our own culture. Miner wants us to realize that when someone, such as an anthropologist describes another culture, we can interpret that into being abnormal but in actuality, it is, by all means, very normal.

After reading Horace Miner’s Body Ritual Among the Nacirema I cannot say that I would want to be part of the tribe. A huge reason would be that I could never go from my own Christian faith to the religious practices of the Nacirema. My second reason for not wanting to be part of the tribe is that I could never be subjected to the horrific medical practices and “magical potions” used on every citizen in the tribe.

This is about a culture called Nacirema that is practiced in many different place and was brought to the attention of the Anthropologist attention by Professor Linton to talk about this culture that was poorly understood. The Nacirema is a type of culture that is summed up as that these people that believe in this culture that the human body is ugly and that the natural tendencies are meant to debilitate and cause disease. They are also big believes in rituals and ceremonies in the household to preform these ceremonies either as a family but in most cases it was privately. Where they would receive charms and other items form the medicine man of the community that would help with a certain problem. They would use these magic items to help with

"Body Ritual Among the Nacirema" is significant as it establishes the issue of representation in ethnography. The purpose of the article is to raise the question of how can we study a different culture from the outside and how can we understand our own culture from within. Culture can be defined in many ways, Tylor (1871) stated that culture is; “…that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” Therefore, the article presents the topic of cultural relativism, arguing that there is no impartial viewpoint from which to assess cultures, that every culture should be interpreted and understood from the

Horace Miner describes the people of the North American tribe the Naciremas as persons “devoted to economic pursuits (Body Ritual Among the Nacirema. Miner. 503.3.2)” and ritual activities of the human body. Miner uses a satirical style, play on words to abnormally describe such cultural upon this tribe. Throughout the text, Miner uses words and or phrases such as: “sadism, masochistic, neophyte, awls, and objects in the exorcism of the evils of the mouth involves almost unbelievable ritual torture of the client.” Horace Miner, uses those such words and phrases to describe the various everyday rituals conducted by the Naciremas by producing ethnocentrism through the readers of his text.

Culture is one of the most important parts of the life as spirituality. Native American, people practice many different ceremonies as a ritual, which represent their culture, such as, Sun Dance, healing ceremony, and Gallup ceremony, etc. The first ceremony that Native American celebrates the Sun Dance, which is also known as thanksgiving ceremony. This ceremony is like a vision dance. It is a ritual in which people stare at the sun, until everything blackout or spirit break in (Lecture notes). The other ceremony is Gallup ceremony, which is one of the major celebrations that Indian-Tribe celebrates. According to the text, “The Gallup Ceremonial had been an annual event for a long time. It was good for the tourist, they liked to see Indians and Indian dances; they wanted a chance to buy Indian Jewelry and Navajo rugs. Every year it was organized by the white men there” (111). It demonstrates that, how the Native people celebrate their ceremonies every year, with all the respect to their culture. The last ceremony is healing ceremony. Healing ceremony is the ritual that a female Pomo Shaman conducts a ritual healing ceremony over the man’s body. She is performing the ancient doctoring to heal the man spiritually, in which she was dancing with a two sticks, chanting and rubbing her hand on the body (Lecture notes). As we compare, ancient and recent Native American cultures were almost the same because in the past, people celebrate the cultures with a very good sight to enjoy their rituals. Even though, now society has developed a lot, but values of traditions are not changed

The author’s purpose in writing this article was not to show the “Nacirema” as an example of how extreme human behavior can become, but how an outside perspective can affect your perception of an alien culture. If one were to look at the “Nacirema’s” cultural behaviors regarding physical appearance and health without any insight or knowledge of the specific beliefs or values of that culture, they might seem bizarre and even incomprehensible. By showing behaviors and “rituals” performed by this unknown tribe, Miner allowed others to see that the way studies were representing distinctive cultures was narrowminded and defective. Without the proper comprehension of the basis of any society, huge cultural misunderstandings could occur. Of

In the current era, most of the people are obsessed with their body ritual wealth. They are in a constant race of outshining the others in terms of their outer looks and body shapes. To appear attractive, many people do stuff that might give them short term happiness or satisfaction but their results can be horrifying. Are people playing with their bodies? Well, I guess they are. They tend to ruin their natural self. Horace Miner, the writer of “Body Rituals Among the Nacirema,” was absolutely right when he mentioned in his article that today’s main focus is the human body, and that people have taken in their appearances and health so much that they have become a major component of America’s culture today. In fact,

The ethnography of the Nacirema is complex. Miner gives plenty of examples of the culture to allow the reader to understand that the Nacirema society is actually referring to the American people. Miner wrote, “The holy-mouth-man opens the clients mouth, and using the above mentioned tools, enlarges any holes with decay have created in the teeth. Magical materials are put into these holes.” (Miner. 2017) As I read about this ritual I found similarities that could be compared to Americans getting their cavities filled. He also includes the rituals of where men, “...scrape and lacerate their face with a sharp instrument.” (Miner. 2017) Which would be equivalent to men shaving their face and getting razor cuts. It is also explained that the Nacirema

Horace Miner's essay was written to open the eyes of society. Miner wrote "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema" in a way that most of the readers would think it was an actual tribe he was writing about. He describes many acts that the tribe performs in a very mysterious way to make the reader feel intrigued. Horace Miner writes, "I was able... to establish sufficient rapport with the natives to examine these shrines and to have the rituals described to me" (503-504). The statement makes the reader feel as if "the rituals associated with it are...are private and secret" (Miner 503).