The Naciremas Rituals

To most of us, hospitals are a place to help you when you’re in need or want to get healthy. But for the Nacirema, it’s quite the opposite. According to the Nacirema ritual article, they call hospitals a latipso, which is hospital spelt backwards without the ‘H’. They discuss and caricature the repulsive viewings on what they think goes on in hospitals (latipso’s), or what they think they do. I will now tell you how in Miner’s perspective, the body is ugly and how the body is dirty.

“Body Rituals Among the Nacirema, “ by Horace Miner, is an essay written about the Nacirema, or American people, from an outsider’s perspective. Miner gives an insight on the Nacireman people, which he describes in his essay as an unknown tribe, and the completing of the Nacireman’s magical beliefs and practices, which involve daily, involuntary body rituals that cause much pain and discomfort. Miner shows how an outsider’s perspective can affect the way a culture is seen.

It is human nature to describe one's own culture as the most advanced and most intellectual. Unfortunately, it is also common practice to look down upon the practices of another culture because they are not similar to one's own traditions. The ability to do this can sometimes be a damaging characteristic for society as a whole. Horace Miner realized the implications of egocentric views and wrote a groundbreaking essay to open society's eyes to their biases.

The article “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” by Horace Miner easily sparks strong opinions among the readers. Miner invokes a sense of puzzlement in his reader by his description of the Nacirema practices concerning the human body.

As an individual coming to investigate American civilization through the observation of cultural activities, I find the ritual of medicine men and women (doctors, psychiatrists and pharmacists) very interesting. “Medicine man" or "medicine woman" are English terms used to describe traditional healers and spiritual leaders among Native American and other indigenous or aboriginal peoples (Unknown 2012 ¶2).

We view our bodies as ugly, and seek medical and unconventional methods to achieve or prevent this ugliness. Some of the customs we undertake include body piercing, waxing, tattooing, facial and body surgeries and makeovers. There may not be a culture, but people do these things willingly just as the Nacirema tribe. People spend a lot of money doing these things in an endeavor to make themselves beautiful. The behavior of mouth cleansing was very interesting because, though they realize that their teeth still decay even after doing the rituals the tribe still continued to perform the rituals. This behavior is evident with our current culture in that though we realize something is not working as we intended, we still believe in it and continue to do it with the hopes that we will achieve

I like your post and agree with you. I also think that Nacirema’s culture is barbaric and could not believe these strange activities at the first time. I also wrote in my discussion about the holy-mouth-men. The way the author describe the dentist is very appropriate for me because I am very scared when I go to dentist since I was young. Also, I think the listeners are psychologist. Psychologists’ job is to help people solve their problem from internal and provide them therapy. I think this is a interesting article to learn. I am wondering if someone outside our culture read this article, how would that person react? Will he or she think we are the barbaric nation?

This article starts by stating that it is going to describe the magical beliefs and practices of the Nacirema people and it seemingly does just that (Miner). The normality of the American way of living is removed and just the facts are left to be described as a seemingly different culture. Upon rereading, there are many facts that show the reader that the author is talking about Americans, but they are easily skimmed over with the guise that this is some other culture. For Example, the author even states that the Nacirema live in North America between Canada and Mexico (Miner). He even goes on to tell the reader about their cultural hero Notgnihsaw, which is Washington spelled backwards, and mentions his feat of cutting down a cherry tree (Miner).

In the Body Rituals of the Nacirema, the author Horace Miner makes a very intriguing analysis of the Nacirema culture and their beliefs. Throughout the course of the passage, we are able to see how he closely observes the nacirema culture and tries to understand their living habits and daily lives. Miner explains to us how their culture consists of unusual practices and almost magical rituals. Of course, the work that occurs throughout the passage resembles the work that a cultural anthropologist would do. A cultural anthropologist travels to different parts of the world in order to observe and study a plethora of different cultures and their beliefs. In the beginning of the passage, Miner explains how an anthropologist becomes accustomed to the peculiar traditions of different cultures because they interact and closely examine them. It is this reason why I believe this article would fall under the field of cultural anthropology. Cultural Anthropology is defined as the study of culture, traditions, and environment (Haviland, 2017). The passage allows us the opportunity to closely examine the ways and traditional beliefs of the nacirema . For instance, in the passage Miner states that the Nacirema loathe their physical appearance, “The fundamental belief underlying the whole system appears to be that the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease” (Haviland, 2017). Horace Miner not only focuses on their beliefs but their perspective and way of

“Body Rituals among the Nacirema” is a document written by Mr. Horace Miner. Miner was a graduate of the University of Chicago, with a degree in anthropology. Throughout his life, Miner was dedicated to his studies ranging in anthropology to sociology. He was very interested in the study of anthropology, but Miner disagreed with the way that other cultures were represented. He thought American anthropologists believed that the American culture was “normal” and, that the other studied cultures were misrepresented (Hoogland). Miner was convinced to prove otherwise. He wanted to prove to other anthropologists that to other cultures the American culture could be viewed as unusual.

In this article the author examines the changes in ritual practices as it pertains to human sacrifice during the Epiclasic period in central Mexico. In discussing this topic, the author presence evidence from the excavation of a shrine discovered on Lake Xaltocan in the northern Basin of Mexico. Here they have discovered the human remains of about 30 individuals. Using pottery and accelerator mass spectrometry they could place the construction and use of the shrine in the Epiclassic period. It is believed that the site was built during or immediately after the final years of Teotihuacan

If you do not know that Miner’s essay is a satire, the entire thing sounds ridiculous, but once understood, the seemingly foolish descriptions of “body rituals” performed by these people called the Nacerima are found to be activities the reader likely partakes in regularly. True to the style

Throughout the entirety of the Caribbean history there have been many myths. One of the greater ones has been that the indigenous people that Christopher Columbus encountered are extinct. The book’s author, Tony Castanha, debunks that myth with stories of resistance to Columbus retold by people with Boriken descent, uncovering census data, and the retelling of the old Jibaro culture. With all this evidence, it is apparent that the Jibaro people are in fact not extinct.

hardest thing to forget, is that ritual. We had thought it was fake, as she had not said otherwise, but it wasn't. It was on a dark, warm night in July, the 19th to be exact, and we had gone to a small field in the woods. I had planned a camp out with Rae, Aria and Courtney and told them to bring something they wanted to do. I arrived at the spot at 7 p.m. and waited for the others to show up. "Hey Jade!" I heard Rae yell as she rode her bicycle up the hill. I went by Jade at my old school, I had felt the name Shannon didn't fit me so I went by my middle name instead. I yelled back "Hey Rae! What's in the bag?!" "Just my clothes and something I brought to do! It's one of those ritual things you see on the internet!" She put down her bike next

The Ostava ritual of the Circle of Life Coven is communicative in various ways. As Bird’s put it, Ostava is constitutive because it follows a scripts that provide outlines and this was seen in the way the participants new how to prepare the living room and the altars as well as knowing when to call for each quarters. Moreover, the ritual is also constitutive because without participants, the tunnel of birth could not be done and the calling of the quarters will not be possible. This ritual is self-representative because it makes statement about who they are and also identify themselves with character and roles that are asked for in their scripts. In the Ostava ritual this was seen with how the elders had different roles in the ritual and