How Is Nacirema Culture Different From American Culture

The Nacirema is a North America group who lives around the area of Canadian Cree, the Yaqui, Tarahumare of Mexico, the Carib, and Arawak of Antilles. The ritual activity is a big part in the Nacirema's lives. They spend a considerable amount of time performing a secretive ceremonies and posses a great amount of tolerance. Their focus is on the human body appearance and health. It is to their believe that human body is viewed as ''ugly'' and ''debility and disease.” Hoping to eliminate those undesirable characteristic traits, the Nacirema's only hope is to do so through ritual activities hence the shrine is built inside of every house.

It has been 60 years since we have last record the events in the Nacirema culture and now researches today are baffled by the culture of the young Nacirema children. For example these young are spending day and night with their noses in these light boxes. Day after day, night after night these children love to stare at these hand size light boxes. We don’t exactly know what’s so entertaining about the light or the box, but we see them laugh, smile, cry, and get angry while looking into the light boxes. The older generation of the Nacirema indicates a great display of disapproval of them, but hypocritically many of them spend almost just as much time viewing into the light boxes as well.

1. The Nacirema culture gradually developed into a market economy that is extremely devoted to daily rituals. The tribe's perspective towards the human body shows unusual and strange behaviors that they possess. They believe that the human body is hideous and is prone to illness and weakness. The Nacirema tribe also have an irrational fear regarding the mouth, because they believe that their teeth would fall out or their gums would bleed which shows their behaviors are vaguely eccentric. From my perspective, the ritual activity that involves washing a child's mouth to enhance moral behavior is fascinating, because they believe that a strong bond exists between oral and moral traits. The ritual ablution they perform on children is supposed to improve the ability to do what is right, no matter the situation.

This study examines Horace Miner’s essay “Body Rituals Among the Nacirema. While using the participant observation approach, he gives us a new perspective on the daily behaviors within this group of people. Exploring ethnocentrism and how we view cultures outside of our own.

The Nacirema believe that human body is ugly. They perform the ritual called mouth rite that need to use powerful influences and rituals objects in each household to get rid of evil. They insert a small bundle of hog hairs into the

Culture is the overall moral belief, customs, language, and attitudes a person is brought and raised into. Daily, we are exposed to diverse and different cultures everyday which allow us to learn the different values and traditions each culture possess. The importance of observing and learning different customs is beneficial because it can help us better adapt and prevent misunderstandings when we communicate and interact with others. Hispanics and Americans are two huge cultures that have been sharing the same living space for years but are an example of two different civilizations. While both, Hispanics and Americans, share many similarities they both differ in recognition of religion, language,

The rituals of the Nacirema culture are very unique when it comes to the different forms of beliefs and remedies. According to the article, “The fundamental belief underlying the whole system of the Nacirema appears to be that the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease” (4). With that in mind, the Nacirema have come up with a bundle of ways to keep the body healthy and pure. Of those ways, most are included with the belief that magic is the key component in the use of ritual and ceremony. Houses in the Nacirema culture have shrines dedicated to the purpose of these ritual ceremonies. Homes with one or more shrines often mean the family is considered wealthier. The focal point of a shrine is a box or chest

This culture reacts to sickness differently than other cultures. It is traditional to have a long list of natural remedies and herbs that can cure illness versus going to the doctor and taking medications. They believe there are specific causes that lead to catching certain illnesses such as if you sit on the cold concrete as a woman, it will freeze your ovaries, and that will result in infertility (Wells 2014).

While reading about the Nacirema culture, I was very shocked to hear their beliefs, rituals, and way of life. The first thing that stood out to me was the fact that they viewed the body as causing diseases, weakness and ugliness. Never before have I been taught about a culture that views human bodies so negatively. Second, it amazes me how much power the charms and magical potions have on these people. They truly believe that without these "magical potions" and "charms" they would die.Third, the whole "holy-mouth-men" concept baffles my mind. They believe that without these men, their gums would bleed and their teeth fall out. When in reality the "holy-mouth-men" cause the bleeding and take their teeth out. Even when they see these men

For us to properly learn about culture, we must understand the meaning of cultural relativism and ethnocentrism. The two concepts challenge one another. Reading the article, we must pull away from our ethnocentric views and think critically about the Nacirema people's. However, the description of the culture creates an ideology that is hard to agree with. For example, the Nacirema peoples take part in a rite that involves hog hairs and magical powders. The Nacirema rituals do sound strange and displeasing but, we have to learn to recognize our ethnocentric judgments.

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

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

Everybody has their own definition of Culture – and when this word is used generally, most audiences have a rough idea of its meaning. Culture usually refers to the beliefs, ideas, languages, rituals and traditions by certain communities, that are passed from generation to generations continuously over the past many centuries. In society, two cultures cannot be same if one is located on the west coast and the other one is all the way to the East. As we compare, the American and Indian cultures have very vast differentiation between them. While the culture of America is a mixture of different cultures since each immigrant internally packed his or her previously

Culture is a key aspect of a human that reflects on their lifestyle, family, traditions and pulls together the external influences that play a role in how one chooses to live their life. For me, culture is something you collect throughout your lifetime. In my lifetime, I have been lucky enough to travel outside of the United States and meet people from all over the world. I have seen how people go about their daily routines in many different ways compared to mine. The main cultural influence that has been present in my life since day one is the closeness of my family. All my cousins are very close it has often odd when I hear about families with weak relationships and small size. Another influence that has shaped my behavior was my exposure of extreme poverty and extreme wealth while living in Mexico. Lastly, a cultural influence that has shaped my belief system is my education.

When comparing cultures, one must form a definition of what culture is. Culture can be easily defined as the social behavior and normality’s found in human societies. It can also be easily made up of a composed arrangement of educated conduct and thought designs. Culture is a sorted out framework since it includes many parts. Throughout the world, there are many cultures that are both very different and also very similar. "Culture encompasses religion, food, what we wear, how we wear it, our language, marriage, music, what we believe is right or wrong, how we sit at table, how we greet visitors, how we behave and one million other things." (Cristina De Rossi.)