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Body Ritual Of The Nacirema By Horace Miner

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Body Ritual of the Nacirema written by Horace Miner is a mocking summary of what most Americans do in regards to their health routines. Looking closely at the word “Naciremas”, we can see that it is “American” spelt backwards. Miner takes the approach of explaining the body ritual among the Nacirema from an outsider’s point of view, with no real understanding of the American culture. Miner describes Americans as “magic-ridden people” (Miner 2009, 507).
When first reading this analysis, it is not easy to recognize that Miner is talking about American’s culture. Miner argues several common actions and behaviors of Nacirema’s further in his analysis. Miner uses descriptions and words for certain things that happen in our everyday lives that we normally do not hear. By doing so, Miner allows the readers to understand what he is saying in a different perspective. First looking at the Nacirema …show more content…

This is an example of this because Miner was able to describe this culture in a positive way. Even though there are so many versions of what the world portrays of a culture, Miner tried to make his readers understand it without making positive or negative judgements towards the culture. The gender roles in this article relates to also the conceptions of gender discussed in class, because when Miner is talking about the “medicine men” the thought of a man playing the role – the medicine men is a doctor in reality. When Miner talks about the “listener” you get more of the vibe that it is a female – listening to people’s feelings. Another topic that the “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” is the ethnocentric Fallacy, this is true because as you read this article, it seems as though you can either take it on way, that the idea the belief’s and behaviors are right and true, which those of other peoples are wrong or

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The culture that Miner is describing is the Nacirema culture. The Nacirema culture is very complex with many different and harsh rituals. Their culture believes that the human body is ugly, so they perform many brutal rituals to make their body as perfect as it can be. The author of this article, Horace Miner, uses descriptive and harsh detail to describe the brutal rituals that the Nacirema culture to elicit reactions from the reader. For example, Miner explains a daily ritual that is called mouth-rite, and Miner introduces the practice by saying “Despite the fact that these people are so punctilious about care of the mouth, this rite involves a practice which strikes the uninitiated stranger as revolting” (American Anthropologist pg. 504).

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