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Horace Miner's Article 'Body Ritual Among The Nacirema'

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Summary of Miner's Article on Nacirema In Horace Miner’s article "Body Ritual among the Nacirema," he describes the peculiar customs of a North American group known as the Nacirema. This group exhibits unique behaviors centered around the human body, which they believe is inherently ugly and prone to disease. They employ various rituals and ceremonies to maintain health and beauty, many of which seem strange to outsiders. Peculiar and unusual customs The Nacirema have a highly developed market economy, but a significant portion of their time is devoted to ritual activities focusing on the body. Each household has shrines dedicated to these rituals. The wealthier members have more elaborate shrines, often decorated with pottery plaques. Within these shrines, a charm box is kept, filled with magical potions and charms prescribed by medicine men. The …show more content…

The holy water is obtained from the community’s Water Temple, where priests purify it through elaborate ceremonies. The Nacirema also have specialists called "holy-mouth men" who perform rituals to maintain oral health, which they believe is crucial for social relationships. These rituals involve inserting hog hairs and magical powders into the mouth, which can appear revolting to outsiders. More severe rituals are performed in a temple known as the latipso, where medicine men and vestal maidens conduct harsh treatments on the sick. Despite the discomfort and pain, the Nacirema people continue to seek these treatments, demonstrating their deep faith in the rituals. Miner’s Definition of Culture Miner defines culture through the lens of rituals and customs. He focuses on how these practices reveal the underlying beliefs and values of the Nacirema. The emphasis is on the body's appearance and health, illustrating a unique cultural ethos that sees the body as inherently flawed and in need of constant

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These “boxes or chest” contains “many charms or magical potions” which mean medicine, prescribed by the “medicine men” or the doctors in an “ancient and secret language” or the fuzzy penmanship of the doctors which is understood only by the medicine men. The temple of these “medicine men” is called the “lapisto” or hostpital where wealthy sick natives come for treatment. Under these boxes is a “small font” or the faucet and the sink which every member of the family “bows his head before it and splashes holy water” which is purified by the “priests”. Rituals such as “mouth rites” where Naciremans “insert a small bundle of hog hairs in their mouths” also symbolize the brushing of teeth every American does. Once or twice a year, because of the Nacirema’s great care for mouth care, they seek a “holy-mouth-man” or a dentist to “exercise the evils of the mouth” or remove tooth

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Those who practice use an important tool, magic, “not black magic, but the magic of healing and making whole” (Wicca, Chambers

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Originally published in 1956, Body Ritual of the Nacirema is an article written by world renowned anthropologist Horace Miner. In this article, Miner tells of his encounters with a Native American Tribe located between Canada and Mexico. This tribe is a culture obsessed with rituals that rely heavily on the image of their body and how it is judged by other individuals. The Nacirema believe that the body is ugly, and only through daily rituals can one find happiness and prosperity. In the article, Miner describes the “rituals” that all of the members must attend in order to be accepted by society and the different superstitious habits that the members take part in.

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These rituals also create a sense of moral community, in which people conform to, which furthers their purpose and meaning in

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The Emic method gives a clear and accurate understanding of a culture due to the in-depth interview conducted by the anthropologist. But because there was a lack of information, confusion and strange descriptions of a non-exotic culture there is no way that this “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema” used the Emic method. Because of this it supports the fact that this essay was a Etic inspired

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Horace Miner, the author of “Body Ritual among the Nacirema”, used very interesting and descriptive choice of words to describe the routines that modern Americans go through from an outsider point of view. He gives different terms to describe mundane routines, like brushing your teeth, and exaggerate the details as something that is bizarre. Some rituals Miner described as illogical because there was a low rate of success in what they are trying to achieve. This reveals that what determines something to be socially acceptable is not through logic, but only though the popularity of the community. One of the rituals that Miner described as illogical but everyone still do the ritual was the fact that the people kept going to the “holy-mouth-man”, or also known as the dentist, even if their teeth are still decaying.

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In every household there is at least one shrine or more shrines depending on how powerful they are in the society that are used for this purpose. This is normally a private ritual and is only shared with the children when they are ready to undergo the rituals too. Now the ritual consists of a box or chest

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Priests and priestesses went to temples to help watch the people to make sure they did not get the gods angry so that they could keep living there happy lives.

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Also, all of them are only allowed to carry two things: a ‘kamandalu’ (a wooden pot used for water) and a ‘picchi’ (a small brush made out of peacock feathers used to cover their private parts when walking around in public). To eat, they go around to houses of the Digambara laity and ask for food. However, the strict rule is that they are not to take the food in any vessel; they are to stand at the same spot at the same time and eat the food from their hands. Moreover, to practice the religious life as strictly and efficiently as possible the Digambara Religious always have to be in company of other Religious belonging to the same

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