ipl-logo

Summary Of Body Ritual Among The Nacirema By Horace Miner

480 Words2 Pages

Jennine Selina G. Boado 11418877 INTHROP Reading #2
Body Ritual among the Nacirema
Horace Miner’s “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” discusses the magical beliefs and practices of the North American group called “Nacirema”. By re-reading the article I have found out that Miner created this article to by using symbolization to look at the “vanity” of the lifestyle of the Americans and to provide an outside point of view of the “Nacirema” or “American’s” culture. From the article, Miner characterizes the Naciremas as highly focused on their appearance and health which signifies American’s obsession with their personal apperance. Their fundamental belief, according to Miner is that the “human body is ugly and the only way to avert these characteristics is through the use of rituals and ceremonies”. …show more content…

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

Show More
Related
331 Words | 2 Pages

On his journey to the New World, Bartolome de Las Casas encounters the “Indians” of the New World, in which he describes as an innocent, undeveloped, people. As a first observation, Las Casas pays close attention to the Indians social appearance and clothing. He notices, “as to their dress, they are generally naked,” usually with minimal clothing worn and, instead of traditional European customs , “ they have no beds, but sleep on a kind of matting or else in a kind of suspended net called hamacas.” Specifically within this quote is the emphasis of the rhetorical device pathos. Las Casas’ diction is written in such a way that portrays the feeling of empathy toward the reader, and because an individual is more likely to help another individual

Read More
511 Words | 3 Pages

In the documentary, “The Split Horn: Life of a Hmong Shaman in America,” portrays the journey of an immigrant Hmong family battling to maintain their cultural traditions alive in the United States. In the Hmong culture, it is believed that every individual has seven souls and if they have an illness, for example sickness, it means that their soul has departed or taken by evil spirits. Hmong people believe in Shamans, who are gifted and respected people who can make contact with their ancestors and return the lost souls of people. In this documentary, the main character Paja Thao is a shaman who is challenged by American customs to keep his cultural Hmong traditions alive and pass it down to his children. Paja becomes sick because he feels like his children don’t care about the Hmong tradition anymore because they don’t participate in his rituals and realizes his children have assimilated to the American culture.

Read More
302 Words | 2 Pages

Chapter two is called "Madre, Mujer, Bruja" which means mother, women, and witch in Spanish. The name of the chapter set up with what Ms. Glass-Coffin talks about in this chapter. She looks at how the history of healings and rituals and how it has contributed to the contemporary perception of what healers do. When situations like the story of Maria de la O and her daughter Manuela the church would become involved and they would put these perceptions of witchcraft on the women. In contemporary times shamanic healers are mostly men, this is because the churches ideologies which were European made their way to Peru.

Read More
142 Words | 1 Pages

Most Native American tribes were fairly good at healing medicines, but in certain cases they would bring travelers gifts to heal their very sick. In De Vasa’s time they traded a bow to have the men and priest heal a handful of men, they mostly prayed and gave them

Read More
861 Words | 4 Pages

A Brazilian boy asked, “What’s a sweat lodge?” “It’s like a sauna with ritualistic aspects. The Native Americans developed the ceremony to detoxify the poisoning effect of Western culture.” I questioned, “What are we going to use to make it?”

Read More
1419 Words | 6 Pages

Horace Miner, a American Anthropologist wrote an academic essay titled “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema.” In this article Miner described some of the bizarre rituals and practices of the “Nacirema” which the reader comes to find out that he is talking about North Americans. The way Miner goes into detail about how these people live makes them seem foreign. Thus making the norm for an American lifestyle seem odd because the certain type of lingo Miner uses to make this “tribe” more exotic then the actually are. His point in doing this is to show the reader how obnoxious anthropologist can be when they are explain a different culture.

Read More
746 Words | 3 Pages

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.

Read More
502 Words | 3 Pages

They cleanse the mouth once or twice a year. The ‘Holy Mouth Men’ come around and use instruments to dig holes in healthy or even decaying teeth. Some parts of the mouth are even stuffed with magical substances to stop decay. This sounds to me like a very painful procedures, much like what the Nacirema women go through, depending upon the patterns of the moon, the women have their head baked! This is supposed to be a body cleansing ritual.

Read More
479 Words | 2 Pages

Intricate ceremonial dresses are crafted, ritualistic tipi’s are build and food is prepared to serve the vast number of guests that will be in attendance at this sacred ceremony. The family also does the honor of choosing a Godmother, or Medicine Women, that will serve as a beacon of strength and comfort for the girl during the ceremony. She will dance alongside the girl, guiding her through the rituals, and assisting in massage which symbolizes being molded into the White Painted Women; the ultimate precedent of the perfect woman. Typically, the

Read More
919 Words | 4 Pages

Sanapia doctors her patient for two days; she treats the individual by sunrise, midday and sunset. She resorts to the Bible, and prays to the Holy Ghost. In addition, she uses pulp made from a white root, that gets massaged into the patient affected area. She chews on sweet sage, caresses the patient with the feather on the face, and she uses her mouth to suck out the sickness. When Sanapia is not doctoring, she tells the patient to rest, pray and think of good things.

Read More
459 Words | 2 Pages

Not Just a Bowl Beauty is one of the main foci in society today where selfies, beauty enhancement or plastic surgery, celebrities, and the media reign over society—constantly defining what people should aim for in terms of appearance. Appearances are everything to many people rather than inner beauty such as character and values. In turn, this beauty-obsessed world has led to people becoming more shallow, superficial, and unaccepting towards anything besides the “norm.” It is quite ironic to have a “norm” considering how each individual is different and live in different cultures and such. People are not meant to be or look the same neither should they adhere to a certain standard in which someone else has established.

Read More
910 Words | 4 Pages

In “The Foreign Travels of Sir John Mandeville,” John Mandeville provides an account of his travels by creating an imaginative geography of the people and places he visits. Through this imaginative geography the idea of the Western “self” is explored by highlighting the differences between “self,” and the “other” – the peoples of civilizations Mandeville visits. It is in this way that the Western identity is formed – it is not concerned with what Western civilization is but more, what it is not. This dichotomy between self and other is explored in Mandeville’s writing in several capacities, specifically: the civilized human and the savage animals, the pious Christians and the uncivilized pagans, and the good and the evil.

Read More
811 Words | 4 Pages

Americans bathe in secret and do not like to show of their bodies in public. There are “shrines” where people do their makeup, because people believe that the body is ugly and want to cover it up and make it look prettier. They want to hide it from the decay that is occurring. There are typically multiple bathrooms inside of a home of a rich person. Bathrooms are where makeup is usually applied, and any other modifications to add beauty to oneself.

Read More
738 Words | 3 Pages

Something called “Medicine Men and Women” are spiritual leaders who use herbs to heal sick people. It’s very important to have spiritual leaders because they are the one’s to provide for the sickness of people, they play a huge role in people's lives so that’s why they're so important to the Native Americans religion. Now in closing, I have learned a lot of new things that I have never seen or heard of

Read More
1126 Words | 5 Pages

The practice of modifying one’s skin as a means of expression has been active for as long as 5300 years (Haskings-Winner, Collichaw, Kritzer, & Warecki, 2011). However, in modern day societies the stigma against body modification, including tattoos is still prevalent. To understand why people of a North American influence would subject themselves to this potential undermining, one must first uncover what motivates a person to permanently enhance their skin. Primarily, research into the topic, history, traditions, modern meanings, was conducted using printed resources, online databases, and online-published journals. Notes and condensed summaries of said research was used to create survey questions and a general audience was decided.

Read More

More about Summary Of Body Ritual Among The Nacirema By Horace Miner

Related Topics

Open Document