Response to Nacirema 05/08/2018“Body Ritual Among the Nacirema “by Horace Miner (1956), is a parody of America’s development of today’s society. I read this article twice, with the anticipation of understanding it by the second time. It finally took my third time of reading the article to catch what was going on. For beginners the tribe called the Nacirema, is American, spelled backwards. As a culture hero who cut down a cherry tree Notgnihsaw is also Washington spelled backwards. It was confusing at first but when I understood the article and its meaning, I began to laugh as I was reading. My first reading I believed that this article was about a specific tribe, perhaps an Indian tribe called the “Nacirema”, that practices old rituals and …show more content…
They also used “holy-mouth-men”, who ranked below the medicine men in social status. These holy-mouth-men took care of the mouth. The Nacirema believed that the mouth has “supernatural influence on all social relationships”, and children were brought up on the “mouth-rite”. Miner (1956) also explained how Nacirema also went to a witch-doctor that they called “listener”, who would exorcise the demons that were in the heads of people who been bewitched. And the thought was parents were the ones to bewitch their children …show more content…
Egocentrism begins in early childhood. According to Jane Piaget (website), during the preoperational stage; Egocentrism refers to the child’s inability to see a situation from another person’s point of view. And in Miners (1956) article, rituals are taught only to their children and to prepare them for socialization, this in my opinion is very egocentric as well as ethnologic. My theory is that we as adults/role models take our egocentric ways and display them to our younger impressionable children, who grow and emerge through life as being ethnological. Our teachings inhibit children from seeing outside of the box and keeps them zoned in on what society thinks, such as vanity, wealthy, and perfect. We will never develop as humans because of the rituals that we continue to pass
In their house, they have a private shrine where they pray daily. They believe this will cleanse and prevent whatever is lurking in the human body. Inside their shrine is a chest, which they believe possess magical powers, these powers are produced by the medicine man. The medicine man is of very high stature among the Nacirema.
The Nacirema’s are said to be a tribe located between Canada and Mexico. With very exotic beliefs and customs, the Nacirema’s are viewed as vein and selfish. They focus on an obsession and a hatred of the human body. If you have not already figured it out, Nacirema is American spelled backwards. In the essay Body Ritual among the Nacirema, Horace Miner explains American culture and customs which he finds to be very exotic and unusual.
Modern America has a few similarities with the Natives that are carried over time, too what is now known as the new modern style in America. Instead, the Natives do still keep their practice the same and nothing has changed. The essay Herold Miner wrote; the body Ritual of Nacirema, describe a native’s tradition everyday lives by giving themselves a safe place to price possessions and the body modification on a native women. Today, the same tradition is still carried on, but in a different modern way it is done from what the natives usually do.
Horace Miner’s “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” has many rituals that seem bizarre but are a reflection of their beliefs and what they think is the proper way to address their imperfections be it the way they look, the condition of their health, or their beliefs in attaining luck or fortune. In my opinion, these rituals are, to some extent, similar to our own daily practices and rituals. Their daily rituals seem strange but these rituals and practices are somehow similar to our own daily rituals in terms of what they are trying to achieve. One similarity is how they believe that the human body is ugly so they use the powerful influences of ritual and ceremony. The more powerful members of the society have many shrines in their homes and
The Navajo and the Modoc: Mythological comparison In the myths “When Grizzlies Walked Upright” and “The Navajo Origin Legend”, we get a glimpse of the beliefs of traditional Native American societies. The former myth is one told by the Modoc tribe of Oregon, the other is told by the Navajo tribe of the American Southwest. The different uses of animals, spirits, and women’s roles help create an illustration of society before colonization. These myths do also differ on these themes and on how they are presented.
What is the meaning of Ego? In today’s world, it means “a person’s sense of self-esteem or self-importance”, it is to be self-centered and care for nothing else except for one's self or, in other terms, being an individualist. Today, people have been told to care for others instead of themselves, but that is not completely true. For example, Prometheus in Anthem by Ayn Rand- is not what one would consider to be a total egotistical person. Searching through different types of definitions and reasons about the definition of ego, the assumption is that egoism is not immoral or virtuous but the balance in between.
Body Ritual of the Nacirema by Horace Miner is a clever piece that describes a foreign sounding culture only to be realized that the group being described is one that is much more familiar. Through his process of describing conventional habits or “rituals” in an unconventional way, he allows the reader to look at this culture through a very unique lens. The Nacirema are the Americans and a representation of the American culture. Although this might not be immediately apparent to the reader, there are a number of hints throughout the text to help come to this realization.
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.
In Oglala Women, Myth, Ritual and Reality, Marla Powers portraits a powerful Native American community- Oglala, one of the main tribes of the Lakota (allied people) alliance located on the Oglala Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. They are known for being one of the biggest reservations in the United States who won the war in 1868 against the United States. In this book, Powers focuses on the women’s role within their community and how their sacred traditions and religion shaped their culture. Therefore, by using various readings on Lakota practices, this paper will examine the gender roles in Oglala culture in terms of marriage, religion and the effect that Americanization and Christianity have had on their culture and how they compare
They are often labeled as uncivilized barbarians, which is a solely false accusation against them. This paper aims to address the similarities between Native American beliefs and the beliefs of other cultures based on The Iroquois Creation Story in order to defeat the stereotype that Natives are regularly defined by. Native Americans are commonly considered uncivilized, savage, and barbarian. Nevertheless, in reality the Natives are not characterized by any of those negative traits, but rather they inhabit positive characteristics such as being wise, polite, tolerant, civilized, harmonious with nature, etc. They have had a prodigious impact on the Puritans
Throughout history, there have been many literary studies that focused on the culture and traditions of Native Americans. Native writers have worked painstakingly on tribal histories, and their works have made us realize that we have not learned the full story of the Native American tribes. Deborah Miranda has written a collective tribal memoir, “Bad Indians”, drawing on ancestral memory that revealed aspects of an indigenous worldview and contributed to update our understanding of the mission system, settler colonialism and histories of American Indians about how they underwent cruel violence and exploitation. Her memoir successfully addressed past grievances of colonialism and also recognized and honored indigenous knowledge and identity.
The essay, written in the form of an anthropological study, critiques the cultural practices of American society by presenting them as the strange and bizarre rituals of a mysterious tribe called the Nacirema. The following quotes demonstrate how Miner uses language and literary techniques to convey his message. "The fundamental belief of the Nacirema is that the human body is ugly and that its natural tendencies are towards evil." (Miner, 1956)
In the study called Body Ritual Among the Nacirema, the author calls the rituals and ceremonies the people perform “excessive”. They are insane rituals that people in America wouldn’t seem to think about doing. They sound so different, and unusual. As one reads the fieldwork, it raises a lot of questions and concerns. To anyone from another country it would seem these rituals are excessive because of the way they are performed, and the things they use to perform them.
Science journalist, Charles C. Mann, had successfully achieved his argumentative purpose about the “Coming of Age in the Dawnland.” Mann’s overall purpose of writing this argumentative was to show readers that there’s more to than just being called or being stereotyped as a savage- a cynical being. These beings are stereotyped into being called Indians, or Native Americans (as they are shorthand names), but they would rather be identified by their own tribe name. Charles Mann had talked about only one person in general but others as well without naming them. Mann had talked about an Indian named Tisquantum, but he, himself, does not want to be recognized as one; to be more recognized as the “first and foremost as a citizen of Patuxet,”(Mann 24).
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.