Anthropology Analysis of "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema" Essay

In order to understand any culture, it is essential to acknowledge the importance of taking a holistic view. This approach, which gained recognition and validation in the twentieth century, stresses the importance of accounting for all of the components of a culture. The concept requires an understanding of each subsystem, which dictates certain aspects of the culture being studied. With this theory as basis for her approach, Myerhoff is faced with the difficult task of piecing together the many parts contributing to the formation of the culture at the Center, while simultaneously recognizing the distinctions between the acting subsystems. Sometimes it seems that realizing what leads to specific cultural constructs would be extremely difficult; this is especially the case with traits that have become so naturalized that only an outsider would recognize them as distinct and significant. That said, it is obvious that there are advantages to studying a completely exotic culture, as the majority of anthropologists do; however, Myerhoff chose to do her fieldwork in a culture that is centered

In my opinion, this article about the Nacirema people was very fascinating. These people have a very different culture than we do, which I find very intriguing. They believe that the human body is ugly, and describe it as weak and prone to disease. Due to many aspects of the nonmaterial culture in America, I was raised to believe that the human body is beautiful and can accomplish incredible things. Therefore, I find it hard to see the meaning of their rituals, however, I do respect our cultural differences. The Nacirema people also build shrines within their houses. These shrines contain chests full of previously used magical healing potions and charms. The Nacirema people perform personality ceremonies at the shrine daily in order to ensure

Horace Minor applied satire in his article “Body Ritual among the Nacirema.” to the culture of the American people. Several ways in which “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” relate to the core concepts of sociology are through the use of sociological imagination, ethnocentrism and cultural relativism. The American culture is described by Minor in a very unique and humorous way. The author uses satire to examine the rituals that are every day in American culture. The reader thinks at the beginning of the article that they are reading about some uncivilized tribe of people but soon realized that the “rituals” that are being performed are just everyday events that take place in every American household.

Horace Miner describes the people of the North American tribe the Naciremas as persons “devoted to economic pursuits (Body Ritual Among the Nacirema. Miner. 503.3.2)” and ritual activities of the human body. Miner uses a satirical style, play on words to abnormally describe such cultural upon this tribe. Throughout the text, Miner uses words and or phrases such as: “sadism, masochistic, neophyte, awls, and objects in the exorcism of the evils of the mouth involves almost unbelievable ritual torture of the client.” Horace Miner, uses those such words and phrases to describe the various everyday rituals conducted by the Naciremas by producing ethnocentrism through the readers of his text.

In the Body Rituals of the Nacirema, the author Horace Miner makes a very intriguing analysis of the Nacirema culture and their beliefs. Throughout the course of the passage, we are able to see how he closely observes the nacirema culture and tries to understand their living habits and daily lives. Miner explains to us how their culture consists of unusual practices and almost magical rituals. Of course, the work that occurs throughout the passage resembles the work that a cultural anthropologist would do. A cultural anthropologist travels to different parts of the world in order to observe and study a plethora of different cultures and their beliefs. In the beginning of the passage, Miner explains how an anthropologist becomes accustomed to the peculiar traditions of different cultures because they interact and closely examine them. It is this reason why I believe this article would fall under the field of cultural anthropology. Cultural Anthropology is defined as the study of culture, traditions, and environment (Haviland, 2017). The passage allows us the opportunity to closely examine the ways and traditional beliefs of the nacirema . For instance, in the passage Miner states that the Nacirema loathe their physical appearance, “The fundamental belief underlying the whole system appears to be that the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease” (Haviland, 2017). Horace Miner not only focuses on their beliefs but their perspective and way of

Professor Linton had studied the body rituals among the Naciremas and found that they have “the fundamental belief underlying the whole system appears to be that the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility

Nacirema is a perfect example in which different ways humans can live and how extreme their beliefs can go. With that being said, I believe that Miner wants us, the readers, to understand the different ways in which people live their lives. The underlying message of Nacirema is that the people in which believe in this, spend most of their day in ritual activity because they believe that “the human body is ugly, and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease”

“Body Rituals Among the Nacirema,” is a satirical article written by Horace Miner in 1956. The article is about a North American tribe named Nacirema and goes into detail about the tribe’s body rituals. Nacirema (word play for American) customs are set in an unfamiliar environment and presented as exotic. The demonstration of how one may perceive other cultures was by describing American culture differently. The unfamiliarity allows an outsider perspective; it increases the ability to see the strange in the familiar. Cultures have different notion of what is normal and what is strange. The use of parallel structure displays how we may view cultures that do not abide the same norms and shows the ethnocentrism. American culture is not as normal, as it seems, therefore we should respect the cultures outside of our own.

In the Nacirema culture, they have people, called the “holy-mouth-man”. The practitioners has a set of tools, which consists of a variety of augers, awls, probes and prods. They tend to use these objects in exorcism of the evils of the mouth that involves a ritual torture of the client. The “holy-mouth-man” opens the client mouth, and use the tools to expand all corrosion cavities, and then will put a supernatural substance inside the mouth, which is very strange.

Summary: The Writer’s Purpose In the essay “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” written by Horace Miner, the writer has intentionally presented the 1950’s American culture in a more primitive fashion. With certain objectives, he has cleverly made the Nacirema culture seem like that of an ancient tribe and has compelled the readers to believe that such culture existed in certain time frame of the era. Many of us are ethnocentric in nature and we often judge a foreign culture in a standard of the culture that we are familiar with which results in our inability to understand cultures that are different from ours. In this essay itself, the writer has made us look into the modern American culture through the eyes of a person who isn’t habitual with

Horace Miner’s article “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” is an amazing article that makes people that do not believe their unique grasp the concept that everyone is indeed unique. Miner wrote this article about Americans as Americans generally believe that other countries have rituals while we are just plain with no uniqueness. Miner uses a language that is not typical among american literature. He has a strategy of using words such as: Supplicant, Witch doctor, household shrine, etc in order to make us realize that we do have our own rituals. We as Americans hold a misconception that we are not as special as other countries which makes us percieve them to be weird because of their customs. Miner wants us to know that we are indeed different too which makes him use vocabulary words that we would not use versus the ones that we are used to in order to prove that point. This article is trying to make it clear to the readers that Americans see other cultures as true cultures and that we just have a daily life. A daily life is the same as a culture, it is no different. Americans see themselves as Americans yet see others as foreigners. People never think that those from other countries would see us in that light, we believe that there are only two catergories. The categories are that you are either a Nacirema or a foreigner which is what it sounds like Miner is trying to point out. This is not the truth but this is the way that the Nacirema see it because they do not really want

Concept of culture- The learned, symbolic, at least partially adaptive and ever-changing patterns of behavior and meaning shared by members of a group.

In many anthropological studies, the scientists attempt to define a culture that is unknown to society. They go in and find people that are considered “other.” They pick apart and analyze everything that they find. All of the articles we have read and discussed in class do this. In this paper, I will show you how the directors and anthropologists do this.

Throughout the essay Body Ritual Among the Nacirema, Miner creates a definition of the American culture from an outsiders perspective. Miner himself was born and raised in the United States, but takes the approach of an

The October, 1913 edition of National Geographic depicts the lives of individuals living in Romania, the Caucasus, and the Philippines. The practices, traditions, and clothing of the people living in these regions are frequently referenced. Sadly, these cultures are judged and looked at in a negative light in the