Horace Miner’s Body Ritual Among the Nacirema Essay

AbstractHorace mineworkers bode throughout the entire article of Body Ritual Among the Nacirema was to spread out to us, Americans, that we argon non superior to anyone else or any different culture, society, or religion. We ar all the same, and we just to need to keep in the back of our minds that everyone does everything differently. Whether it is a dramatic difference, or b arly noniceable, each person does everything different from the attached person. Throughout this essay leave behindbe examples on how Miners article went to prove how ethnocentric Americans through the use of sociological imagination.AbstrAnthropologist, Horace Miner, wrote an article on a tribe called the Nacirema, who originated from Between the Canadian Cree, the Yaqui and Tarahumargon of Mexico, and the Carib and Arawak of the Antilles. This specific tribe is so superficial, and focuses so much time on their bodily appearance. The people of this tribe go through many daily rituals to stay healthy , clean, and as utter(a) as possible. This tribe that is spoken of is the American. Nacirema is American spelled backwards. Throughout the article, Miner, strived to prove how ethnocentric we, Americans, are through sociological imagination.Reading the article without knowing it is rough Americans will put a person in the designate of consume of an outlander from a different culture. We think the tribe, Nacirema, thinks that the human body is ugly and its inwrought leaning to failing and disease is an awful thing, and that their only hope to ward off these characteristic of the human body, is to keep up with their daily rituals. Americans are ever so trying to come up with new ideas to prevent natural aging, the deterioration, and weakness of the body. We feel soashamed of our supposed weak bodies that the rituals performed in our families shrines (bathrooms) are kept completely private and should not be shared with anyone. beneficial because of our shamefulness, we have a lready proven that we are not a perfect people.Americans can alter their appearances in simple, almost no effort ways. professor Linton referred in discussing a distinctive part of the daily body ritual which is only performed by custody. This part of the rite includes scraping and lacerating the sur fount of the face with a sharp instrument. (Miner Paragraph 12) This ritual described the process of men shaving their face with a razor and along with the ritual is a possibility of cutting the face. Special womens rites are performed only four-spot times during each lunar month, but what they lack in oftenness is made up in barbarity. As part of this ceremony, women bake their address in small ovens for about an hour. (Miner Paragraph 12) This ceremony is talking about women going to get their hair done to improve their give ears. The small ovens are old fashioned hair dryers, which would dry their hair into the style that charr wanted it to be. An other ritual that the Nacirem a people go through is to go through a holy-mouth man (dentist).The holy-mouth man pokes and prods at the clients teeth, and it is not always a pleasant experience. The holy-mouth man give cares performing uncomfortable and around painful rituals on the clients teeth. The client allows for the holy-mouth man to any(prenominal) he or she likes with their teeth. The man ritual of shaving, woman ritual of get their hair done, and going to describe a holy-mouth man at least(prenominal) once a year all have sadistic and masochistic qualities. The specialists that complete these services like visualizeing their client uncomfortable and in pain on some level.The people of the Nacirema tribe continue to occur these specialists and continue the rituals, proving that in some sort of way that they must like being uncomfortable and in pain. People of the Nacirema tribe can overly physically change their appearance by having a special medical specialty man alter parts of the body. Main ly the women of the tribe are the ones who see the specialist. These specialists can make a womans breasts larger or smaller if needed. Other surgery, besides on the breasts, can be performed, such(prenominal) as the face, stomach, and arms.To view all these rituals that have been aforementioned, from an outsiders point of view can make the American people look barbaric, weird, and not natural. The people of the American culture are so wrapped up in self-image that it is almost sickening to look at it from another view point. The people will go to almost any length to look better and stay looking young that they will go through many painful and uncomfortable rituals. Talking about sexual converse is a not something to talk about dependently, especially in public. To vacate pregnancy the use of magical materials or by limiting converse to the certain phases of the moon. (Miner Paragraph 19)Birth control is taken to avoid suitable pregnant, and when women do become pregnant they wear loose clothing as to hide the fact that there are carrying a child. Other cultures see intercourse as a natural thing to reproduce, and that pregnancy is a beautiful thing. They see us not talking and being open about sex as taboo. We, Americans, are not superior to anyone else. That is what Horace Miner wanted to get across to all of us. He wanted us to think outside of the box. We need not to look at other cultures as strange, but just as different and unique because the other cultures look at us and think we are the weird ones.Referenceshttp//jihunkmla.blogspot.com/2013/05/review-on-nacirema-colored-glasses-i.html https//www.msu.edu/jdowell/miner.html