This culture is one of many cultures who put there faith in past on beliefs and go to seemingly horrific measures carrying them out. This article was frightening as well as uplifting to me. What was frightening to me is the fact that in the U.S these disturbing rituals take place. As I already stated as an outsider it is very difficult trying to make sense of these customs in terms of my society. I was being quite ethnocentric.
The Body Ritual Among the Nacirema Week 4 Assignment HRM582 Professor Dr. C Keller Graduate School of Management By: Lesa Bonham 29 September 2013 The Body Ritual Among the Nacirema In viewing the cultural activities of the Nacirema I found it particularly gruesome in some of the rituals that the women were performing and their thoughts that the human body is ugly and that if the body were to have any sickness or disease the only way to rid of body of these is through their often times barbaric rituals that they perform. Their beliefs that shrines will help to keep the body cleansed of these diseases are what lead them to have a shrine in every hope and those of higher stature within the community will have many shrines which show to the community their higher status within their society. The rites or rituals are very private in nature to the Nacirema which are only done within the privacy of their own homes and among their own family and only with those children in their family who are old enough for their initiation into these mysterious practices. The Nacirema for that reason never allowed any outsiders to observe these rituals but would describe them in detail to some that had gained their confidence and acceptance into their society. One of the things that I thought fascinating was the fact that they too have a man in their society known as the medicine man which we know about from our history of the Native American Indians and their practices of having a medicine man that was responsible for the health and healing of the people of their tribes.
Nacirema Claim: The Nacirema believe that certain rituals and ceremonies must be practiced to maintain and improve the condition of their bodies and social status because of superstitious beliefs and they believe the human body is ugly and the only way from preventing it from getting weak and diseased is to practice powerful rituals devoted to this purpose Evidence: This culture of these people is still poorly understood, even after being studied by various anthropologists. But we do know some things that can lead us to making the conclusion of why they do the things they do. They live around the Canadian Creel the Yaqui and Tarahumare of Mexico and they are wealthy people. In paragraph 4 they speak about how families create shrines in their houses. In this shrine is a box with potions and charms that they believe are needed to
Body ritual among the Nacirema After reading the required reading "Body Ritual among the Nacrirema" I was surprised and yet disgusted that people actually went through such extremes measures to preserve and care for their bodies. The Nacirema tribe is described by anthropologist Horace Miner, as an old primitive tribe residing in North America with savage and barbaric Practices and rituals. Minor gives plenty of examples that would make the Nacirema tribe seem over obsessive and even animalistic. Minor describes the Nacrirema tribe as performing a special body ritual called the "mouth rite" which is basically the gruesome pulling of teeth, only to put " a special medicine" inside so that it cold fill holes in their mouths. Another example the author describes, is the ritual of certain medicine men who have a temple.
The main point of this reading is to make us realize that there are hundreds of other cultures and everyone is different and be open minded about it. For example Horace mentions that Nacirema fears yet intrigued with the mouths, and believe that they have a lot to do with the social relationships. If they don’t perform the rituals for the mouth they believe that the mouth will fall out and their loved ones will reject them. Horace wrote this article because he wants us to understand the Nacirema culture because it is dissimilar than others. Different people act behave different in similar situation and respect their actions and see their point of view of their belief and their culture.
He is a middle man of sorts. He can contact this realm, receive visions of it, and transmit messages from it, often to help or heal others. (Molly 57) The best description would be ‘medicine man’, but shamans can be male or female. (Molly 58). The term ‘medicine man’ should be not only looked upon as a physical doctor but an all encompassing one, i.e.
Deciding when to decontaminate your hand can be a little bit daunting. This is why, therefore, guidelines have been made to highlight the four key factors in hand hygiene to help workers and patients decide when to decontaminate their hands. Healthcare workers needs to anticipate the level of contact with patients or objects to eliminate the chance of developing further pathogen related disease. Furthermore, workers also need to foresee the extent of contamination that can occur with the contact and patient’s various care activities being performed (Boyce and Pittet, 2002, Pratt et al, 2001). There is without doubt, that these factors have set a foundation to promote a safe hand hygiene practice without guessing when and where to decontaminate.
Doctors prescribe the medication and the patient administers their own death. Euthanasia and Physician Assisted Suicide are topical arguments based in morality. Within a medical community, arguments based on morality are extremely important as they define the ethics doctors are bound to professionally. Morality is foundational in medical sciences, as it should be when treating humans, who in turn, are guided by these morals. Physician
John Teems January 14, 2009 Answers to: “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” 1. My reaction to this (our) culture (when put in a cryptic, unbiased viewpoint such as it has been in this passage) is that we as a whole are a very particular and at times very strange culture. Taking into account the sadistic nature of some of our customs (i.e. body waxing, shaving, hair curling, tattooing, piercing); it makes me think “Why do we choose willingly to do these things to ourselves”? How did we evolve into this self-absorbed, vein, and sometimes self loathing people?
The author makes use of countless comparisons to primitive native culture to explain the obsession with health, hygiene, and anti-aging. Miner refers to dentists as holy mouth men and bathrooms as shrines for odd ritual practices. His language is clearly satirical and creates the notion of the "Nacirema" as vain and self obsessed.