Body Ritual of the Nacirema Essay

Body Ritual of the Nacirema Essay

In writing "Body Ritual of the Nacirema"; Horace Miner describes a culture that seems strange and full of weird rituals. He speaks of odd body rituals that take place in a shrine; he refers to a great leader that had great feats of strength. He allows us to look upon this "tribe" as though it was from some dark corner in Africa, yet it isn't. The Nacirema are Americans and all those strange behaviors are things we all did this morning. The author takes us to an out of the box view of ourselves, one that I found humorous and a little enlightening.

When I first started reading this I wondered who the Nacirema people are. It didn't take long for me to realize the author was talking about us, talking about me. He is trying to get us to understand that these rituals bind us to one another as a common thread. Our bodies are delicate and start to degrade the day we are born. We spend our lives trying to keep up appearances on the outside. As a society we are very vain, just look at the pretty people in our advertisement, our skinny mannequins and you will see this is true. So to an outsider that takes no account of how they look to someone else we would seem very odd. But this behavior is normal to us. If I look at people in Africa that pierce their bodies, enlarge their ear lobes, "I think how strange it that?'. What is their purpose for doing this, I honestly don't know. However if they saw me brushing my teeth or putting deodorant on they would think the same thing. Just because a "ritual" is strange to us doesn't mean it isn't just another day to them. A ritual is something that one does over and over every day, or when it is required. So for Americans it is normal and expected that everyone baths, in fact if you don't you could be judged by society poorly and shunned by people that catch a whiff of you. Though in other cultures, bathing may not be looked upon the same way, in fact, the more pungent your odor is may make your place in that society higher. In Asian cultures men frequently grow their pinky finger nail long, I am not sure why but there are many theories. Some are drug use, nose picking or a sign of being upper class. Here in America I see women often paint the third finger of their hand a different color, again not sure why but each person may have a different reason, even within our own culture there are rituals that take place that are mysteries to its own people. We have to be able to look at other cultures as view them for what they are, a normal part of their lives, regardless of how it may seem to us, because what we do may seem odd to them but perfectly normal and accepted here.

Emile Durkheim theorized that