Miners Body Ritual among the Naciremahttpsmsu.edu~j.docx

Miner's "Body Ritual among the Nacirema"
https://msu.edu/~jdowell/miner.html[8/31/2016 12:53:19 PM]
"Body Ritual among the Nacirema"
Horace Miner [1 - footnotes are at the end of this document]
© Reprinted by permission of the American Anthropological
Association from American
Anthropologist 58:3, June 1956.
Not for sale or further reproduction.
NOTE TO EDUCATORS & OTHERS: Feel free to link to this
page! Tell me if you would like a link
back to a URL, as these scholars have. Last updated: 1.2.12.
Most cultures exhibit a particular configuration or style. A
single value or pattern of
perceiving the world often leaves its stamp on several
institutions in the society.
Examples are "machismo" in Spanish-influenced cultures,
"face" in Japanese culture,
and "pollution by females" in some highland New Guinea
cultures. Here Horace Miner
demonstrates that "attitudes about the body" have a pervasive
influence on many
institutions in Nacirema society.
1151 words, not including notes

[503 begins ->]
The anthropologist has become so familiar with the diversity of
ways in which different
people behave in similar situations that he is not apt to be
surprised by even the most
exotic customs. In fact, if all of the logically possible
combinations of behavior have not
been found somewhere in the world, he is apt to suspect that
they must be present in
some yet undescribed tribe. The point has, in fact, been
expressed with respect to clan
organization by Murdock (1949: 71).[2] In this light, the
magical beliefs and practices of
the Nacirema present such unusual aspects that it seems
desirable to describe them as
an example of the extremes to which human behavior can go.
¶ 1
Professor Linton [3] first brought the ritual of the Nacirema to
the attention of
anthropologists twenty years ago (1936: 326), but the culture of
this people is still very
poorly understood. They are a North American group living in
the territory between the
Canadian Cree, the Yaqui and Tarahumare of Mexico, and the
Carib and Arawak of the
Antilles. Little is known of their origin, although tradition
states that they came from the
east.... [4]
¶ 2
Nacirema culture is characterized by a highly developed market
economy which has

evolved in a rich natural habitat. While much of the people's
time is devoted to economic
¶ 3
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pursuits, a large part of the fruits of these labors and a
considerable portion of the day
are spent in ritual activity. The focus of this activity is the
human body, the appearance
and health of which loom as a dominant concern in the ethos of
the people. While such a
concern is certainly not unusual, its ceremonial aspects and
associated philosophy are
unique.
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.
Incarcerated in such a
body, man's only hope is to avert these characteristics through
the use of ritual and
ceremony. Every household has one or more shrines devoted to
this purpose. The more
powerful individuals in the society have several shrines in their

houses and, in fact, the
opulence of a house is often referred to in terms of the number
of such ritual centers it
possesses. Most houses are of wattle and daub construction, but
the shrine rooms of the
more wealthy are walled with stone. Poorer families imitate the
rich by applying pottery
plaques to their shrine walls.
¶ 4
While each family has at least one such shrine, the rituals
associated with it are not
family ceremonies but are private and secret. The rites are
normally only discussed with
children, and then only during the period when they are being
initiated into these
mysteries. I was able, however, to establish sufficient [504
begins ->] rapport with the natives
to examine these shrines and to have the rituals described to me.
¶ 5
The focal point of the shrine is a box or chest which is built into
the wall. In this chest are
kept the many charms and magical potions without which no
native believes he could
live. These preparations are secured from a variety of
specialized practitioners. The most
powerful of these are the medicine men, whose assistance must
be rewarded with
substantial gifts. However, the medicine men do not provide the
curative potions for their
clients, but decide what the ingredients should be and then write
them down in an ancient
and secret language. This writing is understood only by the

medicine men and by the
herbalists who, for another gift, provide the required charm.
¶ 6
The charm is not disposed of after it has served its purpose, but
is placed in the
charmbox of the household shrine. As these magical materials
are specific for certain ills,
and the real or imagined maladies of the people are many, the
charm-box is usually full
to overflowing. The magical packets are so numerous that
people forget what their
purposes were and fear to use them again. While the natives are
very vague on this
point, we can only assume that the idea in retaining all the old
magical materials is that
their presence in the charm-box, before which the body rituals
are conducted, will in
some way protect the worshiper.
¶ 7
Beneath the charm-box is a small font. Each day every member
of the family, in
succession, enters the shrine room, bows his head before the
charm-box, mingles
different sorts of holy water in the font, and proceeds with a
brief rite of ablution.[5] The
holy waters are secured from the Water Temple of the
community, where the priests
conduct elaborate ceremonies to make the liquid ritually pure.
¶ 8
In the hierarchy of magical practitioners, and below the

medicine men in prestige, are
specialists whose designation is best translated as "holy-mouth-
men." The Nacirema
have an almost pathological horror of and fascination with the
mouth, the condition of
which is believed to have a supernatural influence on all social
relationships. Were it not
for the rituals of the mouth, they believe that their teeth would
fall out, their gums bleed,
their jaws shrink, their friends desert them, and their lovers
reject them. They also believe
¶ 9
that a strong relationship exists between oral and moral
characteristics. For example,
there is a ritual ablution of the mouth for children which is
supposed to improve their
moral fiber.
The daily body ritual performed by everyone includes a mouth-
rite. Despite the fact that
these people are so punctilious [6] about care of the mouth, this
rite involves a practice
which strikes the uninitiated stranger as revolting. It was
reported to me that the ritual
consists of inserting a small bundle of hog hairs into the mouth,
along with certain
magical powders, and then moving the bundle in a highly
formalized series of gestures.

[7]
¶ 10
In addition to the private mouth-rite, the people seek out a holy-
mouth-man once or twice
a year. These practitioners have an impressive set of
paraphernalia, consisting of a
variety of augers, awls, probes, and prods. The use of [505
begins ->] these objects in the
exorcism of the evils of the mouth involves almost unbelievable
ritual torture of the client.
The holy-mouth-man opens the client's mouth and, using the
above mentioned tools,
enlarges any holes which decay may have created in the teeth.
Magical materials are put
into these holes. If there are no naturally occurring holes in the
teeth, large sections of
one or more teeth are gouged out so that the supernatural
substance can be applied. In
the client's view, the purpose of these ministrations [8] is to
arrest decay and to draw
friends. The extremely sacred and traditional character of the
rite is evident in the fact
that the natives return to the holy-mouth-men year after year,
despite the fact that their
teeth continue to decay.
¶ 11
It is to be hoped that, when a thorough study of the Nacirema is
made, there will be
careful inquiry into the personality structure of these people.
One has but to watch the
gleam in the eye of a holy-mouth-man, as he jabs an awl into an
exposed nerve, to

suspect that a certain amount of sadism is involved. If this can
be established, a very
interesting pattern emerges, for most of the population shows
definite masochistic
tendencies. It was to these that Professor Linton referred in
discussing a distinctive part
of the daily body ritual which is performed only by men. This
part of the rite includes
scraping and lacerating the surface of the face with a sharp
instrument. Special women's
rites are performed only four times during each lunar month, but
what they lack in
frequency is made up in barbarity. As part of this ceremony,
women bake their heads in
small ovens for about an hour. The theoretically interesting
point is that what seems to be
a preponderantly masochistic people have developed sadistic
specialists.
¶ 12
The medicine men have an imposing temple, or latipso, in every
community of any size.
The more elaborate ceremonies required to treat very sick
patients can only be
performed at this temple. These ceremonies involve not only the
thaumaturge [9] but a
permanent group of vestal maidens who move sedately about the
temple chambers in
distinctive costume and headdress.
¶ 13
The latipso ceremonies are so harsh that it is phenomenal that a
fair proportion of the
really sick natives who enter the temple ever recover. Small

children whose indoctrination
is still incomplete have been known to resist attempts to take
them to the temple because
"that is where you go to die." Despite this fact, sick adults are
not only willing but eager to
undergo the protracted ritual purification, if they can afford to
do so. No matter how ill the
supplicant or how grave the emergency, the guardians of many
temples will not admit a
client if he cannot give a rich gift to the custodian. Even after
one has gained and
survived the ceremonies, the guardians will not permit the
neophyte to leave until he
makes still another gift.
¶ 14
The supplicant entering the temple is first stripped of all his or
her clothes. In everyday
life the Nacirema avoids exposure of his body and its natural
functions. Bathing and
excretory acts are performed only in the secrecy of the
household shrine, where they are
ritualized as part of the body-rites. Psychological shock results
from the fact that body
secrecy is suddenly lost upon entry into the latipso. A man,
whose own wife has never
seen him in an excre- [506 begins ->] tory act, suddenly finds
himself naked and assisted by a
vestal maiden while he performs his natural functions into a

sacred vessel. This sort of
ceremonial treatment is necessitated by the fact that the excreta
are used by a diviner to
ascertain the course and nature of the client's sickness. Female
clients, on the other
hand, find their naked bodies are subjected to the scrutiny,
manipulation and prodding of
the medicine men.
¶ 15
Few supplicants in the temple are well enough to do anything
but lie on their hard beds.
The daily ceremonies, like the rites of the holy-mouth-men,
involve discomfort and
torture. With ritual precision, the vestals awaken their miserable
charges each dawn and
roll them about on their beds of pain while performing
ablutions, in the formal movements
of which the maidens are highly trained. At other times they
insert magic wands in the
supplicant's mouth or force him to eat substances which are
supposed to be healing.
From time to time the medicine men come to their clients and
jab magically treated
needles into their flesh. The fact that these temple ceremonies
may not cure, and may
even kill the neophyte, in no way decreases the people's faith in
the medicine men.
¶ 16
There remains one other kind of practitioner, known as a
"listener." This witch-doctor has
the power to exorcise the devils that lodge in the heads of
people who have been

bewitched. The Nacirema believe that parents bewitch their own
children. Mothers are
particularly suspected of putting a curse on children while
teaching them the secret body
rituals. The counter-magic of the witch-doctor is unusual in its
lack of ritual. The patient
simply tells the "listener" all his troubles and fears, beginning
with the earliest difficulties
he can remember. The memory displayed by the Nacirema in
these exorcism sessions is
truly remarkable. It is not uncommon for the patient to bemoan
the rejection he felt upon
being weaned as a babe, and a few individuals even see their
troubles going back to the
traumatic effects of their own birth.
¶ 17
In conclusion, mention must be made of certain practices which
have their base in native
esthetics but which depend upon the pervasive aversion to the
natural body and its
functions. There are ritual fasts to make fat people thin and
ceremonial feasts to make
thin people fat. Still other rites are used to make women's
breasts larger if they are small,
and smaller if they are large. General dissatisfaction with breast
shape is symbolized in
the fact that the ideal form is virtually outside the range of
human variation. A few women
afflicted with almost inhuman hypermammary development are
so idolized that they
make a handsome living by simply going from village to village
and permitting the natives
to stare at them for a fee.

¶ 18
Reference has already been made to the fact that excretory
functions are ritualized,
routinized, and relegated to secrecy. Natural reproductive
functions are similarly
distorted. Intercourse is taboo as a topic and scheduled as an
act. Efforts are made to
avoid pregnancy by the use of magical materials or by limiting
intercourse to certain
phases of the moon. Conception is actually very infrequent.
When pregnant, women
dress so as to hide their condition. Parturi- [507 begins ->] tion
takes place in secret, without
friends or relatives to assist, and the majority of women do not
nurse their infants.
¶ 19
Our review of the ritual life of the Nacirema has certainly
shown them to be a magic-
ridden people. It is hard to understand how they have managed
to exist so long under the
burdens which they have imposed upon themselves. But even
such exotic customs as
these take on real meaning when they are viewed with the
insight provided by Malinowski
[10] when he wrote (1948: 70):
¶ 20

Looking from far and above, from our high places of safety in
the developed
civilization, it is easy to see all the crudity and irrelevance of
magic. But
without its power and guidance early man could not have
mastered his
practical difficulties as he has done, nor could man have
advanced to the
higher stages of civilization.[11]
¶ 21
REFERENCES CITED
Linton, Ralph
1936 The Study of Man. New York, D. Appleton-
Century Co.
Malinowsli, Bronislaw
1948 Magic, Science, and Religion. Glencoe, The Free
Press.
Murdock, George P.
1949 Social Structure. New York, The Macmillan Co.
1 From "Body Ritual among the Nacirema," American
Anthropologist 58 (1956):
503-507. [Sourcetext as PDF: <http://tinyurl.com/792mf5g>.]
Footnotes were
added by Dowell. [BACK]
2 George Peter Murdock (1897-1985), famous ethnographer.
[BACK]
3 Ralph Linton (1893-1953), best known for studies of

enculturation (maintaining
that all culture is learned rather than inherited; the process by
which a society's
culture is transmitted from one generation to the next), claiming
culture is
humanity's "social heredity." [BACK]
4 Missing text as follows:
According to Nacirema mythology, their nation was originated
by a
culture hero, Notgnihsaw, who is otherwise known for two great
feats of strength - the throwing of a piece of wampum across the
river Pa-To-Mac and the chopping down of a cherry tree in
which
the Spirit of Truth resided. [BACK]
5 A washing or cleansing of the body or a part of the body.
From the Latin
abluere, to wash away. [BACK]
http://tinyurl.com/792mf5g
http://www.msu.edu/%7ejdowell/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Peter_Murdock
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Linton
6 Marked by precise observance of the finer points of etiquette
and formal
conduct. [BACK]
7 It is worthy of note that since Prof. Miner's original research

was conducted, the
Nacirema have almost universally abandoned the natural bristles
of their
private mouth-rite in favor of oil-based polymerized synthetics.
Additionally, the
powders associated with this ritual have generally been semi-
liquefied. Other
updates to the Nacirema culture shall be eschewed in this
document for the
sake of parsimony. [BACK]
8 Tending to religious or other important functions. [BACK]
9 A miracle-worker. [BACK]
10 Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942), famous cultural
anthropologist best known
for his argument that people everywhere share common
biological and
psychological needs and that the function of all cultural
institutions is to fulfill
such needs; the nature of the institution is determined by its
function. [BACK]
11 Did you get it? In any case, try analyzing Malinowski's
statement in the context
of what has come to be known as [Aurthur C.] "Clarke's Third
Law": "Any
sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from
magic." [BACK]

Note: each link opens a new page....
To Prof. John A. Dowell's Nacirema assignment.
To Prof. Angi Caster's "Microbial Coordinated Study" page.
To Prof. Rob Gargett's "The Subversive Archaeologist" blog.
To Prof. Giles Harrison-Conwill's Cultural Crash Course page.
Julie Peggar's Gaze Ethnographic Consulting: Stores from the
World.
To Prof. Werner Hammerstingl's splash page in Swinburne
University, Austrailia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronislaw_Malinowski
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws
https://www.msu.edu/user/jdowell/135/NaciremaEssay.html
http://people.highline.edu/acaster/whoville.html
http://people.highline.edu/acaster/whoville.html
http://thesubversivearchaeologist.blogspot.com/
http://thesubversivearchaeologist.blogspot.com/
http://duca94.wordpress.com/
http://duca94.wordpress.com/
http://juliepeggar.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/africa-and-the-
nacirema/
http://juliepeggar.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/africa-and-the-
nacirema/
http://www.olinda.com/
http://www.olinda.com/

To Mr. Bob Stepno's Other Journalism Weblog.
To Prof. Arnold Perey's website, A New Perspective.
To Prof. Will Barratt's Homepage.
To the U of Pittsburgh's "Minority Health & Health Equity
Archive"
page.
To Prof. Phil Bartle's Home Page for Sociology at Camosun.
To California State Polytechnic U's Interdisciplinary General
Education page.
To Cyberbrook's ThinkLinks page.
To Martijn de Koning Research Pages / Onderzoekspaginas
To ClassroomTools.com.
To Prof. P. Kerim Friedman's shared blog, "Anthro Classics
Online,"
from National Dong Hwa University in Hualian, Taiwan.
To Christina Brooks' Introduction to Archaeology page.
[BACK TO TOP]
http://www.msu.edu/user/jdowell/miner.html
http://radio.weblogs.com/0106327/2007/02/10.html#a685
http://www.perey-anthropology.net/
http://wbarratt.indstate.edu/
http://health-equity.pitt.edu/850/
http://www.bartle.disted.camosun.bc.ca/
http://www.csupomona.edu/%7eige/
http://www.brook.com/cyberbrook/
http://www.martijndekoning.com/
http://www.classroomtools.com/briefe.htm
http://tinyurl.com/mhfmz
http://faculty.winthrop.edu/brooksc/msu.eduMiner's "Body
Ritual among the Nacirema"
Please review this assignment tutorial for help filling out this

worksheet.
1) Select one aspect of culture from the list. Once you've made
your selection, please delete all other options.
Gender
Week Three Assignment Worksheet
Page 2 of 4
2) Select a source to use for Part I of the paper. You will be
using your textbook and the article by Miner for this part of the
paper, but for this worksheet, include the source you found
through your own research. Review the tutorial on Evaluating
sources and enter your reference in the space below.
Reference entry in APA format:
Collard, J., & Reynolds, C. (2005). Leadership, gender and
culture in education: Male & female perspectives. Maidenhead:
Open University Press.
3) Include the reference for Part II that corresponds to the topic
you’ve chosen. Copy and paste the reference entry from the
table (e.g., if you chose Education, you would use the article by
Jonsson for Part II).
Becker. A. E. (2004). Television, disordered eating, and young
women in Fiji: Negotiating body image and identity during
rapid social change. Culture, Medicine & Psychiatry, 28(4),
533-559. Retrieved from the EBSCOhost database.
4) Summarize the main points from each of your sources. See

this guide for help with summarizing your sources.
Summary of your source for Part I (include one to two
paragraphs, totaling at least 300 words). Enter your summary in
the space below.
In the Collard & Reynolds, 2005, there is a strong relationship
that exists between gender and leadership. However, there has
been a continuous absence of attention accorded to gender when
it comes to the education system in the United States of
America. The gender differences that are being witnessed across
most of the learning institutions in the United States should be
terminated and the ideology of fostering gender equity be
upheld at all time. The article provides an explanation that
clearly states that gender has no power in determining the type
of leadership style that an individual embraces. It continues by
saying that both the male and the female leaders have the ability
to reproduce the status quo when it comes to education. This
can also enable them to continue and have the knowledge
transformed through what is referred to as the ideology of
critical professionalism.
The article continues by noting that there is dire need of
creating a much-enhanced theory concerning gender and the
aspects of leadership in the educational system. One of the
points that the authors seem to have a lot of emphasis on is that
no gender difference exists between the style of leadership of
both of the males and the female leaders. They provide a
rational, of there being strong ingratiation concerning the
gender notions in the countries that happen to be having most of
the women in the leadership at the school level. Furthermore,
they also write that the men tend to suffer much from the
leadership’s gender stereotype.
However, regardless of what is said and done, there needs to be
gender equity and exercise of social justice when it comes to the
pursuit of education not just in the United States alone, but the
world at large. Proper gender relations should be fostered, and
no leader’s style of leading should be judged based on their

gender.
Summary of your source for Part II (include one to two
paragraphs, totaling at least 300 words). Enter your summary in
the space below.
In the Becker (2004) article, the relationship that exists between
the exposure to media and the behavioral risks among the young
adults always has an establishment at the population level. The
precise psychological and the social mechanisms that mediate
the severe results of the media among the youth has remained
one of the areas where there is poor understanding. The study
provides a report of the investigation concerning the impact of
introducing television to the rural setting in the Western parts
of Fiji on the girls who are at the adolescent stage. The study
takes place in a place where there is a very rampant change both
socially and economically. The article continues to provide an
analysis of the way there was a collection of data from 30
ethnic secondary schools from Fiji through the use of interviews
that were open-ended and semi- structured, and it was only
conducted in 1998, after three years of the introduction of the
television in Fiji. There was a thorough analysis of the narrative
data for any form of responses that were related to television
and the very mechanisms that are responsible for mediating self
and the Fijian adolescent body image.
The data that was obtained provided a clear suggestion that the
media imagery is being utilized both for the sake of creativity
and ways that are destructive by the girls in Fiji who are in the
adolescent stage. They use media image to help with navigating
through the available opportunities and the conflicts and the
social environment that is rapidly changing posed to them. The
respondents of the study gave indications of perceptions of the
positive attributes that the characters that they watched in the
dramas in the television had. This also led to most of them
starting to think about losing weight and body disparagement.
The responses that were provided relating to television tend to
have been shaped based on the urge of the competition in the

social position during the time of rampant transition in the
social lives of the girls. The article concludes by noting that if
there is an adequate understanding of the vulnerability of the
values and the images that are introduced by the media it will
be very fundamental in having the cases of eating disorders and
the rampant behavioral changes that are being witnessed in the
youths are inhibited or prevented.
5) Write a working thesis statement based on your sources. See
this example.
Working Thesis Statement:
Understanding the role that gender plays in shaping the society
is of great significance in having the livelihood of the
individuals in it improved.

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