Summary Of Body Ritual Among The Nacirema

The culture that Miner is describing is the Nacirema culture. The Nacirema culture is very complex with many different and harsh rituals. Their culture believes that the human body is ugly, so they perform many brutal rituals to make their body as perfect as it can be. The author of this article, Horace Miner, uses descriptive and harsh detail to describe the brutal rituals that the Nacirema culture to elicit reactions from the reader. For example, Miner explains a daily ritual that is called mouth-rite, and Miner introduces the practice by saying “Despite the fact that these people are so punctilious about care of the mouth, this rite involves a practice which strikes the uninitiated stranger as revolting” (American Anthropologist pg. 504).

In class we talked about many issues surrounding the Etruscans and our understanding of Etruscan societies based off of the ruins and artifacts that they left behind. At one point during class we discussed how temples were often built to accent a natural feature such as a stream, river, or a hill. We also discussed the differences between scared and non-sacred boundaries in Etruscan societies. I would like to look back on these discussions for a moment and contribute some new thoughts that I hadn’t necessarily worked out earlier In both the Edlund and the Warden articles they discuss how in Etruscan society everything was sacred and under “divine protection” and that there was no division between the divine and the earthly.

In her book, Andersson quotes a New York Times article on the death of Sitting Bull that ended with a comment that said Indian police made a “good Indian out of him.” This plays on the proverb that the only good Indian is a dead one. This was a harsh and unsympathetic thing to say about a deceased man but it shows the views of whites towards Native Americans, especially those Native Americans who were considered “plotters” or troublemakers. This type of insensitivity was common in most newspapers; however, some did attempt to run more pro-native stories. Those that did often looked for the reasons behind why the Ghost Dance had taken roots and often pinned blame on the federal government for pushing natives to such desperation.

Nephthys, an Egyptian goddess who protected of the dead, comforted the living relatives of the dead, and comforted a woman during childbirth. She was the sister-consort of Seth along with being the sister of Isis and Osiris. Also Nephthys was the mother of Anubis. The first mention of Nephthys is in Old Kingdom funerary literature. Nephthys was associated with funerary rituals and was respected not as death, but as one who guides the newly deceased.

A predominant Native American country, the Cherokee controlled unfathomable domains spreading transversely over Tennessee, Georgia and the Carolinas. The Cherokee were clever people who regarded nature and utilized all aspects of a creature after a killing, yet they were additionally superstitious. Deep-rooted techniques joined with community old stories and polytheistic religion prompted a profoundly novel arrangement of hunting traditions/rituals among the Cherokee. At the point when young men wished to be hunters they needed to converse with the minister, who was responsible for preparing them.

Sacrifices were a large part of ancient civilizations. The ancients would use a domestic animal, and kill it to honor higher power. The Greeks in particular, were very… fond of sacrifices. They left information on why they sacrificed, what they sacrificed, and how they sacrificed, thankfully. Below are my findings from three reputable sources.

As a western civilization we are guilty of making other cultures seem strange and unrelatable by describing their culture in an exuberant way. However, Miner does an excellent job at executing the description of the “Nacirema” as foreign individuals with him being a American himself. This essay is told from an

One of the most pertinent and ironic themes I derived from Cermony is the United States’s relationship with Native Americans. The struggles of Native Americans and the American government have had colonialism entwined in its roots since the dawn of modern society. These struggles have been incredibly bleak and American settlers have had a history of attempting to destroy and reinvent native american people and repeated attempts of using their land for selfish and destructive purposes. In the modern era, these purposes have been merely to make reservations into sacrifice zones for the United States’s nuclear endeavors and a storage space for the byproducts that a Nuclearism mind-state can produce. "They see no life when they look they see only

Emily Martin wrote the novel The Woman in the Body to show how women are being degraded to metaphors and that their natural processes are deemed a social process. Women are being placed in a medical community where their best interests are being degraded to medical practices. The mother is being separated from her body and being placed secondary to the deliverance of the baby. The woman is being influenced by technology and society in order to conform to the needs and wants of the doctor through their use of power and authority. Max Weber developed the Theory of Domination, which perfectly exemplifies the influence doctors in the medical community have on women.

The Anasazi were an Indian Tribe, whose disappearance still remains to be a mystery today. They were a civilization built in as early as 1500 B.C… occupying what is known as the four corners (Roberts, David 2003). After building their cliff side pueblos, it is said the Anasazi abandoned their homes and belongings in Mesa Verde and left in a hurry. Based on the Navajo language, the word Anasazi translates as “ancient enemy” (“10 facts about Anasazi” 2015). They are thought to be the ancestor of the modern pueblo Indians.

Americans bathe in secret and do not like to show of their bodies in public. There are “shrines” where people do their makeup, because people believe that the body is ugly and want to cover it up and make it look prettier. They want to hide it from the decay that is occurring. There are typically multiple bathrooms inside of a home of a rich person. Bathrooms are where makeup is usually applied, and any other modifications to add beauty to oneself.

“In the past, eating disorders were generally considered to be confined to young white females from middle-to-upper class families living in Western societies” (Caradas 112). Both studies exploit the false stereotypes associated with eating disorders and culture. Both parties believe that non Western cultures are being influenced by the “slim is beautiful” idea. Each view points out the false misconception that non Western cultures traditional ideas of being thick is related to health is protecting them from eating disorders. Studies prove all ethnicities have shown concern towards body shape and eating attitudes in recent years around the

Horace Miner, the author of “Body Ritual among the Nacirema”, used very interesting and descriptive choice of words to describe the routines that modern Americans go through from an outsider point of view. He gives different terms to describe mundane routines, like brushing your teeth, and exaggerate the details as something that is bizarre. Some rituals Miner described as illogical because there was a low rate of success in what they are trying to achieve. This reveals that what determines something to be socially acceptable is not through logic, but only though the popularity of the community. One of the rituals that Miner described as illogical but everyone still do the ritual was the fact that the people kept going to the “holy-mouth-man”, or also known as the dentist, even if their teeth are still decaying.

In “The Globalization of Eating Disorders”, written by Susan Bordo in 2003, the author declares that eating and body disorders have increased rapidly throughout the entire globe. Susan Bordo, attended Carleton University as well as the State University of New York, is a modern feminist philosopher who is very well known for her contributions to the field of cultural studies, especially in ‘body studies’ which grants her the credibility to discuss this rising global issue (www.wikipedia.org, 2015). She was correspondingly a professor of English and Women Studies at the University of Kentucky which gives her the authority to write this article. “The Globalization of Eating Disorders” is written as a preface to her Pulitzer Price-nominated book “Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body” which was similarly written in 2003. Through the use of many logical arguments and evidence, Bordo successfully manages to convince her audience that the media, body images and culture have severely influenced the ‘so-called’ trending standard of beauty and how it leads to eating disorders across the world.

Chronicle of a Death Foretold, is heavily based around Colombian culture. This is made apparent throughout the novel with aspects of family honor and religion reoccurring throughout the novel. To what extent does culture influence the novel and how would it differ from other countries. The United States, China and Iran vary immensely in relation to Colombia but where do they share similarities and when do they differ. North American (NA) culture could be considered as a control of sorts with its massive combination of cultures, otherwise called a melting pot.