The reading of “Body Ritual of the Nacirema” by Horace Miner is an interesting read for sure

The reading of “Body Ritual of the Nacirema” by Horace Miner is an interesting read for sure. Starting off, the reader is questioning who and where this “tribe” is. He gives you clues that would lead you to believe that the location indeed is America, but doesn’t outright state it. His choice of words having the effect that you would believe that this is an ancient tribe that has slightly weird origins with how he described George Washington, or Notgnihsaw. The people of the Nacirema are depicted as culture obsessed with rituals with regards to the vanity of the human body as a whole. There is also the description of a shrine where the obsession takes place. Stating that the way the people of Nacirema devote most their day to rituals for the human body, shrines are essential to the rituals of the humans. They have their “charm boxes” that contain their special “charms”, which would be the medicine cabinets that contain the medicines. One of the repeated rituals done mostly by men is that of what is illustrated as a ‘scraping and lacerating the surface of the face with a sharp instrument’. Beneath the shrine is a font where each person of the household performs the act of washing of the hands and/or body with holy water. This ‘holy water’ comes from a community ‘Water Temple’. The Nacirema also make a couple of visits a year to ‘holy mouth-men’ known as the ‘hierarchy of magical practitioners’, specialists of the mouth. In the Nacirema culture there is a powerful attraction or enchantment with the symbols between the mouth and an individual’s morals. In making these visits to the holy mouth-men, it is believed that the Nacirema will draw people toward them, as well as stop the deterioration of their teeth. Listeners listen to the troubles and fears of a person beginning with the earliest recollection of their life, and performs counter-magic to ease or do away with the fears and expel of the demons from the mind. Within the community there is the temple of the latipso, where the severely ill go to be stripped of their clothing and have exaggerated ceremonies performed by not only a magician, but group of assisting the magician.