Summary of “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema”

Summary of “Body Ritual among the Nacirema”
According to the article by Miner, there is a “present in some yet undescribed tribe” in the east America called the Nacirema. The Nacirema’s culture is a highly developed community and they spend a lot of time with ritual activities. They believe that ritual activities could change their bodies both physically and mentally. The first point that was highlighted in the article was the shrine. The shrine is a box that “kept the many charms and magical potions”. Moreover, the author describes the box with small fonts that were written with holy water and how the contents were filled. The second point Miner mentioned was the holy-mouth-men; “the extremely sacred and traditional character”, as he wrote. Men rub their faces with sharp scrapers and women bake their heads in small ovens. There is also an imposing temple called Latipso in the Nacirema community. People perform different types of ceremonies in there in order to reduce their illnesses. However, no matter how desperately ill the patient is, the temple “will not admit a client if he cannot give a rich gift to the custodian”. In addition, Miner mentions that the Nacirema believe children are influenced by their parents in early memories, especially mothers. Thus, the treatment of body fat, breast size and reproduction by the Nacirema are also described in the article. At the end, Miner points out the that even though people see the crudity and irrelevance of magic form the developed civilization, but it does not mean that they are highly