Body Ritual among the Nacirema by Horace Miner emphasizes on the role of culture and how it affects our idea of stereotypes and prejudices. Miner attempts to make familiar things seem strange and he does so successfully. He describes the peculiar rituals performed by a very dubious category of people called Nacirema. The “magical”beliefs and practices of the Nacirema comes off as bizarre and ancient and the primary belief of the Nacirema culture is that “the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease” (P1) and thus the reason for the rituals; to enhance and improve the conditions of the body.
Miner explains that within the homes of the Nacirema are shrines devoted to sacred rituals and ceremonies. The Naciremas …show more content…
Upon further reading, I then realized that Nacirema is actually American spelled backwards. The fact that the author addresses them as a tribe and satirizes their activities of daily living brings the misconception of their true identity. This technique used by the author is very eye-opening and impressive because it deludes the reader to look at the Nacirema from a new perspective and be surprised at how mysterious everything sounds. The ritual activities of the Nacirema such as their oral fascination, men’s rites of grooming themselves, women at hair salons and the trips to the medicine men and witch doctors reflect America’s obsession with self-image and their attitudes about the body. By alienating the reality we know, Miner shows how several aspects of the American culture that we consider routine and everyday can seem extreme and primitive. The behaviors and beliefs that we commonly engage in can seem strange to other cultures as their behaviors and beliefs do to us. Miner enforces the importance of cultural relativism and proves that society has an inclination to ethnocentrism but should adopt an “outsider”