Body Ritual of the Nacerima

                        

      Sadomasochism, Tradition, Devotion, Mysterious, and Superstitious describe the article "Body Ritual of the Nacerima", by Horace Miner.

   

          Sadomasochism with a broad brush basically represents someone who receives pleasure from acts of pain or humiliation. The Nacerima as a people completely reflect that thought to me. Within the article there are so many references of pain and humiliation and they are all interpreted to Nacremia as rituals for purity. It seemed as though the people as a whole have given all authority to medicine men, holy-mouth-men, and listeners, as the dominant partner to their submissive in rituals that reflect an S&M relationship. The author even makes this distinction when talking about The Nacerima going to see the holy-mouth-men twice a year. He states, “One has 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 involves".

        Devotion is basically best described as profound dedication. The Nacermia throughout the whole article display extraordinary dedication. Even though the practices might not seem normal to us, it can never be said that the people are not dedicated. The people have a profound connection with their rituals. Every morning they have a daily body ritual and in that ritual they have a mouth rite. That is when they insert a small bundle of hog hairs, with some magical powders, into their mouths and start to move it around in highly formalized gestures.

       Tradition is apparently very important to The Nacerima. It takes great amount of duty to tradition to keep such rituals alive in our modern era. It appears that unlike all our modern religions the Nacerima have not diluted it with modern philosophies or sciences. The tradition of carrying out these rituals even though as stated in the article does not help anybody it does not seem to bother them in any way. The act of the ritual, regardless of result, is more important because it retains a certain identity for the people.

      Mysterious is the best way to describe The Nacerima. Even though there is a lot of information in this article about their rituals regarding the body and the mouth, the author makes it a point to state that there still a need for more research. Just within the general drive of a people in modern times to adhere to such rituals is a mystery. This was actually the first thing I had thought of when I read the article. Their rituals made me want to find out more about the people and there everyday duties.

      Superstition seems to be the ultimate driving force for The Nacerima. Everything mentioned in the article, from their waking moment until they go to sleep is based upon this. The people will endure such painful rituals, as with the holy-mouth-men, but yet continue to adhere to their leaders. The children fearing their temple is exactly the emotion any human would have if not fully raised within the culture. Yet even these fears take a back seat to superstition, the fear of offending some deity and having that deity punish you is more horrible than the physical pain of the rituals. After reading this article I realized that every culture has some type of superstition, from a lucky rabbit's foot to a lucky penny, but the level in which The Nacerima process borderlines obsession

Part B

As an American, I realized that my choice of words might sound very harsh when taking out the name "Nacirema" and replacing it with "America". I still think that my words would still be relevant to the description provided. What ever the name might be, I think what I wrote about a certain group of people was very accurate. It actually made me think that maybe this is how other people around the world might view Americans. I don't think my words surprised me. I think I was just surprised that how easily transferable to myself it was. My views definitely exhibited ethnocentrism. Initially when I was reading the description I couldn't help to imagine some far off indigenous place, and by doing so I automatically started comparing a certain way of life that I had imagined to my life in the United States. Reading my blog again I realized that my words are biased and certain words I used completely reflects that. I used terms like sadomasochism and superstitious, that looking back now is not the most unbiased view. I assumed that when I was writing I was talking about some culture that had not yet been civilized. If maybe I had taken the word superstitious out and had put "religiously observant" it would have been a better way to describe a group of people. This was a great experience for me. I did not realize how much unintentional biased I had to what seemed as though a different culture. It is very important to remain free of personal judgment when viewing another culture. Especially in the field of Anthropology, it is crucial to remain free of personal judgment. The positions that Anthropologist take on any culture will be read and studied by many people, it is very important to remain free of judgment. I don't think that its completely possible to eliminate your personal views on anything. It is however, easier when you are able to understand that you do have personal opinions on the things you witness and are able to distinguish between your views and unbiased research.