In Class Writing #2: The Story of Nacirema

            During class, I did not know what "Nacirema" really meant. I thought it was a real tribe that exists in North America. During class, I wrote about the reason why Nacirema had a strange culture that was described in the print out and that the world should try to protect and preserve it. I spend a lot of time thinking about this passage but did not recognize what "Nacirema" really means until class ended. This is what I wrote during class without knowing the meaning with a little revision. 

The Story of Nacirema

           We are waiting for the oven to open. We can smell the sweat smell and hear the crispy baking sound. The bell rings and we open the oven. Surprisingly, instead of a delicious cookie or bread, there is a woman who is baking her head. Of course, this is extremely unusual to us, but for Nacirema, a North American group, it is just a part of a ceremony.  Like this, Nacirema have an unique tradition that shocks the world. This tribe has these traditions because of the following two reasons.

           First, the culture of Nacirema has a tradition that has a long history for a long period of time. To anthropologist and us, it is a concept that we have never seen before. It is not natural to make a hole in their teeth to arrest decay and to draw friends. To people who have never experienced this, it seems inhuman. However, to this tribe, it is their everyday life. The culture has been created from ancestors and has a history. Thus, people do not question or analyze this but accept it as their life. For example, to other people, it is disgusting to eat a snail in France. However, this dish has passed down from ancestors and French people just eat it without thinking what it wrong. Thus, these traditions are not strange to them because the long history has made it familiar.

           Moreover, the people have developed a sadistic specialist. Most of the tradition is very violent. It seems like the people inflicting the pain and receiving the pain both enjoy it. The personality structure of this tribe is different from others. Furthermore, these people enjoy violent tradition that involves pain. For instance, the medicine men make a hole in the teeth. When doing this, the medicine men, patient, and observers smile and are interest, instead of crying of pain. Plus, they scrap and lacerate the surface of their faces with sharp instruments. To majority of people, it will hurt and we will try to avoid this. However, to this sadistic people, it is their entertainment and joy.

           All in all, the Nacirema culture is becoming an interest to many anthropologists. This is done because it is an old tradition and these people have a sadistic behavior. It will seem crazy and mad to the world but these Nacirema people think it is natural. As long as this tradition does not disappear within the tradition, we should not destroy it. The world should respect and help preserve this culture.

 

         After class ended, friends began to talk about the topic. When they said "Nacirema" was the opposite spelling of "American", I could not believe it. I felt very futile because I wrote the essay with a lot of effort thinking it was a real tribe. I lost the chance to write a better essay knowing the true meaning of "Nacirema" and the author's style. Instead I decided to research about the Body Ritual Among the Nacirema.

Body Ritual Among the Nacirema by Horace Miner (Text of the original version)

Key to Helping You Re-read
 

Notgnishaw, the Pa-To-Mac, and the cherry tree with the Spirit of Truth	America lies between Canada and Mexico.
Shrines with a box or chest in the wall	Bathrooms with medicine cabinets
Medicine men	Doctors
Ancient Code/Secret Language	Refers to the Joke that a doctor’s handwriting is illegible, particularly on prescriptions
Herbalist	Pharmacist
Substantial Gift	High prices of prescriptions
Font	Sink
Holy water	Holy water
Holy Mouth Men	Dentists
Ritual ablution of the mouth for children	Cleaning their mouths out with soap if they say something wrong
Small bundle of hog hairs and certain magical powders	Toothbrush and toothpaste
Highly formalized series of gestures	Brushing teeth
Men scraping and lacerating the surface of the face with a sharp instrument	shaving
Women bake their heads in small ovens for about an hour	Old-fashioned hair dryer at a beauty salon
Latipsoh	Hospital
Thaumaturge and group of vestal maidens	Doctor and nurses
Magic wands in the supplicant's mouth	Thermometer
Listener	Psychologist
Limiting intercourse to certain phases of the moon	Birth control pills
Phrases in story	True Meaning

         In this text, in order to understand it fully, we have to know that "Notgnihsaw" is the opposite word of "Washington". Plus, if you write "Latipso" oppositely, it is "Hospital". Horace Miner wrote about how the Americans were during the 1950s. Common daily life such as going to the dentist, taking medicine was described critically. The writer wanted to say that culture is based on rituals and that each culture defines its reality, acceptable behavior, and authorities by rituals. These rituals help us discover our knowledge because the rituals that the authority follows knows the truth as our society defines it. Sociologists define rituals as what you do on a regular basis, repeated over time. Rituals support social order and roles and shared sets of values holds people together. Since rituals enforce these roles and values, they create social solidarity. Rituals are part of what makes a society; therefore, we must think outside the box that is America’s way of viewing things.

 All the people who was explained about "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema" were tricked.

 

               This really impressed me because the author is also a part of the tribe. He is an American who is doing the daily routines explained in the treatise. He goes to the dentist, take medicine, brushes his teeth, shaves, and go to hospital if he is sick. The way he described these actions was like looking from the eye of someone who had never did this before. Explaining this like a real unique tribe tricked all the people including me.

 

This is an an interesting video that I found while researching. Watch it if you want to know more!