anthropology discussion

My discussion The Nacirema - Discussion Board #1

Nare Petrousyan

1.The functional belief underlying Nacirema is that human is trapped in both that is meant to be ill. Thus, being in the human body is as one will be ill of deadly diseases. The second underlying functional belief is that the human body is naturally ugly. Thus, to look beautiful and avoid deadly illnesses, one must engage in Nacirema body rituals (Horace, 1956).

2.In my opinion, the Nacirema ceremony is more of a ritual than behavior for several reasons. One, it is based on how it does it. This is not behavior as not everyone can do it. It is delegated by specialists and specific older adults among Nacirema.

3.Nacriem that the human body is ugly. This is why intense care and protection of it is necessary (Horace, 1956). This is quite different from our culture, where we believe we are wonderfully and fearfully made.

4.One thing that makes miner's analysis of the Nacirema irrational is the analysis of the holy room. This is a room where special people do the special ritual. I think that performing normal customs as religions rather than scientific makes them quite irrational. For instance, using a medicine that was not prescribed to witch doctors directly made it irrational (Horace, 1956).

5.However, the care of the body in my religion is not irrational at all. There is nothing ritual in nature done in the protection of the body. Religiously, we believe in the power to get healed by drugs prescribed by the doctors. However, I do find it irrational for people who only take herds as drugs. These are people who do not believe in scientific drugs and thus prefer hubs.

Heres 2 students discussion that i need comments for them

Paul Chang The people of Nacirema practice rituals that are focused on the human body, more importantly the appearance and health of their body and their focus on preserving and maintaining it with large usage of spiritual practices. Large portions of their time would be used in performing these rituals in order to wave off diseases and weakness that the human body might be subjected to. They would see the human body being vulnerable and it is something that cannot be replaced or ascended from. The human body is indeed both very resilient and at the same time very vulnerable and we had been advancing in order to tend or treat what may occur to preventions acts of future illnesses. The Nacirema also are similar to us in the fact that they tend to their mouths, in this case of an ascetics point of view but at a much greater magnitude. The main differences would be that they would incorporate spiritual practices in order to cure and prevent the illnesses with the usage of shrines, specially blessed charms, and potions. Throughout the article Miner wrote the people of Nacirema being barbaric in terms of

their level of society. One example would be in the end of the article he would call them "magic-ridden" people and question on how they are able to exist this long. This might be from the influence of the era it was written in but reading the article was a bit of a challenge in terms of its bias wordings. Portraying their custom as a religion does make it look more acceptable but also isolated. Seeing it as a medicine or science, there are already a set standard of facts that cannot be disproven but with religion, there are no written evidence of what can be or not be, but at the same time, won't be accepted by all.

Daniel Rivas Question 1#: I believe caring for the body can be made to be ritualistic but the act of the repeated action itself doesn’t necessarily make it a ritual. What differentiates them to me is the incorporation of a spiritual or religious aspect. Constantly going about certain actions and adding religious intent for a better spiritual outcome, mental, emotional, and even physical well-being can be made to be a ritual. For example with the Nacirema every day each of the family members cleanse themselves with holy water in front of the shrine. The act alone of cleaning oneself with water would be considered mundane if not for the incorporation of the holy water and the shrine. To me this becomes a ritual instead of a habit because it is their belief that the water is holy and purifying their bodies from decay while also worshiping a shrine that has charms and potions for meant for a specific intentions or outcome.

Question #3: I believe that the Nacirema people view their bodies and their health poorly and as naturally deteriorating, showing not too much concern, maybe going as far as to accelerating this. They will go twice a year to see the holy mouth men ,of which during, they will be subject to being poked and prodded at the mouth as well as having holes and decaying wounds opened. This would be dissimilar to our culture as we may think that this could cause only more problems as we may value our health more significantly than drawing in friends or taking in more pain in an attempt to counteract the progress of decay. Especially if it’s showing signs of worsening. To the tribes people they are relieving themselves of this decay and focused on the magic forces of drawing in people that they get in exchange for expelling evil through this process. This could imply that they may value this more than their health. Seeing as they already view the human body as frail, they may believe that the pain and worsening of their health is worth it in the end.