"Body Ritual among the Nacirema"
Most cultures exhibit a particular configuration or style. A single value or pattern of perceiving the world
often leaves its stamp on several institutions in the society. Examples are "machismo" in Spanishinfluenced cultures, "face" in Japanese culture, and "pollution by females" in some highland New Guinea
cultures. Here Horace Miner demonstrates that "attitudes about the body" have a pervasive influence on
many institutions in Nacirema society.
The anthropologist has become so familiar with the diversity of ways in which different people behave in
similar situations that he is not apt to be surprised by even the most exotic customs. In fact, if all of the
logically possible combinations of behavior have not been found somewhere in the world, he is apt to
suspect that they must be present in some yet undescribed tribe. The point has, in fact, been expressed
with respect to clan organization by Murdock (1949: 71).[2] In this light, the magical beliefs and practices
of the Nacirema present such unusual aspects that it seems desirable to describe them as an example
of the extremes to which human behavior can go.
¶1
Professor Linton [3] first brought the ritual of the Nacirema to the attention of anthropologists twenty
years ago (1936: 326), but the culture of this people is still very poorly understood. They are a North
American group living in the territory between the Canadian Cree, the Yaqui and Tarahumare of Mexico,
and the Carib and Arawak of the Antilles. Little is known of their origin, although tradition states that they
came from the east…. [4] ¶ 2
Nacirema culture is characterized by a highly developed market economy which has evolved in a rich
natural habitat. While much of the people’s time is devoted to economic pursuits, a large part of the fruits
of these labors and a considerable portion of the day are spent in ritual activity. The focus of this activity
is the human body, the appearance and health of which loom as a dominant concern in the ethos of the
people. While such a concern is certainly not unusual, its ceremonial aspects and associated philosophy
are unique. ¶ 3
The fundamental belief underlying the whole system appears to be that the human body is ugly and that
its natural tendency is to debility and disease. Incarcerated in such a body, man’s only hope is to avert
these characteristics through the use of ritual and ceremony. Every household has one or more shrines
devoted to this purpose. The more powerful individuals in the society have several shrines in their
houses and, in fact, the opulence of a house is often referred to in terms of the number of such ritual
centers it possesses. Most houses are of wattle and daub construction, but the shrine rooms of the more
wealthy are walled with stone. Poorer families imitate the rich by applying pottery plaques to their shrine
walls. ¶ 4
While each family has at least one such shrine, the rituals associated with it are not family ceremonies
but are private and secret. The rites are normally only discussed with children, and then only during the
period when they are being initiated into these mysteries. I was able, however, to establish sufficient
[504 begins ->] rapport with the natives to examine these shrines and to have the rituals described to
me. ¶ 5
The focal point of the shrine is a box or chest which is built into the wall. In this chest are kept the many
charms and magical potions without which no native believes he could live. These preparations are
secured from a variety of specialized practitioners. The most powerful of these are the medicine men,
whose assistance must be rewarded with substantial gifts. However, the medicine men do not provide
the curative potions for their clients, but decide what the ingredients should be and then write them down
in an ancient and secret language. This writing is understood only by the medicine men and by the
herbalists who, for another gift, provide the required charm. ¶ 6
The charm is not disposed of after it has served its purpose, but is placed in the charmbox of the
household shrine. As these magical materials are specific for certain ills, and the real or imagined
maladies of the people are many, the charm-box is usually full to overflowing. The magical packets are
so numerous that people forget what their purposes were and fear to use them again. While the natives
are very vague on this point, we can only assume that the idea in retaining all the old magical materials
is that their presence in the charm-box, before which the body rituals are conducted, will in some way
protect the worshiper. ¶ 7
Beneath the charm-box is a small font. Each day every member of the family, in succession, enters the
shrine room, bows his head before the charm-box, mingles different sorts of holy water in the font, and
proceeds with a brief rite of ablution.[5] The holy waters are secured from the Water Temple of the
community, where the priests conduct elaborate ceremonies to make the liquid ritually pure.
¶8
In the hierarchy of magical practitioners, and below the medicine men in prestige, are specialists whose
designation is best translated as "holy-mouth-men." The Nacirema have an almost pathological horror of
and fascination with the mouth, the condition of which is believed to have a supernatural influence on all
social relationships. Were it not for the rituals of the mouth, they believe that their teeth would fall out,
their gums bleed, their jaws shrink, their friends desert them, and their lovers reject them. They also
believe that a strong relationship exists between oral and moral characteristics. For example, there is a
ritual ablution of the mouth for children which is supposed to improve their moral fiber. ¶ 9
The daily body ritual performed by everyone includes a mouth-rite. Despite the fact that these people are
so punctilious [6] about care of the mouth, this rite involves a practice which strikes the uninitiated
stranger as revolting. It was reported to me that the ritual consists of inserting a small bundle of hog hairs
into the mouth, along with certain magical powders, and then moving the bundle in a highly formalized
series of gestures.[7] ¶ 10
In addition to the private mouth-rite, the people seek out a holy-mouth-man once or twice a year. These
practitioners have an impressive set of paraphernalia, consisting of a variety of augers, awls, probes,
and prods. The use of [505 begins ->] these objects in the exorcism of the evils of the mouth involves
almost unbelievable ritual torture of the client. The holy-mouth-man opens the client’s mouth and, using
the above mentioned tools, enlarges any holes which decay may have created in the teeth. Magical
materials are put into these holes. If there are no naturally occurring holes in the teeth, large sections of
one or more teeth are gouged out so that the supernatural substance can be applied. In the client’s view,
the purpose of these ministrations [8] is to arrest decay and to draw friends. The extremely sacred and
traditional character of the rite is evident in the fact that the natives return to the holy-mouth-men year
after year, despite the fact that their teeth continue to decay. ¶ 11
It is to be hoped that, when a thorough study of the Nacirema is made, there will be careful inquiry into
the personality structure of these people. One has but to watch the gleam in the eye of a holy-mouthman, as he jabs an awl into an exposed nerve, to suspect that a certain amount of sadism is involved. If
this can be established, a very interesting pattern emerges, for most of the population shows definite
masochistic tendencies. It was to these that Professor Linton referred in discussing a distinctive part of
the daily body ritual which is performed only by men. This part of the rite includes scraping and
lacerating the surface of the face with a sharp instrument. Special women’s rites are performed only four
times during each lunar month, but what they lack in frequency is made up in barbarity. As part of this
ceremony, women bake their heads in small ovens for about an hour. The theoretically interesting point
is that what seems to be a preponderantly masochistic people have developed sadistic specialists. ¶ 12
The medicine men have an imposing temple, or latipso, in every community of any size. The more
elaborate ceremonies required to treat very sick patients can only be performed at this temple. These
ceremonies involve not only the thaumaturge [9] but a permanent group of vestal maidens who move
sedately about the temple chambers in distinctive costume and headdress. ¶ 13
The latipso ceremonies are so harsh that it is phenomenal that a fair proportion of the really sick natives
who enter the temple ever recover. Small children whose indoctrination is still incomplete have been
known to resist attempts to take them to the temple because "that is where you go to die." Despite this
fact, sick adults are not only willing but eager to undergo the protracted ritual purification, if they can
afford to do so. No matter how ill the supplicant or how grave the emergency, the guardians of many
temples will not admit a client if he cannot give a rich gift to the custodian. Even after one has gained
and survived the ceremonies, the guardians will not permit the neophyte to leave until he makes still
another gift. ¶ 14
The supplicant entering the temple is first stripped of all his or her clothes. In everyday life the Nacirema
avoids exposure of his body and its natural functions. Bathing and excretory acts are performed only in
the secrecy of the household shrine, where they are ritualized as part of the body-rites. Psychological
shock results from the fact that body secrecy is suddenly lost upon entry into the latipso. A man, whose
own wife has never seen him in an excre- [506 begins ->] tory act, suddenly finds himself naked and
assisted by a vestal maiden while he performs his natural functions into a sacred vessel. This sort of
ceremonial treatment is necessitated by the fact that the excreta are used by a diviner to ascertain the
course and nature of the client’s sickness. Female clients, on the other hand, find their naked bodies are
subjected to the scrutiny, manipulation and prodding of the medicine men. ¶ 15
Few supplicants in the temple are well enough to do anything but lie on their hard beds. The daily
ceremonies, like the rites of the holy-mouth-men, involve discomfort and torture. With ritual precision, the
vestals awaken their miserable charges each dawn and roll them about on their beds of pain while
performing ablutions, in the formal movements of which the maidens are highly trained. At other times
they insert magic wands in the supplicant’s mouth or force him to eat substances which are supposed to
be healing. From time to time the medicine men come to their clients and jab magically treated needles
into their flesh. The fact that these temple ceremonies may not cure, and may even kill the neophyte, in
no way decreases the people’s faith in the medicine men. ¶ 16
There remains one other kind of practitioner, known as a "listener." This witch-doctor has the power to
exorcise the devils that lodge in the heads of people who have been bewitched. The Nacirema believe
that parents bewitch their own children. Mothers are particularly suspected of putting a curse on children
while teaching them the secret body rituals. The counter-magic of the witch-doctor is unusual in its lack
of ritual. The patient simply tells the "listener" all his troubles and fears, beginning with the earliest
difficulties he can remember. The memory displayed by the Nacirema in these exorcism sessions is truly
remarkable. It is not uncommon for the patient to bemoan the rejection he felt upon being weaned as a
babe, and a few individuals even see their troubles going back to the traumatic effects of their own birth.
¶ 17
In conclusion, mention must be made of certain practices which have their base in native esthetics but
which depend upon the pervasive aversion to the natural body and its functions. There are ritual fasts to
make fat people thin and ceremonial feasts to make thin people fat. Still other rites are used to make
women’s breasts larger if they are small, and smaller if they are large. General dissatisfaction with breast
shape is symbolized in the fact that the ideal form is virtually outside the range of human variation. A few
women afflicted with almost inhuman hypermammary development are so idolized that they make a
handsome living by simply going from village to village and permitting the natives to stare at them for a
fee. ¶ 18
Reference has already been made to the fact that excretory functions are ritualized, routinized, and
relegated to secrecy. Natural reproductive functions are similarly distorted. Intercourse is taboo as a
topic and scheduled as an act. Efforts are made to avoid pregnancy by the use of magical materials or
by limiting intercourse to certain phases of the moon. Conception is actually very infrequent. When
pregnant, women dress so as to hide their condition. Parturi- [507 begins ->] tion takes place in secret,
without friends or relatives to assist, and the majority of women do not nurse their infants. ¶ 19
Our review of the ritual life of the Nacirema has certainly shown them to be a magic-ridden people. It is
hard to understand how they have managed to exist so long under the burdens which they have
imposed upon themselves. But even such exotic customs as these take on real meaning when they are
viewed with the insight provided by Malinowski [10] when he wrote (1948: 70): ¶ 20
Looking from far and above, from our high places of safety in the developed civilization, it is easy to see
all the crudity and irrelevance of magic. But without its power and guidance early man could not have
mastered his practical difficulties as he has done, nor could man have advanced to the higher stages of
civilization.[11]
¶ 21
REFERENCES CITED
Linton, Ralph
1936 The Study of Man. New York, D. Appleton-Century Co.
Malinowsli, Bronislaw
1948 Magic, Science, and Religion. Glencoe, The Free Press.
Murdock, George P.
1949 Social Structure. New York, The Macmillan Co.
Take an aspect of our culture and detail it much like the Nacirema example given in this week’s
additional reading assignments. You may find it helpful to read the article on Key American Values to
help you better understand which values and activities are unique to the US. Please note: You may find
it helpful to pretend that you are a sociologist who has just stepped off a plane and into a new and exotic
culture. Look at the cultural practices or traditions with a critical eye, as though you are seeing them for
the first time. In the Nacirema example, Miner doesn’t say that people brush their teeth – he writes
about a “ mouth rite” that “consists of inserting a small bundle of hog hairs into the mouth, along with
certain magical powders, and then moving the bundle in a highly formalized series of "gestures." Please
have some fun with this! This should almost feel like a creative writing exercise.
Your essay response should be between two and three pages (500-750 words), double-spaced on paper
with 1-inch margins and size 12 point Times New Roman font.
Focus very specifically on one act that Americans do or one location that we use:
1. Examine anything and everything about the place or the action – what is involved?
2. Why do People do this?
3. Remember to use the type of technical terms that we often see in our text books. Talk about rituals,
gestures, symbols, etc.
4. At the very end of your paper, provide a one sentence explanation of what you are talking about!
