The Satire of the Modern American Society in Horace Miners Essay Body Ritual among the Nacirema

Body Ritual Among the Nacirema, he uses an interesting way of describing some rituals that Americans do. He portrays Americans as a tribe that go through their daily life by performing painful and torturous rituals to their bodies. It is not obvious at the beginning that the tribe Miner is talking about is about the American people. If one is to look closely and try to relate what he reads with the American culture, they are almost identical. To begin with, if the name Nacirema is read backwards, it spells American. Also the territory that Miner says the Nacirema live in is situated between the Canadian Cree, the Yaqui and Tarahumare of Mexico, and the Card and Arawak of the Antilles, which is the United States.

Another word play that Miner uses is that of the mythological hero that was believed the nation of the Nacirema was originated and his name was Notgnihsaw, which if read backwards it spells Washington. Also the economy of the nation is free market, which has been the United States economic state for more than two hundred years. The body rituals of the Nacirema that Miner talks about are a twisted version of the daily rituals Americans perform. The shrines that the Nacirema built for their ceremonies, where they also keep the many charms and magical potions, are the chests or medicine cabinets that Americans use to keep their colognes, toothbrush and toothpaste etc. In the Nacirema tribe there are magical practitioners such as medicine men, who are doctors, and specialists called holy-mouth-men who are dentists. The people seek out the holy-mouth-man once or twice a year, which is what Americans do in order to get a check up or a cleaning of their teeth.

The Nacirema use a small bundle of hog hairs into the mouth, along with certain powders, and move the bundle in a highly formalized series of gestures in order to wash their mouths. Even if now the toothbrushes that are made are not from hog hair, at the time when the easy was written, in the fifties, toothbrushes were made from hog hair. This ceremony is exactly the same as Americans do when they go to brush their teeth. Mine also mentions that kids consider the temple where the holy. mouth-man performs his ceremonies the place where you go to die, which is a similar reaction to what young American kids have when thinking about visiting the dentists office. Another type of practitioner that is part of the Nacirema tribe is known as the listener, who is a witchdoctor that has the power to exorcise the devils that lodge in the heads of people who have been bewitched. This is the same practice as a psychologist. The same way a listener gets into peoples heads and analyzes their problems, a psychologist also uses the same method to help his patients. A few rituals Miners essay could include if it was written today are the way the Nacirema select the leader of their tribe.

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Every few years different educated people go from village to village telling people that they are going to solve all their problems if they choose to select him as the leader. They present themselves as the man how has the god given charismas that with just one of his orders he can vanish all the problems people face in the villages. Miner could also add the ritual that the Nacirema women perform almost every morning or when just they need to leave the house. Every Nacirema woman thinks that she is ugly no matter what people tell her. So in order to make themselves better before they leave the house they use a mixture of oils, animal fats, and different chemicals that covers their face. They believe that its the only way people will accept them. **Bibliography**

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