Analysis Of Body Ritual Among The Nacirema By Horace Miner

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In the paper “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema” Horace Miner is describing the society of citizens of the United States of America. This paper discusses most aspects of the American life, just in a slightly hidden way allowing the reader to look at his or her own culture more objectively. The rituals explained throughout the paper are referring to the sociological standpoint of what the culture does on a regular basis. When beginning to read the paper the first element that I noticed was that the word “Nacirema” is American spelled backwards. In the paper Miner states that the nation of Nacirema was “originated by a cultural hero, Notgnihsaw”, which is Washington spelled backwards. It is also pointed out that the people of Nacirema live “between …show more content…
Miner did a very good job disguising the Nacirema people as Americans. He did, however, as mentioned above give a few clues indicating that he was definitely talking about the American society with the words Nacirema and Notgnihsaw. Overall the grammar usage and spelling was good, with a few exceptions. Some of the words used such as Nacirema, Notgnihsaw, or latipso were made up by the author to show relation to the American culture without being obvious. I found this paper very interesting, once I figured out what was truly being discussed. It provided a different and amusing way to look at the American society that we live …show more content…
Toward the beginning of the paper it is stated that the Nacirema culture is characterized by a market economy, which is a term that was discussed during the course. A market economy is an economy where the prices of products that are bought and sold are determined by both the buyers and sellers of the products. An example of this would be fuel for cars. Everyone has to have it in order to drive so the product will be sold for a price that people are willing to pay. Also, the paper discussed the substantial gifts that were given to the medicine man and the herbalist, as well as gifts given to the latipso, or hospital. This is referring to the expense of healthcare in America, another concept examined in this course. It was stated in the paper that even if the supplicant is severely ill the guardians of the temple will not allow them to enter without a rich gift. In the society of the U.S., healthcare is not cheap and a person must have money/health insurance to be able to receive medical attention. Overall I believe that the purpose of this paper was to allow Americans to see and read about their own culture in a different light. Through this paper Horace Miner demonstrates his belief that Americans are ethnocentric, meaning that Americans believe their culture is the best culture. This paper discusses aspects of the American culture that some other cultures
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