Nacirema Tribe Analysis

Words: 1692
Pages: 7
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Cynthia Frausto
Anthropology 101
Assignment #1
3/25/16

1) The Nacirema tribe described in Miner’s article was in fact a cryptic representation of the American culture in the 1950’s. After the first couple reads of the article I did catch most of the context clues that indicated the location of this ‘tribe’ was located in America (Miner describes the location between the Canadian Cree and the Tarahumare of Mexico), but I did not realize that Miner was directly referring to the 1950’s era. The way Miner described some of American culture had me fooled, such as the words rituals and shrines .I got the feeling of a distant tribe while reading the article more than a feeling of modern society because of the wordage Miner chooses. I started to realize …show more content…
Polygamy could be seen as bizarre by other cultures because some believe (including me) that a person should only seek one partner to live the rest of their lives with, while polygamists believe the more wives and children they have will bring them closer to God. The polygamist logic is rarely understood by outsiders because unless you were raised with the ‘multiple-mothers concept’, it is hard to understand the family dynamic also because the wives of some polygamist are forced to marry and bare children very young (years under the legal age of consent to marry in the United States). The illegal aspect of young wives makes this topic very sensitive subject in America, and polygamists are forced to lie to the government regarding marriages and age of consent. A polygamist leader from Utah, Warren Jeffs, was recently convicted of aggravated sexual assault to a 12 year old and a 15 year old girl and sentenced to life in prison. This is a direct example of how misunderstood the Mormon faith seems from outside …show more content…
It was a controversial idea created by Edward Sapir and his student Benjamin Whorf in the 1950’s. Sapir says that language predispositions a person’s view of reality. Different languages create different world views from unlike perspectives. Since no two languages have EXACT translations, a person’s interpretation of an object could be different from another’s interpretation. The hypothesis has been tested a couple different ways, one experiment used deaf children. They tested one deaf child with two deaf parents, and another deaf child who has hearing parents. The test involved the scientist showing both deaf children the same situation where they place a marble in a box and ask where the doll is going to look for the hidden marble. The deaf child (with two deaf parents) clearly was able to understand and come up with a correct answer. These results confirmed the Sapir-Whorf Theory because it proved that the child with fewer linguistic abilities was not able to understand the experiment. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has been criticized by many scientists but most agree with linguistic determination.

4) Ethical consideration should be taken before going out to research human subjects. Learning the language before going to study human subjects in a specific area is important. The native language of a society could give insight into their culture and
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