"Body Ritual among the Nacirema"
by Horace Miner
Most cultures exhibit a particular configuration or style.
A single value or pattern or perceiving the world often leaves its stamp
on several institutions in the society. Examples are "machismo"
in Spanish-influenced 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 Nacireman 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. 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.
Professor Linton first brought the ritual of the Nacirema to the attention of anthropologists
twenty years ago, 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. . . .
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.
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.
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 rapport with the natives to examine these shrines and to have
the rituals described to me.
The focal point of the shrine is a box or chest which is built in to 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.
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 worshipper.
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. The holy waters are secured from the Water Temple of the community,
where the priests conduct elaborate ceremonies to make the liquid ritually
pure.
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.
The daily body ritual performed by everyone includes a mouth-rite. Despite
the fact that these people are so punctilious 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.
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 these
items 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 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.
It is to be hoped that, when a thorough study of the Nacirema is made, there
will be careful inquiry in to the personality structure of these people.
One has but to watch the gleam in the eye of a holy-mouth-man, 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.
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 but a permanent group of vestal maidens who move sedately about the temple
chambers in distinctive costume and headdress.
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.
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 excretory 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.
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.
There remains one other kind of practitioner, known as a "listener."
This witchdoctor 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 witchdoctor 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.
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 hyper-mammary 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.
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. Parturition takes place in secret, without friends or relatives
to assist, and the majority of women do not nurse their infants.
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 when he wrote:
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.
Source: Horace Miner, "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema," American Anthropologist
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Boomie's Footnote: Any of this sound familiar?
If so, then read the name of the tribe backwards, and see if you recognize them.
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