Nacirema Culture: A Look at Horace Miner

Body Ritual of the Nacirema by
Horace Miner

Horace Miner's article reminds us of the difficulty many have of examining the practices of their own culture. One person's normal is another's exotic. Rituals are often of particular interests as examples of exotic behavior. Miner avoided religious ritual and went about describing typical American behaviors that the average American probably does not view as ritual. On the subject of religion, however, I remember someone's commentary that Christianity had cannibalism as an important component as the adherents regularly consumed both the body and blood of the one they worshiped. I don't remember the article or the author offhand, but the article's purpose was similar to that of Miner's. In writing about the Nacerima, Minor notes, "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."

Reading Miner, I was bemused by the thought of dryers as head ovens. I can't believe he didn't mention the high walking sticks attached to the footware of women as these are often the source of the continual rant that, “one must suffer for beauty,” or some such. Thinking in general of Miner's statements that the Nacirema find the body ugly in its natural state, I'm reminded of Leo Buscaglia. I remember flipping through channels and stopping on some seventies-looking production with a bearded man talking about just this subject. I particularly remember his advice to get to know your own smell if only briefly, to stop with the soaps and the deodorants and smell yourself for god's sake. It's probably difficult for today's average American that the whole world isn't obsessed with such things. Many of us have heard Americans (and others) complain about the smell on French public transport during the summer time. One of my first love interests was a boy from India, and I remember his commentary that in his village people didn't really notice such things as body order or bad breath so much. He did adjust to the American way of doing things once here, except for the unfashionable seventies dress and glowing appreciation of disco.


I found Miner's use of exotic terminology enlightening. The idea of required gifts as opposed to the exchange of money for medical services was particularly sweet, as I believe gifts for such services as opposed to money may sound more off-putting. Medicine men, Mouth men, Listeners, and Herbalists certainly conjour different images than doctor, dentist, psychologist and pharmacist. Oh, the head dresses, strange makeup, spicy hot breezes, and continual beat of some invisible tribal drum excite and cause fear. And how exotic that a whole culture practices S&M and show no shame in visiting special practitioner of that art or, in other words, Americans go to the dentist expecting pain and oftentimes they get it.


And how could I not be put in mind of the magical Japanese toilets, fairly accurately depicted in an episode of The Simpsons, when Miner speaks of the ritualized excretory functions and the use of the excreted matter to help discern illness. The Japanese have toilets that keep track of the makeup of one's excrement in order to warn of possible medical conditions. The scales that keep track of body fat measurements and such seem elementary by comparison. These toilets do all kinds of things. I don't remember the list, but I do remember the feeling of fascination.