Essay - In the Anthropological Study 'Body Ritual Among the Nacirema,' Dr....

In the anthropological study "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema," Dr. Horace Miner describes an unusual culture among a group of people who live in Mexico.

***** N*****cirema have developed a complex soci*****l structure that involves both a strong economic incentive *****d a rem*****rkable set of beliefs about the human body. Their beliefs about *****ir bodies consume a significant amount of their economy. While their actual beliefs are very different than those commonly held by Americans, there are some interesting parallels.

The Nacirema believe that the human body is inherently ugly, and inherently weak and d*****eased. Because of this belief, they are required to spend a lot of time performing rituals. The materials needed for these ***** often cost a ***** of money.

By parallel, while most Americans don't believe their bodies are weak or diseased, many ***** not satisfied with ***** bodies. Plastic surgery to improve one's facial features or figure is common. Women often dye their hair or spend hundreds of money having elaborate braids added to extend its length and make it fuller. Many women spend several hours each month ***** artificial nails applied to their fingers ***** decorated in elaborate ways. Tann*****g salons and exerc*****e ***** ********** are filled to capac*****y.

The ***** home almost al***** has one room dedicated to rituals and ceremonies designed ***** keep them healthy, and wealthy people may have several. While Americans don't think of ***** bathrooms as shrines, most contain ***** kinds of shampoo, curling irons or hair straighteners, and a wide v*****riety of make-up and perfume. In a more elaborate house, the m*****ter bedroom will have a dressing room used solely for ***** purpose of adorning one's body to make it look better.

The ceremonial room in the Nacirema home contains a stor*****ge box built into one wall. In ***** *****, *****y store the special potions they ***** prescribed by the medicine men. They use these ***** in their ceremonies, and then store what is left ***** the chest. They never use ***** items again for fear that *****y will be the wrong ceremony for their current difficulties, but they do not discard them.

This tends to remind one of many people's medicine chests in their bath*****s, which often contain leftover prescriptions prescribed ***** our "medicine men," physicians. There are other interesting parallels. The Nacirema ***** men write their recommendations down on a piece of paper in a secret l*****nguage, to be filled by the herbalist, *****se Western parallel would be a pharmacist. Only the medicine man and the herbalist can read the secret language, and again this sounds like the ***** traditi***** of writing prescriptions in Latin, a language ***** people can***** *****.

When the Nacirema is not cured by his or her ***** ceremonies, he or she must go to ***** special healing temple, called a latipsoh, ***** be treated. However, t***** is very expensive, ***** the person ***** not be admitted unless they can pay for the services. This *****s one ***** ***** dilemma many ***** face