Body Ritual Among the Nacirema wjj

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.

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.

While such a concern is certainly not unusual, its ceremonial aspects and associated philosophy are unique.

Every household has one or more shrines devoted to this purpose.

Poorer families imitate the rich by applying pottery plaques to their shrine walls.

The rites are normally only discussed with children, and then only during the period when they are being initiated into these mysteries.

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.

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.[5]

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.

Despite the fact that these people are so punctilious [6] about care of the mouth, this rite involves a practice which strikes the uninitiated stranger as revolting.

These practitioners have an impressive set of paraphernalia, consisting of a variety of augers, awls, probes, and prods.

These practitioners have an impressive set of paraphernalia, consisting of a variety of augers, awls, probes, and prods.

The use of [505 begins ->] these objects in the exorcism of the evils of the mouth involves almost unbelievable ritual torture of the client.

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.

This part of the rite includes scraping and lacerating the surface of the face with a sharp instrument.

The theoretically interesting point is that what seems to be a preponderantly masochistic people have developed sadistic specialists.

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.

Even after one has gained and survived the ceremonies, the guardians will not permit the neophyte to leave until he makes still another gift.

A man, whose own wife has never seen him in an excre- [506 begins ->] tory act, suddenly finds himself naked and assisted by a vestal maiden while he performs his natural functions into a sacred vessel.

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.

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.

Intercourse is taboo as a topic and scheduled as an act.