Horace Miner’s “Body Ritual of Nacerima” portrays the indigenous Americans as secretive, superstitious, ritualistic, obsessive, and hierarchical.
Secretive: Core practices are completed in private “shrine rooms” with mysterious charms employed by medicine men; of which the Nacerima trust completely, they do not question or seek to understand but simply believe in the mystical powers. These practices are not discussed amongst the people or openly explained to anthropologists like Miner, only privately described to “initiate” children into the standard. Basic hygiene, customary body modifications, and stays in their “latipso” temples, similar to hospitals, are all acts completed in isolation and without open discussion.
Superstitious: Naricema hold their belief in much higher regard than their understanding. Physical health and spiritual well being are poured into the hands of magic and supernatural forces so that charms, potions, and rituals are preferred over tangible remedies. Miner explains during illness, the natives enter the latipso for “ritual purification” resembling an exorcism “eagerly,” reinforcing their faith in their sickness being a result of unseen spiritual affiliations rather than a “real” medical explanation.
Ritualistic: The daily routine resembles religious rites to maintain their traditions. The painful visits to “holy-mouth-men” are viewed as necessary, not just an optional cultural practice some may or may not partake in. Repeated routines like the “mouth-rites” involving hog hair and magical powders to sustain their relationships and morality.
Obsessive: Many of the Nacerima customs paint the people to be more compulsive than ritualistic, especially in the prioritization of bodily procedures and materialistic beauty. Miner finds the population to have a “fascination” with the mouth, undergoing daily engagement with holy-mouth-men for a resemblance of modern dentistry. Despite the flourishing and sustainable economy, generations of Nacerima continue to devote time to the body’s “natural tendency to debility and disease.”
Hierarchical: While some of the writing points to a sort of class system amongst the people, there is a very clear ranking of ritual authority figures, all of which outrank the general population. Medicine men, holy-mouth-men, and “practitioners” in the latipso possess the power to access and control the spiritual and physical health over the rest of the Nacerima, and are fully trusted by the people beneath them.
My choice of words to describe the Nacirema—though supported by Horace Miner’s descriptions—do reflect a degree of ethnocentrism. Upon rereading the first essay, I realized just how perfectly it satirically described American culture. Miner's essay deliberately uses exotic and judgmental language to describe common American behaviors (like brushing teeth or visiting a doctor), and I see how this emphasizes how anthropological descriptions can sound biased when applied to familiar practices in unfamiliar terms. Like brushing your teeth, a standard daily routine, becomes hog hairs and magical powders.
"Obsessive" and "superstitious" in particular carry negative connotations. While they accurately reflect the tone of Miner's writing, they portray the Nacirema (and thus, Americans) as irrational or extreme- which I can now agree isn't too far off in some regards. A less biased alternative might have been "deeply concerned with health" or "routinely health-focused" and "faith-based in their practices" rather than “superstitious,” which implies a veil of ignorance.
"Secretive" and "ritualistic" are somewhat more neutral, though “secretive” could imply suspiciousness rather than the described privacy and modesty. An alternative in describing how the rituals are conducted alone could be "private." “Ritualistic” remains appropriate because it reflects Miner’s emphasis on the ceremonial nature of everyday, routine acts. Especially in the age of social media, many daily routines like skincare are presented in a romanticized light, filmed and posted as a true ritual rather than habit.
"Hierarchical" is accurate and less ethnocentric, as it reflects structural roles in many societies. It neutrally denotes the presence of specialized practitioners without judging the society as unfair or unjust, however my explanation does read more judgmental. Instead of "control," I might have said "maintain."
As a cultural anthropologist, completely avoiding ethnocentrism seems impossible, because every observation is influenced by one’s own cultural framework, inevitably so. However, recognizing ethnocentrism—as Miner encourages through this satirical analysis—is the first step in minimizing its impact. By using neutral, descriptive language and considering practices in their cultural context rather than through a moral or emotional lens, anthropologists can strive for more objective and respectful analysis. There is no "right way" to be a human, so by ignoring your own use of harmful rhetoric and ethnocentrism, you perpetuate the notion that your culture and experiences are somehow superior.
Part A submission recorded and scored. I will offer more feedback after your Part B submission.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to include this information for all students and then provide more personalized feedback after that.
ReplyDeleteSo the purpose of this assignment is to put students into the position of feeling what it is like to have an outsider describe and perhaps judge their own culture. But it is also to grasp the dangers of using one person's description of a culture to learn about it.
With regard to your word choices, when you were asked to evaluate (in part B) any bias indicated by your words, two issues should have come to mind:
1. Do your words imply *judgement* of the behaviors describe?
2. Do your words *accurately* describe those actual behaviors.
The first issue is the easier of the two. You probably came into this course expecting to explore the matter of ethnocentrism and cultural anthropologists avoiding their own bias.
The second one is possibly something you didn't consider but is just as important. When you describe a culture, you not only want to be unbiased, but you want to accurately communicate a behavior to others.
So let's start here by exploring what it is Miner is actually describing in this article:
1. Self-care and hygiene at home.
2. Dental care by a professional dentist.
3. Visits to a hospital and medical professional.
There are a few other things that Miner references, but let's start with these three.
So in addition to the issue of bias/judgement, do your word choices *accurately* describe these practices? Can a person reading your words better understand these practices?
Let's work through your Part B responses:
1. Good exploration here. Just curious about your personal feelings about this. You are part of the westernized culture he is describing. You likely engage in many of the behaviors he is talking about. Do you feel unfairly judged?
2. "While they accurately reflect the tone of Miner's writing"
Curious about this statement. Why is this important? As an anthropologist, *how* Miner writes is less important than *how accurately* he describes the culture, correct?
"which I can now agree isn't too far off in some regards"
Expand on this? How are our health practices irrational or extreme?
I really appreciate how you recognize that your words do suggest that these behaviors are more faith-based instead of actually health-based. Good catch.
3. I sympathize with the difficulty in locating unbiased, descriptive words. That said recognize that the difficulty in choosing alternate words may not lie with the words themselves but the process of describing this culture in the first place. Part of what I want you to understand here is that you chose these words based upon a biased narrative...Horace Minor's narrative was designed to be a biased outsider's view of this culture, so nearly all words you choose are going to perpetuate that bias. It might be better to recognize that this attempt to define a culture with individual words isn't possible in the first place. It is a futile and biased practice and doesn't reflect what anthropologists are trying to do in their jobs. As an anthropologist, your job is to not describe from an outsider's perspective but to understand a culture.. and that means starting to see it as insiders do.
4. Excellent summary and good insight. While Anthropologists can strive to avoid bias and practice this skill, I suggest it is just as important to be aware that our biases are deeply ingrained in our psyche and are likely impossible to avoid completely. Better to be aware of this and be receptive to those who point it out when it happens. This is one of the reasons anthropologists collaborate with others... so that they can watch out for each other's bias seeping into their work.
First off, I wanted to say that your final analysis is very well articulated and does a great job of pointing out the problems of a ethnocentric lens! I appreciate that you mentioned some of your original words matched the tone of Miner's article, but did not succeed in describing the culture without falling into ethnocentrism. I found my own words to be influenced by Miner's language, which I definitely think is intentional and shows how important language is. I think you do a good job of checking your own bias and replacing words that hold a negative connotation. I enjoyed reading this!
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