If someone, say an anthropologist, went out with the mission to try and understand the world as people from another culture do, I believe it is very possible, but if it were just your average, most likely ethnocentric joe, it is less probable. Coming from an anthropologists point of view and their education, it is what they are taught to question, understand, and see aspects from different views; therefore, they could understand the world as others see it, perhaps not fully but at leasts bits and pieces. Michael Kearney who experienced witchcraft in Mexico started to understand an aspect of the cultures world when he was subjected to burns due to the interaction with witchcraft… or so he thought when immersed. Ethnocentrism interferes greatly …show more content…
The cockfights themselves do not give or take status away from neither the winner nor loser of fights but symbolize status and the fight for status that the Balinese men experience with day by day. The cockfighting is an extreme way of symbolizing how the fight for status could happen. As an outsider, I, perhaps, would give a sadistic meaning this practice as Balinese people get pleasure and entertainment out of two rosters inflicting pain upon each other. This meaning that perhaps why the Balinese people get so excited about cockfighting is because it derives some sort of pleasure and entertainment out of having these two “innocent” animals fight each other until they are badly hurt, mutilated, and killed and watching the losing roster and it’s owner be humiliated and defeated because of their …show more content…
Both the mouth rite and latipso were extremely compelling and astonishing to me. The Nacirema partake in daily body rituals, one of those being a mouth-rite… but it not the daily mouth rite that includes putting hog hairs and other assortments into the mouth, done along with particular hand movements, that astonishes me but the private mouth rite. The private mouth rite involves having a practitioner make any hole in the mouth bigger and or ripping teeth out then filling the holes made with some type of magical material. This is done to stop decay and to aid friendships and is done two times a year! The latipso ceremonies are ceremonies done in medicine men temples to help the sick that involve torture type treatments. Upon entering the temple, the Nacirema men must take off all clothing and is taken to preform his natural functions into a vessel, which I can only assume to be some sort of masturbation to produce ejaculation. While the Nacirema women are subjected to remove all clothing as well but then watched intensely as they are poked and prodded by the medicine men. These are so striking because the Nacirema are so engrossed with doing these rituals and undergoing these treatments to rid the body of its ugly and diseased tendencies, that they do them repetitively but they still do not stop its innate ugliness and
Although the thought of being involved in such rituals is scary, I developed a deeper understanding and appreciation for the practices that Haitian voodoo participants, if it is appropriate to refer to such people as, engage in. The most impressive bit of information that I will keep with me is to be less judgmental of others; “people who practice voodoo believe in the same God as Christianity, but they also believe in communicating with other spirits, who serve various roles in healing, casting spells, and more” (Boudreaux, 2015a, p. 110). As a golden rule, I know that I should not be judgmental of others anyway, but I am human and am prone to quickly create stereotypes in my mind. I don’t always share those thoughts, but thinking makes me just as guilty as doing or saying. I am thankful for the reminder that all people are children of God, and I should research and learn about different beliefs before I make a judgmental decision, if I make that judgment at
“Body Ritual among the Nacirema” by Horace Miner was a very interesting read. It took me a while to actually, fully understand the meaning of the article. The first time that I read through the article I was dumbfounded on how strange the rituals described in the article were. I genuinely thought that the author was describing a very primitive culture found in a remote area of the Americas and did not have the slightest clue that the author was talking about the American culture found in the United States. Originally, the article made me wonder how, in such an advanced world, there could still be such a primitive culture as the one described in the article. The article “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” by Horace Miner opened my eyes to how another person may look at the American culture and how strange it may seem to them.
The novel Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko follows a young man, Tayo through his journey beginning when he returns home to the Laguna Pueblo Reservation, from World War Two; and is very ill. During the narrative Silko introduces us to Tayo's life before the war, which gives insight to reasons of why Tayo is ill. Through out his illness Tayo goes through many ceremonies both literally and metaphorically to try to cure his ailment. One of the ceremonies that is performed, is lead by Old Ku'oosh, the medicine man, where he performs a cleansing ceremony for someone who has killed someone in battle, even though Tayo doesn't recall killing anyone. However, he adds that this ceremony, which he has been performing for many of the returning war soldiers, has not worked for all of them. He then recommends another medicine man with the tools to cure and perform ceremonies, for the old ceremonies, since the white man had arrived, have not been able to cure the new diseases. Along with the medicine man ceremonies he also goes to American "white" doctors, which also acts as some what of a cleansing for him. In his case vomiting is can also be used as a ceremony for Tayo because he uses it to cleanse his body of the poisons and evil, both physical illness and mental illness. The ceremonies that Tayo goes through whether traditional through a medicine man or contemporary like visits to the psychiatrist and stays in the hospital, all add to his recovery, either through physical or mental cleansing.
Human needs are similar- health, physical appearance, human body and economic resources to meet these needs. Nacirema culture bears some semblance to more civilized culture. While reading this article it seems most of the practices are similar with modern culture. A major difference is the magic, ritual and the crude method of doing things. One of the cultural practices that stood out for me is the “holy-mouth-men” ritual, which seems like what a dentist will do. I also find interesting the diagnostic ability of the diviner.
Rituals are held as a very important part of any society, including ours. They go back to ancient times or can be as simple as maintaining one’s hygiene. Non-western societies have rituals that may seem very foreign to us, but they have been engrained in their communities and are essential to their social structure. This interpretation will focus on the Great Pilgrimage, a ritual performed by Quechuan communities. We will be looking specifically at a community in the area of Sonqo.
One of Magliocco's main arguments is that these Neo-Pagan cults all have roots in both anthropology and folklore in their early development. Magliocco offers a detailed historical analysis and examines influences found all the way back to classical traditions. She concludes this analysis by bringing her reader back to the contemporary and offers us insight into how both the fields of anthropology and folklore have helped shape Neo-Paganism into what it has become today.
The author Horace Miner’s article “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” is a comment on the vanity that is present in the American culture. He focuses on a North American Group, which he considers Naciremas which is Americans backwards. Horace Miner demonstrates that attitudes or daily rituals have a convincing sway on numerous establishments in Nacirema society. The writer uses many metaphors to describe this vanity including his statement that “women” try to cover up their impurities by applying makeup in addition to getting surgeries and other things to fix what they think is wrong. However, in reality Miner uses this metaphor to show that the American culture is vain and always tries to fix its faults and mistakes. Basically, Miner uses the
In “Body Ritual among the Nacirema”, Horace Miner (1956) revisits the rituals of a North American group, the Nacirema, as first described by Professor Linton in the early 1900s. Miner depicts these people as quite vain; obsessive over money, appearance and health. While the economic status of a Nacirema individual is extremely important, nothing compares to the significance of the rituals of the body. These rituals tend to involve various steps that allow the Nacirema people to present themselves to the world in their fittest, most beautiful form. The majority of these rituals are performed by the individual in their own home, in extreme privacy. The body is viewed as a disgusting vessel, in need of constant upkeep to be presentable to others. The Nacirema home contains one or more ‘shrines’, devoted to transforming the body into the definition of health and beauty. The main purpose of the shrine is to hold charms and magical potions, bought from
to many times through out the book. Cock-fighting is used as a means for economic gain
The stories that reveal these eye-opening experiences are very extraordinary. The story of Wakjankaga the Winnebago trickster is a story not many people from modern time, and I would think also in historical times, would not reenact. First, a male is converted to a female in order to trick a chief’s son. Next, three males have sex with this recently converted female (trickster). Then, the female (trickster) has three babies with the chiefs son. Finally, when the youngest child is old enough to be on its own, the mother (trickster) leaves the tribe, when usually the children would leave the tribe. These aforementioned unusual circumstances cause the story to be unacceptable. Most of the trickster tales are taboo, possibly because of...
The presence and function of pilgrimage in both the worlds New Age and Judeo-Christian religious landscape is incredibly important as it often provides individuals with an opportunity to exemplify and extended their spiritual beliefs and understandings and gives them a chance to create a meaningful, life changing and life affirming spiritual experience. New Age Pilgrimage in particular creates a chance for New Age adherents to explore the choices they made through encountering deep spiritual journeys and experiencing sacred energies through a range of different experiences. We will discuss the appeal of New Age pilgrimage with reference to two sites in particular, the vortex experience in Sedona, Arizona in the United States and the Ayahuasca rituals and journeys that occur all over the Amazon Rainforest in South America. These sites are worthy of looking at because they market two completely different spiritual experiences, but upon closer inspection seem to be important and appealing to the New Age community for similar reasons. The sites are similar because pilgrimages to these areas do not pertain to one strict site or one dogma of spiritual understanding; in fact they do the opposite by providing a large landscape in which individuals can create their own pilgrimage experience. Indeed it seems that the two most enticing factors about both these sites is the fact that they both feed and satisfy every individual’s desires and provide individuals with a chance to make sense of and answer the larger questions about life and the world that people struggle to answer. However both these sites also offer something that is unique to their pilgrimage alone, in Sedona that being the accessibility and ease of choice pertaining to practis...
I can say with absolute certainty that I have always been intrigued by and totally enamored with cultures that were different from my own. I believe this is because I fancy myself to be an imaginative dreamer that has always wished for changes to take place in the world so that it may one day become the way it was supposed to be when the creator of the universe imagined it all those centuries ago.
...not only would we not have an understanding or respect for different cultures, but we would never be able to fully appreciate let alone understand the origin or meaning behind our own cultural constructions that surround us in our every day lives.
Lehmann A. C. & Myers J. E. Magic, Witchcraft and Religion – An Anthropological Study of the Supernatural (Fourth Edition) (Mayfield Publishing Company, 1997). Miner, H. Body Ritual Among the Nacirema. American Anthropologist 58 (1956). Tambiah, S. J. & Co., Ltd. Magic, Science, Religion and the scope of Rationality (Cambridge University Press, 1990). Taylor, C. Rationality.
take the first and fourh matches, and the best matador will fight in the third