IHSS: Anthropology Reading - The Nacirema - Leon Hoang

 Leon Hoang

Mr. Roddy

IHSS

26 August, 2020

IHSS: Anthropology Reading - The Nacirema


“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” (Miner). This sets up a cause and effect scenario in which if man practices ritual and ceremony, disease will not occur. For this very reason, families have one or more shrines dedicated to rituals in every home. It seems that religion is more important to them than anything else in life.


Another fascinating thing was the obsession with mouths that the Nacirema have. They believe that the mouth could be the cause of most illnesses and go to the supposed "holy-mouth-men" for a cure. Despite the ghastly techniques that the holy mouth men use, such as inserting hog hairs and using crude tools to fill holes in with a “magical material”,  in the eyes of the subject this is simply required in order to stop decay. The thing that is interesting, is that all of this has no effect anyway on the patient, and the teeth continue to deteriorate. And even knowing this, the patients return to the mouth men yearly without promises of any cures. This is probably because of the effect of herd mentality, in which an individual likely follows along with a group rather than doing something alone. In other words they are influenced by the culture and would rather follow the herd than noticing that the medicine doesn’t work. 

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