BODY RITUAL AMONG THE NACIREMA

BODY RITUAL AMONG THE NACIREMA

Horace Miner

From Horace Miner, "Body Ritual among the Nacirema."
Reproduced by permission of the American Anthropological Association from
The American Anthropologist, vol. 58 (1956), pp. 503-507.

The anthropologist has become so familiar with the diversity of ways
in which different peoples behave in similar situations that he is not
apt to be surprised by even the most exotic customs. In fact, if all of
the logically possible combinations of behavior have not been found somewhere
in the world, he is apt to suspect that they must be present in some yet
undescribed tribe. This point has, in fact, been expressed with respect
to clan organization by Murdock. In this light, the magical beliefs
and practices of the Nacirema present such unusual aspects that it seems
desirable to describe them as an example of the extremes to which human
behavior can go.

Professor Linton first brought the ritual of the
Nacirema to the attention of anthropologists twenty years ago, but the
culture

of this people is still very poorly understood. They are a North American
group living in the territory between the Canadian Creel the Yaqui and
Tarahumare of Mexico, and the Carib and Arawak of the Antilles. Little
is known of their origin, although tradition states that they came from
the east....

Nacirema culture is characterized by a highly developed
market economy which as evolved in a rich natural habitat. While much of
the people's time is devoted to economic pursuits, a large part of the
fruits of these labors and a considerable portion

of the day are spent in ritual activity. The focus of this activity
is the human body, the appearance and health of which loom as a dominant
concern in the ethos of the people. While such a concern is certainly not
unusual, its ceremonial aspects and associated philosophy are unique.

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. Incarcerated in such a body, man's only hope
is to avert these characteristics through the use of the

powerful influences of ritual and ceremony. Every household has one
or more shrines devoted to this purpose. The more

powerful individuals in the society have several shrines in their houses
and, in fact, the opulence of a house is often referred to

in terms of the number of such ritual centers it possesses. Most houses
are of wattle and daub construction, but the shrine rooms of the more wealthy
are walled with stone. Poorer families imitate the rich by applying pottery
plaques to their shrine walls. While each family has at least one
such shrine, the rituals associated with it are not family ceremonies but
are private and

secret. The rites are normally only discussed with children, and then
only during the period when they are being initiated into these mysteries.
I was able, however, to establish sufficient rapport with the natives to
examine these shrines and to have the rituals described to me.

The focal point of the shrine is a box or chest which is
built into the wall. In this chest are kept the many charms and magical
potions without which no native believes he could live. These preparations
are secured from a variety of specialized practitioners. The most powerful
of these are the medicine men, whose assistance must be rewarded with substantial
gifts. However, the medicine men do not provide the curative potions
for their clients, but decide what the ingredients should be and then write
them down in an ancient and secret language. This writing is understood
only by the medicine men and by the herbalists who, for another gift, provide
the required charm.

The charm is not disposed of after it has served its purpose,
but is placed in the charmbox of the household shrine. 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.
The magical packets are so numerous that people forget what their purposes
were and fear to use them again. While the natives are very vague on this
point, we can only assume that the idea in retaining all the old magical
materials is that their presence in the charm-box, before which the body
rituals are conducted, will in some way protect the worshipper.

Beneath the charm-box is a small font. 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.

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 "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. Were it not
for the rituals of the

mouth, they believe that their teeth would fall out, their gums
bleed, their jaws shrink, their friends desert them, and their lovers

reject them. They also believe that a strong relationship exists
between oral and moral characteristics. For example, there is a ritual
ablution of the mouth for children which is supposed to improve their moral
fiber.

The daily body ritual performed by everyone includes a
mouth-rite. Despite the fact that these people are so punctilious about
care of the mouth, this rite involves a practice which strikes the uninitiated
stranger as revolting. It was reported to me that the ritual consists of
inserting a small bundle of hog hairs into the mouth, along with certain
magical powders, and then moving the bundle in a highly formalized series
of gestures.

In addition to the private mouth-rite, the people
seek out a holy-mouth-man once or twice a year. These practitioners

have an impressive set of paraphernalia, consisting of a variety
of augers, awls, probes, and prods. The use of these objects in the exorcism
of the evils of the mouth involves almost unbelievable ritual torture of
the client. The holy-mouth-man open the clients mouth and, using the above
mentioned tools, enlarges any holes which decay may have created in the
teeth. Magical materials are put into these holes. If there age 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. In the client's
view, the purpose of these ministrations is to arrest decay and to draw
friends. The extremely sacred and traditional character of the rite is
evident in the fact that the natives return to the holy--mouth-men year
after year, despite the fact that their teeth continue to decay.

It is to be hoped that, when
a thorough study of the Nacirema is made, there will be careful
inquiry into the personality structure of these people. One has but
to watch the gleam in the eye of a holy- mouth-man, as he jabs
an awl into an exposed nerve, to suspect that a certain amount
of sadism is involved. If this can be established, a very interesting
pattern emerges, for most of the population shows definite
masochistic tendencies. It was to these that Professor Linton referred
in discussing a distinctive part of the daily body ritual which is
performed only by men. This part of the rite involves scraping
and lacerating the surface of the face with a sharp instrument. Special
women's rites are performed only four times during each lunar
month, but what they lack in frequency is made up in barbarity. As
part of this ceremony, women bake their heads in small ovens
for about an hour. The theoretically interesting point is that what
seems to be a preponderantly masochistic people have developed sadistic
specialists.

The medicine men have an imposing temple, or
latipso, in every community of any size. The more elaborate
ceremonies required to treat very sick patients can only be
performed at this temple. These ceremonies involve not only the thaumaturge
but a permanent group of vestal maidens who move sedately about the
temple chambers in distinctive costume and head- dress.

The latipso ceremonies are so harsh that
it is phenomenal that a fair proportion of the really sick natives
who enter the temple The concept of culture 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. No matter how ill the supplicant or how
grave the emergency, the guardians of many temples will not admit
a client if he cannot give a rich gift to the custodian. Even
after one has gained admission and survived the ceremonies, the guardians
will not permit the neophyte to leave until he makes still another
gift.

The supplicant entering the temple is first
stripped of all his or her clothes. In everyday life the Nacirema
avoids exposure of his body and its natural functions. Bathing
and excretory acts are performed only in the secrecy of the household
shrine, where they are ritualized as part of the body-rites.
Psychological shock results from the fact that body secrecy is suddenly
lost upon entry into the latipso. A man, whose own wife has
never seen him in an excretory act, suddenly finds himself naked
and assisted by a vestal maiden while he performs his natural functions
into a sacred vessel. This sort of ceremonial treatment is
necessitated by the fact that the excreta are used by a diviner to
ascertain the course and nature of the client's sickness. Female
clients, on the other hand, find their naked bodies are subjected
to the scrutiny, manipulation and prodding of the medicine
men.

Few supplicants in the temple are well enough
to do anything but lie on their hard beds. The daily ceremonies,
like the rites of the holy-mouth-men, involve discomfort and
torture. With ritual precision, the vestals awaken their miserable
charges each dawn and roll them about on their beds of pain
while performing ablutions, in the formal movements of which the
maidens are highly trained. At other times they insert magic wands
in the supplicant's mouth or force him to eat substances which
are supposed to be healing. From time to time the medicine men come
to their clients and jab magically treated needles into their
flesh. The fact that these temple ceremonies may not cure, and may
even kill the neophyte, in no way decreases the people's faith
in the medicine men.

There remains one other kind of practitioner,
known as a "listener." This witchdoctor has the power to exorcise
the devils that lodge in the heads of people who have been
bewitched. The Nacirema believe that parents bewitch their own
children. Mothers are particularly suspected of putting a curse on children
while teaching them the secret body rituals. The counter-magic
of the witchdoctor is unusual in its lack of ritual. The patient simply
tells the "listener" all his troubles and fears, beginning with the
earliest difficulties he can remember. The memory displayed
by the Nacirerna in these exorcism sessions is truly remarkable.
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.
There are ritual fasts to make fat people thin and ceremonial feasts
to make thin people fat. Still other rites are used to make
women's breasts larger if they are small, and smaller if they are
large. General dissatisfaction with breast shape is symbolized in
the fact that the ideal form is virtually outside the range of human
variation. A few women afflicted with almost inhuman hyper-mamrnary development
are so idolized that they make a handsome living by simply
going from village to village and permitting the natives to stare at them
for a fee.

Reference has already been made to the
fact that excretory functions are ritualized, routinized, and
relegated to secrecy. Natural reproductive functions are similarly distorted.
Intercourse is taboo as a topic and scheduled as an act. Efforts are made
to avoid pregnancy by the use of magical materials
or by limiting intercourse to certain phases of the moon. Conception is
actually very infrequent. When pregnant, women dress so as to hide their
condition. Parturition takes place in secret, without
friends or relatives to assist, and the majority of women do not nurse
their infants.

Our review of the ritual life of the Nacirema has
certainly shown them to be a magic-ridden people. It is hard
to un- derstand how they have managed to exist
so long under the burdens which they have imposed upon themselves.
But even such exotic customs as these take on real
meaning when they are viewed with the insight provided by Malinowski when
he wrote:

"Looking from far and above, from our high
places of safety in the developed civilization, it is easy to see all the
crudity and irrelevance of magic. But without its power and guidance early
man could not have mastered his practical difficulties as he
has done, nor could man have advanced to the higher stages of civilization."

References

Linton, Ralph. 1936. The Study of Man. New York: D. Appleton-Century.

Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1948. Magic, Science, and Religion.
Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press.

Murdock, George P. 1949. Social Structure. New York:
Macmillan.