A Brief Summary of “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema”

In “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema”, Horace Miner explores the unique body ritual of the Nacirema that represents the extreme cruelty to which human behavior can go. Nacirema, as an ancient tribe inhabited between Canadian Cree, establishes a unique culture of special ritual activity. The human body is viewed as ugly and the resource of debility and disease. So in order to avert these characteristics, people of this tribe have to use the power of ritual and ceremony with the help of shrines. The daily body ritual performed by everyone includes a mouth-rite because people of this tribe have a pathological horror of and fascination with the mouth. They believe that the condition of the mouth has a supernatural influence on their social relationships. Besides, people seek out a holy-mouth man once or twice a year to put some magical materials in the hole of their teeth in order to arrest decay and draw friends. The body ceremony is mostly applied to men due to its cruelty and men’s superiority in the society. If people get very sick, they will be arranged to receive treatments in the medicine men’s temples, also known as latipso. The latipso ceremonies are very harsh, and people probably die during the ceremony. However, adults are still eager to undergo this ritual purification if they could afford. The treatment ceremony involves asking patients to be naked, enduring the discomfort and torture, eating magical substances that are supposed to heal them, receiving needles into their flesh, etc. This ceremony is full of torture and pain and with little practical functions to cure the patient, but people’s faith in the medicine men never shakes. The other kind of practitioner is known as “listener”, a witch-doctor that is supposed to have the power to help the bewitched people after hearing their troubles and pains. Other cruel ritual practices include changing the body shape of people by cruel methods, serious limits of intercourse, forbidding women to nurse their infants, etc. It is hard to understand how the Nacirema people have managed to exist so long with the cruelty and torture of the ritual ceremonies they believe. But such exotic customs may provide spiritual support for them to conquer the practical difficulties in life and help them to advance their civilization.