Body Ritual among the Nacirema

Hello World!

My name is Kevin John Murray. I am a freshman musical theatre major at Temple University, about to embark on my second semester. Above you will see my headshot that I use at my auditions. I went to Neshaminy High School and graduated in the top 5% of my class and was very involved. Coming to Temple I am in the Honors Program and so far have loved my experience. This blog is being created for my Honors Mosaics 1 class as an analytical analysis of what I feel about texts I read. Now let me just say a little about myself. I am from Levittown Pennsylvania which is about 30 minutes north of Philadelphia and in 2 weeks, my family and I will be moving to Langhorne PA which is right by Sesame Place Amusement Park. I work there as an Entertainer. My future goals and career path involve me doing many auditions and trying to work in the entertainment business. Now why would I be coming to college when all I'm going to do my whole life is audition? Well I'm glad you asked! I've always dreamed of going to college and hopefully one day when I'm older, with my college degree I'll be able to work high on the totem pole at Sesame Place. I have a wide range of intellectual interests. I am very into the arts, seeing as I'm a musical theatre student but I'm very into math and English. English has always been my favorite subject because it's your chance where there is no right answer and you can be as creative as you would like. The answers are in your hand when writing and I love having creative control. Through this Mosaics course I'm hoping to learn a lot about important texts that I could find useful in the future. I'm hoping to improve my college writing ability and my ability to read, analyze and comprehend. I'm very excited to see what this class has to offer me!

I just read Horace Miner's Body Ritual among the Nacirema and I was rather taken aback by the practices that are performed. The people believe in magic. They go through rituals every day and really drastic, horrific rituals annually throughout the year. Their underlying belief seems to be that the human body is ugly. Now this sounds absolutely horrible, that a culture would tell someone they are hideous, but isn’t that exactly what happens in today’s society? There are always people judging and saying you are not good enough, whether it’s too fat, too skinny, etc.  Criticism exists everywhere but I find it highly fascinating that criticism is worked into this religion.  The Nacirema find a lot of power in the mouth. They believe that painful and torture-like rituals help improve all social relationships. The “holy mouth men” pretty much puts their mouths through incredible pain and the people believe without these practices their “teeth would fall out, their gums would bleed and their jaws would shrink.” The practices of the Nacirema really take me for a spin. When the people get extremely sick they are taken to the temple, and this is where many die. They are put through very rigorous torture methods which are meant to help them survive but some of the weak frail bodies can’t make it through. To get in one must present a gift which I believe is outlandish to present a gift just to be tortured.

The thing that really intrigues me about the Nacirema is the relation to the Catholic Church today. I’m Catholic and I find it very interesting different forms of organized religion and their similarities and differences. The Nacirema essentially pray to charms that are filled with magic, and in the Catholic Church we direct our prayers to crucifixes so they are better heard. In the Catholic Church when one is sick a priest comes to give them last rights, the Nacirema bring the sick to the temple. The Nacirema must present gifts to the temple, in the Catholic Church every mass there is a donation, where everyone is expected to donate to the church. I find it interesting how throughout so many cultures throughout the world there has always been faith, or a knowing of something greater. In the Catholic Church we believe in God, the Nacirema believe in magic.