Body Ritual of the Nacirema
by Horace Miner, University of Michigan
published in American Anthropologist Journal, 1956
The anthropologist has become so familiar with the diversity
of ways in which the 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 (1949:71). 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.
Nacirema culture is characterized by a highly developed
market economy which has 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
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 if 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 welled with stone. Poorer families
imitate the rich by applying pottery plaques to their shrine
wells.
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 decided 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 the herbalists
who, for another gift, provide the required charms.
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 charmbox 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 charmbox, before which
the body rituals are conducted, will in some way protect the
worshiper.
Beneath the charmbox is a small font. Each day every member
of the family, in succession, enters the shrine room, bows his
head before the charmbox, mingles different sorts of holy water
in the font, and proceeds with a 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 Nacerima have an almost
pathological horror 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 favorite 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 the 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 them 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
sugars, 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 opens the
client's mouth, and using the above mentioned tools, enlarges any
holes which decay have created in the teeth. magical materials
are put into these holes. In the client's view, the purpose of
these ministrations is to arrest decay and 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 hoped that, when a thorough study of the Nacerima 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
the 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 latipsoh, 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 headdress.
The latipsoh ceremonies are so harsh that it is phenomenal
that a fair proportion of the really sick natives who enter the
temple 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 mergence, 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 client to leave until he makes still another gift.
The supplicant entering the temple is stripped of all his or
her clothes. In everyday life the Nacerima avoids exposure of
his body and its natural functions. Bathing is performed only in
the secrecy of the household shrine, where it is ritualized as
part of the body rites. Psychological shock results from the
fact that body secrecy is suddenly lost upon entry into the
latipsoh.
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 at
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 witch doctor has the power to exorcise the
devils that lodge in the heads of people who have been bewitched.
The Nacerima 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 witch doctor 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. 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.
Our review of the ritual life of the Nacirema has certainly
shown them to be a long magic ridden people. It is hard to
understand 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 real meaning when they are viewed
with the insight provided by Malikowski when he wrote (1948:70):
Looking from far 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.