The Nacirema Revisited

In 1956 anthropologist Horace Miner published a brief article on “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” (American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 58, No. 3 (June, 1956). The Nacirema are a North American group located in the territory between the Canadian Cree, the Yaqui and Tarahumara of Mexico, and the Carib and Arawak of the Antilles. They apparently originally came from the east and their nation originated with their culture hero, Notgnihsaw, who is best known for having cut down a tree in which the Spirit of Truth resided. This article became very well known, virtually a classic, and is still used for beginning studies of diverse peoples by thousands of students.

The thousands of you that have encountered the Nacirema in your beginning anthropology classes will remember they are a wealthy people, living in a bountiful natural environment. This allows them leisure time in which to engage in a variety of rituals designed to maintain and improve the human body, which they seem to believe in its natural state is ugly and, if not subjected to ritual treatments, given to debility and disease. Miner’s major focus was on certain shrines built in the homes of these strange people. Most homes have only one of these shrines, but wealthy individuals have two or even more. The main rituals performed in these shrines are secret and private, except during the formative years of childhood when they are revealed to the youngsters for the first time. Built into the walls of these shrines are chests containing the many charms and magical potions without which they believe they cannot live and thrive. They procure various potions and such from a variety of medicine men at considerable expense. Immediately below the chest is a small font. Every morning the family members in turn bow toward this font and splash water onto their faces, take whatever magical potions they have been told they require and carefully place whatever is left back into the chest. Much of this ritual has to do with the mouth, with which the Nacirema seem to be obsessed. They believe that if they do not perform these rituals their teeth will fall out, their gums will bleed, their jaws will shrink and their friends will abandon them. In addition to this daily ritual they also visit a holy-mouth-man twice a year. This expensive practitioner pokes, probes, and drills in the mouth until he achieves the desired results. This can be painful at times but all Nacirema who can afford it, do. There are also many different kinds of medicine men in most communities where they practice their various magical rites in the local latipsoh. Although many people die in the latipsoh, this seems not to dissuade others from going there for treatment. One particular kind of medicine man, or witch doctor, specializes in merely “listening.” This individual is believed to have the power, merely by listening, to exorcise demons that lodge in the heads of some of the Nacirema.

Although Miner’s emphasis was on the holy-mouth and other medicine men, he mentions other characteristics of these magically driven people that have to do body rituals. Execretory functions, for example, were ritualized, routinized, and secret. There were practices to make women’s breasts larger or smaller. Intercourse was taboo as a topic and private in practice. Magical means or phases of the moon were employed to prevent pregnancy. Conception was relatively infrequent and women dressed to hide their condition. The majority of women did not nurse their infants, preferring instead to feed them certain formulas out of bottles.
Miner’s article appeared more than fifty years ago. We understand that cultures are not static but change over time. As no one else has commented on the changes that may have occurred in these fifty plus years, and as I have lived with them for quite some time, I believe I am fully qualified to consider them, although there is not enough time or space to truly deal with them in detail here. In order to fully understand the changes that have occurred you must first understand the development and spread of a powerful new magical box, the noisivelet. This magical box existed in the 1950’s but had not developed at that time into a full-blown national force and obsession. The noisivelet has attained an almost sacred status and one and sometimes many more can be found in virtually every home. It allows you to actually witness persons and events occurring most everywhere on earth. Nacirema citizens are known to even go without food and medicine men in order to possess this magical box. Indeed, the average Nacirema is known to spend hours everyday peering intently into this box, especially on weekends which are given to many sporting events. Its importance with respect to the body images and rituals of the Nacirema cannot be overstated.

Not much has changed with respect to the holy-mouth-men. If anything, the obsession with the mouth and teeth has intensified. New rituals and magic have been introduced to whiten and straighten the teeth, change the shape and appearance of the mouth and smile, and improve the image of sexuality and well-being. Different methods of doing this are presented daily on the noisivelet. If one has sufficient wealth and dedication almost anything can be done to change the shape and color of the mouth and teeth. The most positive change here has to do with new technological innovations in equipment and techniques of pain management that have substantially reduced the trauma, stress, and pain that formerly had to be endured when visiting the holy-mouth-men. Much the same thing is true when dealing with the medicine men and latipsoh in general. Nacirema alchemists and stsitneics have discovered myriad chemical substances that have greatly reduced the pain and deaths that previously occurred in the latipsoh, but of course it has not all been eliminated. The witch doctor listeners have tended to fall out of favor as their unusually expensive and time-consuming treatments have been largely replaced by these new chemical discoveries. Rituals to fatten people have virtually disappeared except in rare cases of an eating disorder found in young women. As the Nacirema have become enamoured of, and even addicted to, new forms of nourishment known as tsaf doof they have encountered a wave of obesity. This is so serious it is considered almost a national emergency. The fear of being fat has become a national obsession and the noisivelet offers on a daily basis many different magical and other ways of losing weight, none of which are very successful on a permanent basis. An active minority of Nacirema are so upset over this they have begun a wols doof movement to protest tsaf doof.

By far the most dramatic and profound changes have occurred in the areas of excretory functions and intercourse. Again the noisivelet is important here. Every day one finds offers of different magical and other purported means to regulate one’s bowels and genitals. Women, especially, are often seen on the noisivelet openly discussing these methods, often in some detail. Whatever modesty, secrecy, or shame once surrounded these bodily functions has long since disappeared. Now even armpits are treated as areas requiring delicate attention, as are menstrual fluids, urinary leaks, hemorrhoids, soft or hard stools, and prostate glands. But the changes in attitudes towards intercourse, which were once taboo even to discuss, have seen the most remarkable changes. It is now easily possible not only to hear discussions of intercourse but to actually witness on the noisivelet people actually engaging in intercourse, sometimes simulated, sometimes real. Indeed, there are even programs that give instructions on different methods and techniques to people of all ages, except the very young. There are professionals who earn their living by teaching others various methods of achieving orgasm (a subject previously never mentioned in public at all) and such. Monthly documents that women read now commonly offer advice to women on how to please men in various ways in bed and during intercourse. The surgical sculpting of women’s breasts has continued and become much more common than previously. Young women are encouraged to bare their breasts to men willing to pay to witness these and other seemingly “brazen” acts of sexuality. Pregnancy has become even more undesirable, although pregnancy is no longer covered up and, in fact, very pregnant women are now sometimes featured on the covers of magazines. Even so, procreation is no longer the primary or most important goal of sexual activity. Medicine men and others working in this area have discovered or invented a wide variety of pills, patches, and gadgets of different kinds to prevent pregnancy. The goal of procreation has been very largely replaced by one of simple pleasure, sexual gratification of one kind or another. This has led in recent years to a seemingly odd contradiction in Nacerima behavior. Recall the importance of the mouth and its hygiene to the Nacirema. While these values seem to be retained, at the same time the mouth has become increasingly used for sexual gratification that would appear to be in conflict with those values. Although the use of the mouth obviously occurred previously at times, it was usually secretly, in private, considered shameful, and described by a term of extreme opprobrium. This method has been widely adopted by young people who have a fear of conception and curiously also wish to be able to continue to proclaim their virginity. It may also have been encouraged when it was inadvertently revealed that one of our most revered leaders relished this experience even at inappropriate times and places. Whatever one might make of this, it represents a clear example of culture change, even in what were once considered core values that were usually thought to be the most resist to change. It is probably fair to say that sex and sexuality have become a national obsession for the Nacirema. Along these lines, the medicine men and their huge staffs of research stsitneics have created a number of magical substances that can bring about erections in men at virtually anytime and for extended periods of time. These new magical drugs are incessantly promoted on the noisivelet. Gone forever are the days when it could be said, “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” The importance the Nacirema place on sexual activity might also be seen in their language. You recall the Eskimos have many words for snow because it is so important to them. The Nacirema language contains far more words for the male and female genitals than Eskimos have for snow. It is probably unlikely this is outdone in any other known language. It is difficult to predict how much further Nacirema culture can go in this direction. There has been a substantial increase in what are known as laerenev diseases, especially in a relatively new and deadly variety known as sdia. There has also been an increase in cases of the sexual abuse of children, but it is unknown if these developments are directly related to the increased emphasis on sex in general, or are the result of changes in the collection of information. You will recall the old saw, “Nero fiddled while Rome burned.” Here we may have a situation of citizens fornicating and such while their nation collapses.