The Nacirema is a “tribe” in North America. The ethnographic analysis describing the rituals of the Nacirema was written by Horace Miner and actually describes American culture in the 1950s. The article illustrates how anthropologists view and describe other cultures. By turning the analysis on our very own culture, we see how language can influence the reader’s perception of that culture. For example, Miner uses words such as “ritual” “ceremony” and “religious” to describe ordinary activities. It is a satire on how anthropologists tend to describe what they don’t understand or what isn’t familiar to them but what may be just a day to day activity for the culture. It is important to view cultures within the framework and beliefs of the people
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His 1914 silent film, “In the Land of the Headhunters,” documents the traditions of the Kwakiutl Indians that were prohibited under the Federal Potlatch Prohibition and no longer practiced, such as ceremonial dances, sorcery, and head hunting. The film serves as a cultural narrative and documents an important moment of the interconnection between the emerging technology of filmmaking and the cultural change of the Kwakiutl. Through the film, the Kwakiutl exercise their own agency by evading the Potlatch ban in their participation as actors in Curtis’ film, and reenacting their own representation of their history, therefore maintaining their expressive …show more content…
He addressed the white man’s stereotype of the silent stoic Indian and studied the Apache’s individual character in which humor and satire played an important part of their lives. He studied the relationship between Indians in relation to white society and how the practice of mocking or satire were a form of expressive resistance and a way to consolidate their own identity. The context of Apache humor is based on the Indian perceptions and their experiences with the “white man” and their expression of humor as a means asserting an identity that is different form the brunt of their
His 1914 silent film, “In the Land of the Headhunters,” documents the traditions of the Kwakiutl Indians that were prohibited under the Federal Potlatch Prohibition and no longer practiced, such as ceremonial dances, sorcery, and head hunting. The film serves as a cultural narrative and documents an important moment of the interconnection between the emerging technology of filmmaking and the cultural change of the Kwakiutl. Through the film, the Kwakiutl exercise their own agency by evading the Potlatch ban in their participation as actors in Curtis’ film, and reenacting their own representation of their history, therefore maintaining their expressive …show more content…
He addressed the white man’s stereotype of the silent stoic Indian and studied the Apache’s individual character in which humor and satire played an important part of their lives. He studied the relationship between Indians in relation to white society and how the practice of mocking or satire were a form of expressive resistance and a way to consolidate their own identity. The context of Apache humor is based on the Indian perceptions and their experiences with the “white man” and their expression of humor as a means asserting an identity that is different form the brunt of their