Analysis Of Body Ritual Among The Nacirema By Horace Miner

Nacirema Response In class we were asked to read “Body Rituals among the Nacirema” by Horace Miner and when reading this article I was very disturbed. The article described very horrific rituals that a specific tribe would do. They would torcher one another to preys there gods. This was my first time reading the article and I can say without a doubt, it will be my last time reading it. My first impressions when reading this article was that it was gruesome and unnecessary to read. I did not understand why we were asked to read an article that had to do with such horrific torcher and pain. It honestly made me sick when I was reading. The fact that some of these people were putting their heads in ovens and ripping out teeth, all by their own …show more content…
More specifically he says “Special women’s rites are performed only four times during each lunar month.... As part of this ceremony, women bake their heads in small ovens for about an hour” (Miner 505). Reading this is actually pretty disturbing but when you think about it he is referring to American women who go to get their hair done. His whole article is about the American people and what they do but written in a perspective that would make you feel like they are crazy. We simply overlook what he is saying and lots of us said how it was weird and crazy what these people are doing. Yet we didn’t take the time to try and think about what is being said. Now after talking with my group and talking in class I understand why we read this article. We read it so it could teach us to not make snap decisions and to not judge what others are doing because it could be just like some of the activities that we partake …show more content…
When I am learning about another religion and want to say “it is stupid” or “that is weird” I will have to take a step back and ask myself why. Why is the religion or culture doing what they do, even though it may be strange to me? I will have to try to put my own beliefs on hold and try to understand why someone else acting or participating in something that I would not normally do. For example, when we touched on Judaism in class I couldn’t understand why Jews think that Jesus is not the Messiah. But after putting my beliefs aside I understood that they don’t believe that the messiah can be part man part god. So for the rest of the semester I will have to try my best to be more understanding of other religions and make sure I don’t judge them based on my own