Student: Pratiksh PatelInstructor: Diane SegrovesClass: Rel100The Body Ritual of the Nacirema: READING GUIDE

1. How is the anthropologist studying this particular groupwhat does he do, who does he talk to, how long, etc.The anthropologist is studying the ritual life of the Nacirema people do in order to understand their culture. The anthropologist has made detailed descriptions for each ritual describing them in great details. The anthropologist uses terms such as rituals activity, shrines, magical beliefs, extreme behaviors, ceremony, charms, magical potions, body rituals and other vague terms to describe the complexity which he doesnt understand.

2. What kinds of rituals does he describe?

Daily body ritual performed by everyone which includes a mouth rite which consists of inserting small bundle of hog hair into the mouth along with magical powders and then moving the hog hairs in a series of gestures. Daily shrine ritual by each family members, where they use charm boxes, and holy water. Seeking out the holy mouth man once or twice a year to rectify decayed teeth Medicine men to treat sick patients which takes place in a temple, in order to enter the temple their clothes are stripped and then then treating them to daily ceremonies such as forcing substances into the supplicants mouth in order to provide healing. Going to the witch doctor in order to exorcist the devils that lodge in the heads of people, the patients tell the witch doctor all their feelings, troubles and childhood fears. Ritual fasts to make fat people thin and ceremonial feasts to make thin people fat. Additional rites to make womens breasts larger if they are small and smaller if they are large.

3. What is his attitude toward this tribe? Positive or negative? Note particular examples of the language he uses.The anthropologist states in the first paragraph that he is interested in studying the magical beliefs and practices of the Nacirema and also states that the Nacirema people have unusual aspects that it seems desirable to describe them as an example of the extremes to which human behavior can go. From these two quotes I believe that the attitude of the anthropologist consists of fascination & positivity instead of negative, I believe the anthropologist finds the Nacirema people interested that is why he wants to learn more about them.

4. Is he an insider or outsider in relation to this tribe? Why and how?

The anthropologist is clearly and outsider. Outsiders always describe cultures that they dont understand as something complex simply because they dont understand it due to it being different from their culture. The anthropologist uses terms such as rituals activity, shrines, magical beliefs, extreme behaviors, ceremony, charms, magical potions, body rituals and other vague terms to describe the complexity which he doesnt understand. Furthermore this entire article is about the anthropologist studying the culture and describing their practices so the tone of the entire article is that of an outsider.

5. Does his method of study and his report have any limitations? That is, are we getting a complete picture of this tribe: why or why not? How would we ever know what a complete picture would be?

One of the limitation that this report has is the authors poor usage of words to describe rituals. The anthropologist is very vague in his description at times and uses a lot of filler words which dont describe anything and add to making the report difficult to read. I dont know if we are getting a complete picture of the tribe, the author the anthropologist doesnt state how many years he has been studying the Nacirema people and have a very small reference at the end of the report. Lastly as far as getting a complete picture I believe that we can never get a complete picture unless we ask of the Nacirema people to make a list of life aspects such as marriage, relationships, food, appearance etc. and ask them to explicitly make a chart indicating insider and outsider perspective because instead of always studying the Nacirema people its good to be able to get their opinion as well so that you arent fooled into making assumptions which are incorrect based on your experience without understanding what is going on, its always good to get both the outsiders and insiders opinion when trying to understand a new culture.