reflection on Nacirema
"Body Ritual Among the Nacirema", written by an anthropologist named Horace Miner in 1956, seems to be about a distinct tribe called Nacirema which have somewhat unique and awkward culture and rituals. Nacirema is full of unfamiliar traditions and jobs like 'medicine-man', 'holy mouth man' and so on and this made the Nacirema's culture seem more mysterious to me. However, the story of Nacirema wasn't everything in "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema".
At the first glance, I didn't realize the writer's hidden intention, and even wrote a long reflection about Nacirema's culture insisting that people should try to understand the diversity of culture, and try not to judge it with their own perspective saying that other's culture is more inferior than theirs. I believed without any doubt that the essay was nothing more about but a real existing tribe called "Nacirema" and was shocked about their exotic culture. Then I thought that it is just a small difference coming from the different way of life. Without noticing the fact that 'Nacirema' was spelled backword 'American', my reflection was totally far from what the writer first wanted the reader to see from his essay and even seemed rather stupid and embarrassing.
The fact that Nacirema really meant American came as a big shock to me. All the traditions and mysterious words were pointing real existing cultures in America, for instance having one bathroom in their house (described as shrine), and dentists stuffing medicine into rotten teeth (described as holy-mouth man stuffing magical ingredients in every holes in teeth).
I believe that the period "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema" was written must have something to do with the writter's intend. This essay was written in 1956, when America was having a cold war with Russia, then called the Soviet Union. During the cold war, many American's had a misconception that their culture is the best and should be the status amongst every other cultures, just like the sinocentrism which ancient Chinese had. By depicting America's culture as exotic and abnormal culture of Nacirema by only using different expression, the writer must have tried to awaken the Americans with delusion that other cultures have poorer quality then them.
After thinking of the writer's reason why he wrote about Nacirema, I had my own chance to look back my behavior. Haven't I neglected other country's culture only because they seem more uncivilized or different from my one? Haven't you made any mistake to other people because of your strong belief toward your 'superior' culture?
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