Reaction To The Body Rituals Of The Nacirema 31f5a

Jeanine Bianca P. Lastino Soc Sci I, TFI Reaction Paper on The Body Rituals among the Nacirema

As I gradually got to read the article of the Body Rituals of Nacirema I was really taken aback at how inhumane I think the practices of the people are compared to what I was prepared myself to know about. It got really hard to continue on scrolling down through every paragraph of the essay since the extremity of what was written was increasing. Their faith and belief in their medicine men was up to a level that not just about anything can match. It was very intriguing that even though it is not new to me that there are people who have different culture and practices than the community I have grown up to, I found it very difficult to believe that there would be people who practiced the tortures their bodies go through. I’ve learned that even when there was nothing wrong with their teeth they would have to go to the “holy mouth-men” to have them drill holes onto their teeth. They would even have to wound their faces with sharp objects. Not only was it the men of the community to go through such rituals but also the women and the children. This is what struck me the hardest. The fact, that even though they do not undergo these as many times as the men do, but receive them as much painful is heartbreaking. What does baking their heads for an hour in an oven really do anyway? All I see that one can get from this are burnt hair and a badly bruised face. I do respect that they have their beliefs but I do not see the point in doing so. It is very unhygienic for most part in every aspect and in my point of view very immoral and unethical. It is stated in the article that the Nacirema believed that the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease. Prior to this they indeed wanted to be able to avert these characteristics, however in the sense that they believed that the rituals and ceremonies would do this for them seems foolish. Don’t they see that what they are subjecting their bodies to do only hastens the deterioration of their bodies? Another bothersome thing was that the doings of the medicine men and those other of power who were needed for the rituals were rather exploitative in the sense that the people not only have to subject themselves to torture but they needed to be able to give rich gifts. This is very ironic that you have to pay for your hell, for your accelerated death. I think that there is a grave problem of how those in power are able to manipulate the natives in having them do what is contradictory to what really should be done. The natives protect their bodies and treat them holy, their own wife or husband even aren’t able to witness or know about these, only to put in vain when they enter the la tipso. They would be bare naked, literally, scrutinized by the people who manage the terrifying rituals that are supposedly for the well-being of their physical self. Man and women alike are made to believe in such ridiculousness that in all aspects a violation to human rights. They are being taken advantage of. Women are made to believe that having themselves been objectified is something of good nature and that it could be a means of living despite that at the same time pregnancy comes as a bad thing to them that they don’t even care about their offspring. With all that being said, I was suddenly amazed by the fact of how Nacirema is actually American spelled backwards and how their practices are precisely the same the only difference is with the words used to describe the situations from what is happening in the modern world. Like how placing heads in ovens could be just like how people have themselves tanned or how they have the so called listeners. The manipulation of those in the top of class hierarchy is observed and that’s really how it is in the present times where people are taken advantage of by hiding and blinding those of lower statures in life from the knowledge they have the right to possess. They are held back by unjust ignorance. These people have to succumb by the “norms” dictated by many that are in most conditions not the right kind of norm but are already considered what is right because many do practice such. Saying that the people in the essay are not civilized is not what I think proper since with only changing the used one will find out they are already too civilized in reality that morality is already ignored and taken for granted.