our teacher had us read about this "crazy tribe"
the class was community and culture
and we read about a culture that was poorly understood
- a lot of their day was spent in ritual activity
and the focus of the activity was the human body
the fundamental belief was the human body is ugly and its natural tendency to debility and disease. Their wealth was determined by how many shrines they possessed. There were a box of potions that were essential to living. These Nacirema also had an almost pathological horror of and fascination with the mouth.
They went to see a holy mouth man who tortured indiviudally on a annual basis- it was seen as an exorcisim of the evils of the mouth. Ceremonial feasts existed to make thin people fat and vice versa. Women baked their heads in ovens for hours at a time and these people were absurd-
all in all- he was talking about americans.
N A C I R E M A is American backwards
it was an eye opener on how as I was reading this I thought these people were odd- because I didnt understand the point in the things they did- It made me realize one cant be so quick to label something different as strange- just because I dont understand it.
