As a student at the University of Ottawa in the Criminology/Psychology program, I decided to take sociology as an elective. In this course, we spent the majority of the semester learning about the ways our society interacts with others. The other part of this course, we spent learning about the Nacirema tribe. This is a tribe that I have taken great interest in and I thought it would be very interesting to share with the Steemit Community! Throughout this blog post, you will begin to understand why! Do YOU know what the Nacirema tribe is?
Source: http://tndudtndudtndud.blogspot.ca/2012/11/body-ritual-among-nacirema.html
The Nacirema tribe was founded as late as 1956 by anthropologist Horace Miner. This anthropologists along with others took a strong interest and began to do their research. This tribe was found living in North America and they originated through a leader known as "Notginhsaw". He was known as their cultural hero; he played a huge impact on this society. Now that we know the very basic history of this tribe, lets understand their rituals and practices.
This is a very odd tribe. Their behaviours, rights, practices and rituals may appear sickening and upsetting. One practice in which is very common in this society is the practice with their teeth, which they called "mouth rights". Horace Miner, as studying this tribe, described these rights as pathological horror and fascinations with the mouth. Their practices involves individuals putting sticks of hog hair in their mouths along with magical powders multiple times daily. They believe that their mouths are the foundation of their social interactions. These individuals also visit "holy mouth-men" two or three times a year to have their mouths tortured and cleaned of evil with large sharp painful instruments. This is just one example of the practices in which they take part in, other sickening practices include sticking their heads in ovens, jabbing sharp needles of treatments into their flesh and more.
Take a moment and think about this tribe. What is the Nacirema tribe? Why haven't we really heard of them??
The truth behind this tribe is that we interact with this tribe everyday, in fact we are this tribe. The word Nacirema came from American, spelt backwards. And the cultural hero, Notginhsaw, is Washington spelt backwards. We are the Nacirema Tribe. The stick of hog fur we put in our mouth daily is our toothbrush and toothpaste, the "holy-mouth men" we know as dentists. We put our heads in "ovens" when we go to the salon, we get needles to prevent illnesses and to treat other diseases.
(https://iwellnesslife.com/people-group-smiling/)
Now why would Horace Miner create such a "tribe"? The reason as to why this was created is because it shows people that we cannot judge and put down "tribes" for their differences. Many tribes and societies are much like our own, they have their own economy, they have social norms and rights and their rituals and practices. Although they seem to be very different from our own, as we thought, they are just like us. They are people. Culture is a beautiful thing and we all need to appreciate the differences in each and every tribe/society in the world, because overall, they are people just like us.
Thanks for reading!
- Emily Paquette