Nacerima

I would describe the Nacerima people as faithful, ritualistic, secretive, superstitious, and self conscious.

Faithful. The Nacerima have such faith in the medicine man and the temple that they would risk their life and their treasures just to be cured by the medicine man in the temple. In order for one to enter the temple one must provide a worthy gift, and if one manages to live through the harsh conditions that the medicine man makes him go through he will still have to provide another worthy gift to exit. Miner writes, "The fact that these temple ceremonies may not cure, and may even kill the neophyte, in no way decreases the people's faith in the medicine men." These people rarely see people leave the temple alive but they still put their faith in a temple that they believe can cure them. They sacrifice their lives and their possessions to prove their blind faith.

Ritualistic. Nacerima people have rituals that they keep secret. They do these rituals privately within their own home and it is for the whole family to do, Miner describes it as follows, "Each day every member of the family, in succession, enters the shrine room, bows his head before the charm-box, mingles different sorts of holy water in the font, and proceeds with a brief rite of ablution." In reading this article it is easy to point out the many different rituals that they have but this sentence show the devotion that they have for their shrine on a day to day bases.

Secretive. There were many examples to pull from Miner's article to show how the Nacerima people are secretive. They are very private people that keep their shrines to worship within their own homes. There are usually enough shrines within the house so each member of the family can have their own shrine to worship alone, Miner writes, "While each family has at least one such shrine, the rituals associated with it are not family ceremonies but are private and secret." These rituals are not discussed at all within families, the only time they are discussed is "with children, and then only during the period when they are being initiated into these mysteries." Once you have been taught the ritual it is never discussed again. Even though the Nacerima people are secretive, they did share a little piece of their mystery with Miner, he was allowed "to examine these shrines and to have the rituals described to me." Though Miner only saw a small glimpse into the private rituals of the Nacerima, there are plenty more secrets to uncover.

Superstitious. When reading about the Nacerima I could see that they are very superstitious people who believe in magic, potions, charms, and medicine men. Even once they receive a magic potion or charm from the medicine man and it has played out its worth, they will still keep it within their shrine box, Miner describes it "As these magical materials are specific for certain ills, and the real or imagined maladies of the people are many, the charm-box is usually full to overflowing." Within this shrine box there could be potions that have been there years. There could be so many that the family wouldn't even know what it was originally for. At that point what is the point in keeping it, maybe because they feel it is still helping prevent that illness from coming back to their family.

Self conscious. Though it seems that there are a few of the Nacerima women that actually show off their bodies and "make a handsome living by simply going from village to village and permitting the natives to stare at them for a fee," most of the Nacerima continue their mysteriousness with their bodies, maybe it is because of their "belief underlying the whole system appears to be that the human body is ugly." Men hide their bodies from even their own wives. The women cover up and hide their bellies if they are pregnant. But just like most societies there is an ideal image and it is nice to see that there is something that our society here can relate to which is body image. Though the Nacerima seem shy and cover their bodies they also have rituals "to make fat people thin and ceremonial feasts to make thin people fat. Still other rites are used to make women's breasts larger if they are small, and smaller if they are large." Maybe the Nacerima people want to reach this ideal body image and be more like the women that make money by having people stare at them for a living. Or maybe they want to feel more positively about their bodies and the only way is to make themselves look perfect in their eyes.


Part B

1.) I think that the 5 descriptive words works well for describing Americans. I think the word that is the best descriptive is self conscious. Body image is very important to Americans, I even mentioned how this is just like our culture so this is something that the Nacerima are similar to Americans. the next descriptive word is ritualistic, most Americans come home sit on their couch and watch TV. It might not be ritualistic like kneeling by the foot of the bed before bed each night, however it is still a ritualistic behavior. I think that most Americans can be considered faithful, but not in a blinding trust in a religious way. Americans are so stuck in their ways with TV that I could see someone outside of the American culture mistaking TV to be our God. Even though Americans are outspoken we are very secretive. We live so close to one another, but we do not want anyone to interfere with our life. We keep to ourselves and mind our own business except for those that are famous, we do not allow them to have the same privacy. I think that superstitious is the one word that least describes Americans, but it can still describe some Americans, but I think as a whole this is not the best way to describe an American.

2 & 3.) I can only see 2 of the words I used as having ethnocentrism even thought I tried to read the article with and open mind and not judge. I did however find myself thinking that this culture of Nacerimas are crazy. Once I read that this was about Americans I could not wait to go back to the article and re-read it. Once I started to read it again I could see how an 'outsider' could take what we do and write about it in such a way to make it seem like we are some villagers out in the middle of nowhere that has not been truly discovered. the two words with any kind of judgment attached is self conscious and secretive. I feel like those words are just generally have a negative connotation, and if I were to use it to describe my own American culture it wouldn't be bias or judgmental, but since it is being used to describe the Namericas it is ethnocentric. Using the word self conscious seems to have a negative connotation as if the Namericans are insecure, but I can not find a more open minded word besides self aware of physical appearence. Instead of  using the word secretive a better word would be private. The Nacericma people live a private life only allowing those they trust to witness their shrines and explain their ritualistic behavior.

4.) This lesson on how easy it is for one to see things so one sided has got me thinking.  I feel like I am a very open mined person and it was so easy for me to pass judgment on the Nacerima people based off of my own culture. I feel that the shallowness of my own culture is causing such a bias opinion on the Nacerima people because that is apart of my culture I like the least and I feel like that is the strongest similarity between the two cultures. Even knowing that I am being bias I cannot find a better way of looking at both cultures. this shows me how hard it really is to be an anthropologist. Not only do you have to have a great understanding of your own culture and how you feel about it personally, but you have to keep putting yourself in check and analyzing every thought and feeling when learning about another culture. In comparing my culture with the Nacerima I can find similarities and differences, but seeing the similarities and differences can bring how I feel about my own culture into how I feel about this new culture I am trying to learn about. This is already starting me off on either a negative or positive attitude towards the culture. This can greatly impact how I would describe the culture to another person or how I would write about the culture. This can be a bad thing because my bias opinion can greatly influence the reader or listener and they might react the same way based on my bias statements. Honestly I do not think that any one person could perfectly look into a culture and be 100% non bias or judgmental. I think that this is something you can train for and improve upon over time, but never be 100% all the time. I think that some people may be better at it from the start and wouldn't have to work as hard as someone else that might be more judgmental, but people are judgmental by nature and we will always compare to what we know because that is how we were raised. I am curious to know that over the years, after studying multiple cultures or just living in a different culture for so long, if you stop comparing to your own personal culture you were raised in or if you start comparing to all the other cultures you have studied or compare to the one new culture you live in. Or through all the knowledge gathered over time your mind evolves into an open minded, accepting brain that stops comparing. Either way Anthropologist have a great duty to inform the world of the different culture around the world and if they describe the culture with any bias opinions then they can be negatively or positively impacting the world with their bias opinions and not allowing the world to come to their own conclusion.