Body Ritual Among the Nacirema
from American Anthropologist , 1956, 58(3), 503-507
Body Ritual among the Nacirema
THE anthropologist has become so familiar with the diversity of ways in
which different peoples behave in similar situations that he is not apt to
be surprised by even the most exotic customs. In fact, if all of the logically
possible combinations of behavior have not been found somewhere in the
world, he is apt to suspect that they must be present in some yet undescribed
tribe. This point has, in fact, been expressed with respect to clan organization
by Murdock (1949:71). In this light, the magical beliefs and practices of the
Nacirema present such unusual aspects that it seems desirable to describe
them as an example of the extremes to which human behavior can go.
Professor Linton first brought the ritual of the Nacirema to the attention
of anthropologists twenty years ago (1936:326), but the culture of this people
is still very poorly understood. They are a North American group living in the
territory between the Canadian Cree, the Yaqui and Tarahumare of Mexico,
and the Carib and Arawak of the Antilles. Little is known of their origin, al-
though tradition states that they came from the east. According to Nacirema
mythology, their nation was originated by a culture hero, Notgnihsaw, who is
otherwise known for two great feats of strength-the throwing of a piece of
wampum across the river Pa-To-Mac and the chopping down of a cherry tree
in which the Spirit of Truth resided.
Nacirema culture is characterized by a highly developed market economy
which has evolved in a rich natural habitat. While much of the people's time
is devoted to economic pursuits, a large part of the fruits of these labors and a
considerable portion of the day are spent in ritual activity. The focus of this
activity is the human body, the appearance and health of which loom as a
dominant concern in the ethos of the people. While such a concern is certainly
not unusual, its ceremonial aspects and associated philosophy are unique.
The fundamental belief underlying the whole system appears to be that the
human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease.
Incarcerated in such a body, man's only hope is to avert these characteristics
through the use of the powerful influences of ritual and ceremony. Every house-
hold has one or more shrines devoted to this purpose. The more powerful in-
dividuals in the society have several shrines in their houses and, in fact, the
opulence of a house is often referred to in terms of the number of such ritual
centers it possesses. Most houses are of wattle and daub construction, but the
shrine rooms of the more wealthy are walled with stone. Poorer families imitate
the rich by applying pottery plaques to their shrine walls.
While each family has at least one such shrine, the rituals associated with it
are not family ceremonies but are private and secret. The rites are normally
only discussed with children, and then only during the period when they are
being initiated into these mysteries. I was able, however, to establish sufficient
504 American Anthropologist [58, 1956
rapport with the natives to examine these shrines and to have the rituals de-
The focal point of the shrine is a box or chest which is built into the wall.
In this chest are kept the many charms and magical potions without which
no native believes he could live. These preparations are secured from a variety
of specialized practitioners. The most powerful of these are the medicine men,
whose assistance must be rewarded with substantial gifts. However, the medi-
cine men do not provide the curative potions for their clients, but decide what
the ingredients should be and then write them down in an ancient and secret
language. This writing is understood only by the medicine men and by the
herbalists who, for another gift, provide the required charm.
The charm is not disposed of after it has served its purpose, but is placed in
the charm-box of the household shrine. 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. The magical packets are so numerous
that people forget what their purposes were and fear to use them again. While
the natives are very vague on this point, we can only assume that the idea in
retaining all the old magical materials is that their presence in the charm-box,
before which the body rituals are conducted, will in some way protect the
worshipper. Beneath the charm-box is a small font. 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. The holy waters are secured from the Water Temple
of the community, where the priests conduct elaborate ceremonies to make the
In the hierarchy of magical practitioners, and below the medicine men in
prestige, are specialists whose designation is best translated "holy-mouth-
men." The Nacirema have an almost pathological horror of and fascination
with the mouth, the condition of which is believed to have a supernatural in-
fluence on all social relationships. Were it not for the rituals of the mouth,
they believe that their teeth would fall out, their gums bleed, their jaws shrink,
their friends desert them, and their lovers reject them. They also believe that a
strong relationship exists between oral and moral characteristics. For example,
there is a ritual ablution of the mouth for children which is supposed to im-
The daily body ritual performed by everyone includes a mouth-rite. De-
spite the fact that these people are so punctilious about care of the mouth, this
rite involves a practice which strikes the uninitiated stranger as revolting. It
was reported to me that the ritual consists of inserting a small bundle of hog
hairs into the mouth, along with certain magical powders, and then moving the
bundle in a highly formalized series of gestures.
In addition to the private mouth-rite, the people seek out a holy-mouth-
man once or twice a year. These practitioners have an impressive set of para-
phernalia, consisting of a variety of augers, awls, probes, and prods. The use of
MINER] Nacirema Ritual 505
these objects in the exorcism of the evils of the mouth involves almost unbe-
lievable ritual torture of the client. The holy-mouth-man opens the client's
mouth and, using the above mentioned tools, enlarges any holes which decay
may have created in the teeth. Magical materials are put into these holes. If
there are no naturally occurring holes in the teeth, large sections of one or more
teeth are gouged out so that the supernatural substance can be applied. In
the client's view, the purpose of these ministrations is to arrest decay and to
draw friends. The extremely sacred and traditional character of the rite is
evident in the fact that the natives return to the holy-mouth-men year after
year, despite the fact that their teeth continue to decay.
It is to be hoped that, when a thorough study of the Nacirema is made,
there will be careful inquiry into the personality structure of these people.
One has but to watch the gleam in the eye of a holy-mouth-man, as he jabs an
awl into an exposed nerve, to suspect that a certain amount of sadism is in-
volved. If this can be established, a very interesting pattern emerges, for most
of the population shows definite masochistic tendencies. It was to these that
Professor Linton referred in discussing a distinctive part of the daily body rit-
ual which is performed only by men. This part of the rite involves scraping
and lacerating the surface of the face with a sharp instrument. Special wo-
men's rites are performed only four times during each lunar month, but what
they lack in frequency is made up in barbarity. As part of this ceremony,
women bake their heads in small ovens for about an hour. The theoretically
interesting point is that what seems to be a preponderantly masochistic people
have developed sadistic specialists.
The medicine men have an imposing temple, or lati pso, in every community
of any size. The more elaborate ceremonies required to treat very sick patients
can only be performed at this temple. These ceremonies involve not only the
thaumaturge but a permanent group of vestal maidens who move sedately
about the temple chambers in distinctive costume and headdress.
The latipso ceremonies are so harsh that it is phenomenal that a fair pro-
portion of the really sick natives who enter the temple ever recover. Small
children whose indoctrination is still incomplete have been known to resist
attempts to take them to the temple because "that is where you go to die."
Despite this fact, sick adults are not only willing but eager to undergo the
protracted ritual purification, if they can afford to do so. No matter how ill
the supplicant or how grave the emergency, the guardians of many temples
will not admit a client if he cannot give a rich gift to the custodian. Even after
one has gained admission and survived the ceremonies, the guardians will not
permit the neophyte to leave until he makes still another gift.
The supplicant entering the temple is first stripped of all his or her clothes.
In every-day life the Nacirema avoids exposure of his body and its natural
functions. Bathing and excretory acts are performed only in the secrecy of the
household shrine, where they are ritualized as part of the body-rites. Psycho-
logical shock results from the fact that body secrecy is suddenly lost upon
entry into the latipso. A man, whose own wife has never seen him in an excre-
506 American Anthropologist (58, 1956
tory act, suddenly finds himself naked and assisted by a vestal maiden while
he performs his natural functions into a sacred vessel. This sort of ceremonial
treatment is necessitated by the fact that the excreta are used by a diviner to
ascertain the course and nature of the client's sickness. Female clients, on the
other hand, find their naked bodies are subjected to the scrutiny, manipulation
and prodding of the medicine men.
Few supplicants in the temple are well enough to do anything but lie on
their hard beds. The daily ceremonies, like the rites of the holy-mouth-men,
involve discomfort and torture. With ritual precision, the vestals awaken their
miserable charges each dawn and roll them about on their beds of pain while
performing ablutions, in the formal movements of which the maidens are
highly trained. At other times they insert magic wands in the supplicant's
mouth or force him to eat substances which are supposed to be healing. From
time to time the medicine men come to their clients and jab magically treated
needles into their flesh. 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
There remains one other kind of practitioner, known as a "listener." This
witch-doctor has the power to exorcise the devils that lodge in the heads of
people who have been bewitched. The Nacirema believe that parents bewitch
their own children. Mothers are particularly suspected of putting a curse on
children while teaching them the secret body rituals. The counter-magic of the
witch-doctor is unusual in its lack of ritual. The patient simply tells the "lis-
tener" all his troubles and fears, beginning with the earliest difficulties he can
remember. The memory displayed by the Nacirema in these exorcism sessions
is truly remarkable. It is not uncommon for the patient to bemoan the rejec-
tion he felt upon being weaned as a babe, and a few individuals even see their
troubles going back to the traumatic effects of their own birth.
In conclusion, mention must be made of certain practices which have their
base in native esthetics but which depend upon the pervasive aversion to the
natural body and its functions. There are ritual fasts 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.
General dissatisfaction with breast shape is symbolized in the fact that the
ideal form is virtually outside the range of human variation. A few women
aflicted with almost inhuman hypermammary development are so idolized
that they make a handsome living by simply going from village to village and
permitting the natives to stare at them for a fee.
Reference has already been made to the fact that excretory functions are
ritualized, routinized, and relegated to secrecy. Natural reproductive functions
are similarly distorted. Intercourse is taboo as a topic and scheduled as an act.
Efforts are made to avoid pregnancy by the use of magical materials or by
limiting intercourse to certain phases of the moon. Conception is actually very
infrequent. When pregnant, women dress so as to hide their condition. Parturi-
MINER] Nacirema Ritual 507
tion takes place in secret, without friends or relatives to assist, and the majority
of women do not nurse their infants.
Our review of the ritual life of the Nacirema has certainly shown them to be
a magic-ridden people. It is hard to understand how they have managed to
exist so long under the burdens which they have imposed upon themselves. But
even such exotic customs as these take on real meaning when they are viewed
with the insight provided by Malinowski when he wrote (1948:70):
Looking from far and above, from our high places of safety in the developed civiliza-
tion, it is easy to see all the crudity and irrelevance of magic. But without its power
and guidance early man could not have mastered his practical difficulties as he has
done, nor could man have advanced to the higher stages of civilization.
1936 The Study of Man. New York, D. Appleton-Century Co.
1948 Magic, Science, and Religion. Glencoe, The Free Press.
1949 Social Structure. New York, The Macmill
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