Uncovering the Mystery of the Nacerima People

Secretive- The Nacerima people have many hidden traditions that they don’t even share with their families. The only time their certain rituals are even discussed are still in secret but are talked about with the children so they can learn how to do their own rituals privately. There is so much secretiveness even about the human body; women and men do not even see each other’s body parts. Sex has to be scheduled and is kept to a minimum and when women are pregnant that have to hide the fact that they are carrying a child. Most of their rituals are magic based and they even keep a secret box or chest with little charms for their rituals. They have a temple which they send their sick to but know body really knows what the medicine men do in the temple to heal the sick that enter it. They only know that many people don’t survive the poking and prodding.

Uneducated- The Nacerima have been practicing the same rituals for hundreds of years and they haven’t advanced from when they first started as a civilization. They still have the same holy-mouth-men that do horrible, painful operations to their mouths after all of these years. They let the holy mouth men make your teeth rot. They also practice magic with voodoo dolls. Nothing seem to ever be discussed therefore nothing can really ever advance in society. They seem to stand stagnate in their culture because of their everyday rituals which take up most of their day, they also have population control because many don’t want to procreate because they believe the human body is so disgusting.

Untrustworthy- It seems that no one in the Nacerima culture trust one another. The text states that some of the children have to visit the “listener” to rid themselves of demons that they might have collected when their mothers started to teach them about how they will conduct their own rituals. The people of this culture even think that certain mothers bewitch their own children when they are teaching them about the secret body ritual. There seems to be know trust between the men and women of this culture and there are seems to be a lot of rejection. Mothers aren’t even allowed to show they are pregnant and most of them don’t breast feed their children as well because it is looked down upon.

Persistent- It seems to me that the Nacerima people are very persistent. They always go back to the holy mouth men a few times a year even after the grueling pain and rotting of the teeth. They also stick to their daily schedule of the worshiping of their shire in the privacy of their own home. These people have a very strict lifestyle and keep carrying on the traditions with their children. They have a few very important members of their society that they always look upon: the first is the holy mouth man, the listener and the medicine man. The people rely on these few members to help them through their everyday life. They also send their sick to a temple but only if they can afford it to be tortured, poked and prodded because they think it will heal their sick. Many people that enter the temple do die, most call it the temple of death, but many people still want to go into the temple.

Fascinating- The people of Nacerima are very fascinating to me. They do the same rituals everyday and have continued to do them for many years. I find it very unusual that they husband and wives are even so secretive with each other and that mothers seem like they abandon their own children once they are born.  Family doesn’t seem to be a very important part of their culture. I also can’t believe they put themselves through so many painful rituals just for the acceptance, I guess you wouldn’t know any different if you were brought up in such a culture. They also focus a lot on magic and hope for healing and rejuvenation for their medicine men. It’s amazing that they are so not accepting of the human body and try extremely hard to hide it rather than learn from it and accept it. Fascinating is the perfect word to descried this culture because they are so different form my own.

Part B

As an American, how do you feel about your choice of descriptive words in Part A? 

I think that almost all of my words pretty much describe American people as well. The only word that I would say doesn’t fit the all American as a whole would be uneducated. I think there are many educated Americans but there are defiantly more uneducated people in America today.  After I read the article and wrote my first blog I researched about the Nacerima people and saw that it was actually a joke about the American people today.

Do any of your choices exhibit ethnocentrism on your part?  In other words, do any of your descriptive words reveal a judgment of the Nacerima rooted in your own cultural bias?  Are any of your words free of bias? 

I think I did judge the culture strictly off of their rituals and beliefs. Everyone is bias in one way or another, every time anyone has an opinion it is bias. I think that saying that the Nacerima people are uneducated, untrustworthy and persistent is judgmental. I also think a lot of the words I chose have to do with the way I was raised and with the American people today. The only word that I think that is free of being bias is fascinating because when I described this word I stated facts and not just opinions.

For any of the words that are biased, can you provide alternate words that are free of bias but communicate the same explanatory information and intent of your original word?

I think that the word secretive is a little bias and I think it could be changed to reserved instead because that is less judgmental.  The Nacerima are people who don’t like to share much with others and keep things to themselves. They are more reserved about their body parts and don’t like to share them with others. I also think that I could change the word uneducated to misunderstand. Not every culture has as many opportunities to be educated and learn about the world like we can. Just because people are different doesn’t mean there way is wrong.

From this experience, reflect on the importance of avoiding ethnocentric judgments when describing other cultures.  Why is it important to describe another culture in a manner as free from personal cultural bias as possible?  Do you think it is possible to completely avoid personal cultural bias as a Cultural Anthropologist?

I think it is important to be able to step outside of your own personal feelings and experiences in order to really understand and learn from other cultures. There are so many different cultures from our own and in order to even try and understand why different cultures conduct different rituals we have to be open.  I don’t think it is totally possible to not include some cultural bias because everyone has judgments about everything even if they don’t know they are even being judgmental, but it is important to try.