Sociological Concepts Horace Miner Used in “Body Ritual among the Nacerima”
In the article, “Body Ritual among the Nacirema,” author Horace Miner talks in detail about the culture of a North American clan, the Nacirema. Horace Miner seems to be particularly interested in the magical beliefs, practices, and rituals of the Nacirema clan. The “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” article shows many different examples of culture, cultural relativism, ethnocentrism, and qualitative research methodology. The sociological concept of culture is shown in nearly every paragraph of this article. Horace Miner clearly took a lot of time to learn as much about the Nacirema culture as he possibly could. Miner specifically talks about the Nacirema culture in paragraph 3. He mentions “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.” This statement makes it an example of culture because he talks about the particular value that the Nacirema place on ritual activity and how they devote so much of their lives to it. Ethnocentrism is lightly used in paragraph 12. Miner says “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 involved. If this can be established, a very interesting pattern emerges, for most of the population shows definite masochistic tendencies.” I believe this to be the sociological concept of ethnocentrism because what Miner may think is sadism, may just be a normal thing to the Nacirema. What seems to be masochistic tendencies to Miner, may just be the tedious job of the “Holy-mouth-man.” The man, as well as the Nacirema clan, could be so used to these practices that they may not even give it a second thought, but to Miner, it is uncommon, so he’s going to put a different label on