Body Ritual Among the Nacirema - Horace Miner

Increasing cultural relativism

- shows us how one of another culture might view American customs, reinforcing that our way is not necessarily the "right" way just because it is familiar. - to step back from our own culture and allow ourselves to ask "why" we do the things we do - to expose Americans' tendencies towards Ethnocentrism and judgement of other cultures

Shrines in homes

Bathrooms

latipso

Hopsital

Magical Potions

Medicine

Ethnocentrism

a tendency to use our own group's ways of doing things as a yardtick for judging others

Nacirema

is American spelled backward

Holy-mouth-man

is a dentist

Medicine man

is a doctor

Focal point of the shrine(box)

medicine cabinet

Cultural relativism

not judging a culture but trying to understand it on its own terms

Horace Miner's purpose with the piece

to increase cultural relativism