ABSTRACT
In a now-clichéd article in American Anthropologist, Horace Miner introduces his readers to the strange rituals of a tribe he identifies only as the Nacirema (Miner 1956). He focuses most of his attention on their bodily rituals, particularly their preoccupation with rituals of cleanliness and the body, and describes these people with a sense of wonderment, like the true “outsider” anthropologist, exposing a fascinating system of practices that seems both exotic and yet strangely familiar. Of course, the mystery of the identity of these people lasts only as long as the reader is unable to recognize words written backward and, like many exercises designed to make a point, Miner’s piece has proved to be a “one-gag bit”—once you know the Nacirema are in fact Americans, the anthropological point is made, and Miner ends his article quickly and mercifully. But even after 50 years, Miner’s short article continues to have a value to
the study of American1 culture. On one level, it is a reminder that Americans do participate in rituals, like other cultures do, but that we rarely examine ourselves. By maintaining this apparent inability to find ritualized patterns in our own behavior, we all too often assume that rituals are activities only of nonindustrialized, unenlightened “others.” And yet, while Miner’s lesson was probably a healthy corrective for some early anthropologists, by now the literature examining our own culture is so voluminous as to be overwhelming. Anthropological studies of American culture have taken Miner’s jest seriously, and have provided us with ample discussions of our own ritualized behavior.
