Socio-cultural anthropologist Horace Miner studied and wrote about a North American group that practiced body rituals the modern-day person would view as strange and different, as their religion is based on magic and organized by witch doctors in a hierarchal caste system. Although “Nacirema” is “American” spelled backwards and could theoretically refer to the Nacirema as a backward people, Miner does not explain how and where the name originated. In his thesis he refers to the Nacirema people “as an example of the extremes to which human behaviour can go” (1956: 503). This example is laid out in the article by describing the practices of “holy-mouth-men,” the “latipso,” and the “listener.” As it is for many, it’s all about beauty and health, and this is definitely the focal point for the Nacirema in all of their rituals and ceremonies. Personally, I believe their thoughts on beauty and health consumes them, considering that the Nacirema have proven to go to great extents and is seen as barbaric, “[t]he fundamental belief […] that the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease” (1956: 503). They would practice rituals and ceremonies that are believed to work because of magic and faith in the practice and of the medicine men, shown in the examples below. An offshoot of their obsession with beauty and health is their preoccupation with their own mouths! They have medicine men they call “holy-mouth-men” (1956: 504). Compared to our modern culture, you can say they are the dentists for the Nacirema. They would go to such extents as to stuff and enlarge their teeth cavities in the belief that this would welcome friends; and if there were no holes, they would make them (1956: 505). If they did not do this, “they believed that their teeth would fall out, their gums bleed, their jaws shrink, their friends desert them, and their lovers reject them” (1956: 504). Although the process must have been excruciatingly painful, they believed in the magic and held their faith in their medicine men like we do in our dentists. Other examples of what most cultures would view as self-mutilation noted that a man’s “rite involves scraping and lacerating the surface of the face with a sharp instrument.” As a part of a ceremony for women, they would “bake their heads in small ovens for about an hour” (1956: 505). However, Miner never explains why they do this to themselves. I also must ask whether such practices are really conducted willingly. As Miner mentioned, these rituals and ceremonies were very private and secret. Were they being pressured or forced? Did everyone gladly perform these seemingly barbaric actions? What is mentioned to be even harsher, is the medicine men’s “imposing temple, or latipso,” which is the people’s hospital, again spelt backwards but without the ‘h,’ and to go there it is told, “that is where you go to die” (1956: 505). If people were sick, had the money or a gift and were desperate enough, they would go to this temple. The Nacirema people are normally very covered up, but once they enter the temple they are “stripped of all his or her clothes […] Psychological shock results from the fact that body secrecy is suddenly lost upon entry into the latipso” (1956: 505). There is also the question of whether women were raped in the latipso. Consider the context of manipulation and prodding when Miner writes, “Female clients, on the other hand, find their naked bodies are subjected to the scrutiny, manipulation and prodding of the medicine men” (1956: 506). Another witch doctor, the “listener,” is an exorcist for the mind. In other words, he is their psychologist. But during these sessions, the Nacirema actually claim such experiences as “their troubles going back to the traumatic effects of their own birth” (1956: 506). The people even “believe that parents bewitch their own children. Mothers are particularly suspected of putting a curse on children while teaching them the secret body rituals” (1956: 506). Miner also mentions that some women with larger breasts are “afflicted with almost inhuman hypermammary development,” as if having larger breasts is unnatural—the word “afflicted” suggesting that they are cursed. And these, assumingly, unfortunate women cursed with large breasts are “lucky” enough to degrade themselves by making “a handsome living by simply going from village to village and permitting the natives to stare at them for a fee” (1956: 506). This involves just looking, mind you, not touching, manipulating or prodding by men, as they would be from the medicine men at the top of their hierarchal caste system. I believe Miner was implying that from these extreme human behaviours and belief in magic underlie a true human meaning that we can understand, and without meaning we would not be able to advance. Miner quotes Bronislaw Malinowski at the very end of the article, noting, “But without its [its being magic] 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” (1956: 507). French philosopher Michel Faucault said the human body is like a “political anatomy” and people’s bodies are controlled by others and we, our bodies are or produce “docile bodies” (Robbins et al., 2014: 2). Similarly, the witch doctors control the bodies of the Nacirema, and the Nacirema are willing and submissive participants. If culture is socially constructed, then whose idea was it to start these barbaric acts and who started to follow and why did people continue to follow? Who and why in their right mind would anyone think what they were doing was good? History is filled with tons of examples, though, of bizarre or barbaric rituals, including human sacrifices and cannibalism among other things rooted from different meanings. Miner was ethnocentric in his article and in relation to class discussions, are they being unfairly judged of their customs by North American culture norms? Or is this correctly identifying abuse among the Nacirema people, such as the virginity testing in Turkey and cannibalism among the Wari’? Quoting Elizabeth Zechenter, “One simply cannot avoid making judgements when faced with oppression and brutality masquerading under the guise of cultural tradition. Such a nonjudgmental tolerance of brutality is actually an ultimate form of ethnocentrism if not an outright ethical surrender” (Robbins et al., 2014: 24). What I personally found significant about the culture of the Nacirema, again as Miner quoted from Malinowski, coming from “safety in developed civilization, it is easy to see all the crudity and irrelevance of magic,” but without it we could not “have advanced to the higher stages of civilization” (1956: 507). What I found significant about the culture to the Nacirema would be their pursuit—at any cost—of what they deemed beauty and health. In terms of their rituals and ceremonies, they would do almost anything in this pursuit. And in many respects, it seems only humanistic to think this way.