Body Ritual Among the Nacirema, Origin of Species and the Nova Film on Intelligent Design (Coursework Sample)

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Body Ritual among the Nacirema, Origin of species and the Nova film on Intelligent Design
According to Miner, the Nacirema is a group from North America which lives in the territory that is between the Arawak from Antelles and the Carib, The Tarahumare of Mexico, the Canadian Cree, and the Yaqui. According to the traditions, they come from the east and their culture is very poorly understood. The mythology of the Nacirema indicates that the origin of their nation was a culture hero known as Notgnihsaw who is known mostly because of two great feats of strength including cutting down the cherry tree where the truth spirit resided and threw across the Pa-To-Mac river a wampum piece.
The Nacirema are identified by some things one being their culture. Nacirema’s culture is characterized by a market economy which is highly developed and has a rich natural habitat which has evolved over time. The group’s activity is mostly centered on ritual a activity which mainly focuses on the human body, health, and appearance. Each family has at least one shrine where private ritual practices are practiced, e.g., averting the human body off its ugly nature and the disease and inability natural tendency (Body Ritual among the Nacirema Horace Miner American Anthropologist, 506). The medicine men decide ingredients to be used by their clients and write them down in a secretive and ancient language which is only understood by him and the herbalist who gives the charm required. After using the charm, it's not disposed of; rather it's stored in a charm-box inside the shrine of the household. Each household member daily bows his head before the charm-box then mingles various types of holy water in front then continues with a brief ablution rite.
They also perform mouth rituals to prevent their teeth from falling out, jaws from shrinking, friends from deserting them, etc. This ritual involves insertion of a small bundle of hog hair into the mouth then moving it along with certain magical powders in a series of gestures that are highly formalized.
Apart from the mouth rituals, the Nacirema are identified by the holy mouth men who use exorcism objects like awls and prods to enlarge any holes that decay may have created in the teeth. They then put magical materials in the holes. Women’s exclusive rights involve baking their heads in small ovens for almost an hour (Body Ritual among the Nacirema Horace Miner American Anthropologist, 505). During lalipso ceremonies for the very ill clients, when the customer enters the Lalipso temple, he is stripped off his clothes and body secrecy is performed. The excreta is used by diviners to discover the nature of clients illness.
I think Miner described the Nacirema this way because of the daily ceremonies like the holy-mouth-men rights entail torture and discomfort but still the people still went through these rights. Also, the temple ceremonies might not have been curative, and they sometimes killed the neophyte, this did not decrease the faith of the people in the medicine men in any way. Personality structure of these people needs careful inquiry; since it’s extreme. One has to be keen on the gleam in the holy mouth man's eye when he takes an awl into a nerve which is already exposed this shows some sadism involved (Body Ritual among the Nacirema Horace Miner American Anthropologist, 504) . Miner establishes an interesting pattern of definite masochistic tendencies among the Nacirema.
Charles Darwin wasn't the first person to claim that organisms evolve (Darwin and Burrow, 516). This is because Jean-Baptiste Lamarck formed the first entirely evolution theory.
Lamarck explained evolution through inheritance of acquired characteristics. If an organism during its life changes so as to adapt to its environment, those changes that the organism undergoes are passed to its offspring (Hutton and Frederick, 211). This means that an organism can pass on the characteristics t has acquired through its lifetime to its offspring. In his concept of use versus deuse, he theorized that individuals lose those features that they do not use and develop useful characteristics. These acquired characteristics could be inherited e.g. the idea of giraffes stretching their necks to reach high leaves of trees, the offspring of these giraffes will have necks that are slightly longer.
Darwin’s theory of natural selection is different from Lamarckism states that favorable variations are usually preserved, and the injurious variations rejected (Darwin and Burrow, 510).Those variations that are neither helpful nor injurious are not affected by natural selection.e.g. a wolf preys on many animals; it secures t...