People of Nacerima: That Can't Be Normal, Right?

1) Low Self-Esteem

     The Nacerima tribe seems to be a society full of individuals with low self esteem. Miner believes that “the fundamental belief underlying the whole system appears to be that the human body is ugly,” to the Nacerimas. These individuals are born and raised to believe that they are not good enough with the way they look, so the only option is to fix it with potions and harsh body mutilating rituals. Miner also observed that the “Nacerima possessed this fascination with the mouth,” and that they feared that if they did not participate in these “rituals of the mouth, their lovers reject them.” Having such an obsession with such a small portion of the human body shows how little confident the Nacerima have, unless they go and perform these rituals of the mouth.

2) Complex

     The Nacerima, poses such complex rituals and goals. Miner observed that “the Nacerima like to collect many different charms and magical potions,” which they get from their “medicine men.” However, instead of receiving their potions directly, they must go through not only the medicine men, but travel and depart on a journey to a “herbalist,” with a scribe containing the cryptic potion, who will then translate and provide them with what they desperately seek. It also seems that to support their interesting daily rituals, complex processes are initiated. For example, “Nacerima have a Water Temple in every community where priests, through elaborate ceremonies, purify the water.” Water itself being one of the purest things on this planet, must be analyzed and further purified by special priests.

3) Brutal

     The rituals observed and presented by Minor, that the Nacerima are obsessed about, seem to be very brutal and sadistic. For example, there is one observation made that can put any person in a culture shock state; “women bake their heads in small ovens for about an hour.” Knowing that the human body can’t tolerate such heats produced by ovens, they still take the chance and “bake their heads” in one, an act that can be seen by any other culture as life threatening. There also seems to be brutality in the one thing the Nacerima seems obsessed with, the mouth. Minor reported that “individuals seek out holy-mouth-men who, with tools of the trade, gouge teeth and drill into them and make their gums bleed.” Present this observation to an outsider, and their instinct is to squarm.

4) Secretive

     From Minor’s observations one can conclude that the Nacerima people, as obsessed as they are performing these obscure rituals, they are just as obsessed with hiding the fact that they participate in them. For example, Minor observed that the Nacerima take part in daily rituals in shrines that they have built, but that “the rituals associated with it are not family ceremonies but are private and secret.” It only seems that there are a few exceptions to where the Nacerima people divulge into their experiences with these rituals. One of them is during the time when children of the Nacerima are at an age to discuss the rituals performed in these shrines. Another example when the Nacerima don’t hide in the shadows of their rituals, are those females who choose to go through such inhuman rituals and make their breasts larger, and go on “to be idolized by men, from village to village.” Other than those caveats, the Nacerima seems to withhold information from their community, such as when to be mothers dress in a certain way, to purposely hide the fact that they are pregnant.    

5) Lost

    The overall image of the people of Nacerima Minor has potrayed, seems to be a cultures composed of lost individuals who are born to go through these rituals so their society accepts them. Minor observed and noted that the purpose, of almost all the rituals performed, was to gain further access into their own culture, to be liked and accepted more. They go through brutal rituals, and yet they seem to partake in them year after year. The goal of the Nacerima is to better one’s body through these obscure rituals because they are not satisfied with the way it was in the beginning. They are lost in that, to be accepted into society one has to mutilate their body and suffer pain, if not though luck.