Personal Care

Rectangular Box

The Nacirema believe that the human body must always be extremely clean. They have a cleansing ritual daily that involves holy cleansing material and liquid, water from the water temple, and enclosing themselfs a rectangular box.

The ritual begins by a Nacirema enclosing them in a rectangular or square box. The ingredients are already prepped inside. They begin by activating a hole in the wall that attacks them with holy water from the water temple. Then the first ingredient for the ritual is to cover themselves with holy material that could be liquid or solid and let the holy water also cover them. They then repeat this process only confined to the head. Once they release themself from the ritual space they finish the ritual by rubbing their entire body with a rough blanket. They believe that if you do not perform this ritual you will no longer be cleansed. You will be dirty and everyone will stay away from you.

That is just one of the rituals the Nacirema perform. They believe that the body must stay cleansed and to do that they have to perform this ritual daily. It is surprising how the nacirema have survived this long with this ritual.

~ Oliver F.

Colorful Shapes

The Nacirema do many unusual things to protect themselves from harm. They are fearful they’ll pass away from malnutrition, so they fill their internal bodies with colorful shapes from the ground and sky.

The Nacirema sometimes eat together, so I was lucky to be invited to join in this ritual with them. As The Nacirema awaken from their deep slumber, they go into a room in their living spaces that is designated to making delightful cuisines. The take out a handcrafted round piece of ceramic, and grab a hard shiny flattened stick with a large rounded piece attached to the end. Some take a thick cows milk cultured with live bacteria, and a mix of plants and natures candy, and put them together to get a delectable sustenance. The Nacirema also have an icy chest filled with the nourishments they’ve saved from previous Earth rotations. Later, as the sun is overhead, they return to the cuisine room to behold more nutritional delicacies. At this time of day, lots of The Nacirema go into their ice chests and pull out the nourishments from previous Earth rotations. They take an assortment of different cuisines from the ice chest, and place them on a flattened ceramic surface to ingest at a timber surface. Then, they then sit upon flat timber that has been molded to fit the shape of them. As they sit, they use flattened shiny sticks with different shapes of shiny material on the ends of the sticks, to scoop up the nourishments. When they are finished, they bring the ceramic pieces and shiny materials over to this amazing machine that sprays a light blue liquid over all them. It takes a lot of ticks for the machine to be complete, but once it’s done you can start these rituals over again!

As I’ve studied The Nacirema for a while now, it is clear to me that they are very fearful of what may come if they don’t follow these special rituals multiple times an Earth rotation.

~ Talia M.

Scalp Fur

The Nacirema is a group of people southern of Canada. The Nacirema believe cleansing and the appearance of a person’s scalp fur is crucial to Nacirema culture.

The Nacirema have a special chamber in the house with reflective glass that they use to look upon themselves while they do their special ritual. The Nacirema use a special tool, and the word is best translated to, “Like porcupine spikes.” They rip it through their scalp fur every day, tearing some scalp fur out. Sometimes, if they want to use precision, they use what they call, “deknotting teeth” to make sure they have super untangled scalp fur, and so they don’t have an animal’s nest in their scalp fur the next day. After deknotting their scalp fur, they knot it back up with exotic bendy rings of many colors. When the rings are knotted into the scalp fur, they may use one ring, two rings, as many as desired on the particular day.

The Nacirema also believe in cleansing the scalp fur. They use special potions, these are the most popular; they use fragrant cleansing elixirs, to cleanse, and they believe that a magical revitalizing balm potion makes their scalp fur softer, and therefore better. They scrub these throughout their scalp fur, most Nacirema do this ritual every day. They believe that the harder and longer you scrub, the better, but they also believe that you should wash out these potions after they have been scrubbed in, using holy liquid, and they believe that you should do this ceremony as fast as you can, because they believe in conserving the holy liquid that pours out of their holy liquid spouts.

As the Nacirema do this ritual, they often grunt or wince as they rip their scalp fur out, and some try to be gentle, some try to do this quickly and therefore just do it fast. Another thing I found interesting was, as they scrub their scalp fur with holy liquid and the elixirs, some Nacirema sing. They sing just loud enough for the rest of the household to hear, but no one in the household is allowed to ask them to stop.

Though the Nacirema people torture themselves with this ritual, they believe the caring of one’s scalp fur is important and necessary. How the Nacirema’s scalp fur doesn’t seem to be thinning is a mystery.

~ Payton A.

Wooden Stick

The Naciremas have many rituals and beliefs. But the most interesting ones are about their bodies and how they make them beautiful to their standards. They live north to the people Mexico. The main belief and rituals is to make the human body beautiful.

They start by apply a skin color liquid with a wooden stick with hair on the end or use a round substance to beat it onto the face. This will make your skin one color. Then put a white thin powder under eye to make you have a younger face. After you put the powder on you beat it into your skin with a round sponge substance. Then they use this brown liquid or powder to put on cheeks to make the face more slim. It helps make your face bones show more. Then they apply a sparkly powder liquid to nose and eye corners. This makes their eyes look more defined. After that they put a black sticky substance on their eye lashes with a curved spiky stick. It makes it look like they have more lashes. To finish off the routine they put a black liquid that goes on the eye with a pen.

The nacirema Have used this ritual for more than 9,000 years. It is been used since the beginning of time. They have managed to make it last through a long time and it probably will not stop now or ever. So lets keep this tradition going.

~ Megan S.

By Nightfall

I spent a few days with the Nacirema, and learned that they have a very organized lifestyle. Every morning they always do multiple rituals. As they move throughout the day they each complete their tasks. Usually they finish these rituals and ceremonies by nightfall. Then they fall asleep and do everything again.

Each morning when the Nacirema wake up they torture their teeth with exotic fibers. They do this multiple times a day. When the children refuse to do this task they get taken to the Holy mouth-man who, as punishment, drills holes in their teeth with sharp objects. They then occasionally complete a secret ritual ceremony in the Shrine room that every household has. Every day the tribe all torture their hair - which they believe is vital in their belief that the body is ugly - so it will look nice. After that all of the adults come and go, completing their daily tasks. The tasks depend on the tribal member. The children go to practice rituals and ceremonies to improve the body and mind. They are led in these rituals by wise-men who know all. At the end of the day the family meets together at their tribal home. The children and adults all go into the Shrine room and commence a ceremonie that washes away all sins of that day by being bathed in holy water. Then the family does one last ritual before entering another realm while their physical body can rest. Some can enter this non-physical world easier than others.

To conclude, I have realized that because the Nacirema have organized schedules, they have managed to rely on each other to survive. This means that if one tribe member didn't do their job for about three months there would be other members to take over the job for them so the tribe wouldn’t fall apart. Each tribe member has a part in staying alive for so long. If they stop relying on each other the Nacerama will most likely start to do the basics themselves (grow food) but the adults in the tribe wouldn’t earn any of the trades because their elders would most likely not trade them their coin.

~ Jazlyn A.

Fragile Surfaces

The Nacirema are a tribe north of Mexico and have many exotic beliefs and cultures. They believe that they need to go through an intense ritual for the fragile surfaces that hold what they consume in their mouths.

The Nacirema people believe that if they do not rub all of the things off of their eating supplies, then a great sickness would happen to them and they would be dirty and evil. They also think that being dirty is the worst thing that can happen to them. They think that they need to keep the things that they use to have their repastings. The nacirema is a culture that needs to have a lot of meals. This ritual is important to them because it shows them why they need to eat so much. They use some of their free time to go and hunt for food to put onto little half spheres.This makes the nacirema appeal their spirits and they think it is eating that brings it down.

The Nacirema start this ritual by when they are done eating they put all of the discs,tridents,shovels and half spheres,and jugs into a basin. Then they push and pull a lever and they drizzle the magical substances given by the merchants onto the materials in the basin. Then they put some water in one of the materials and rub it in a spiritual way then use a plastic machine with curved metal fibers and put the spiritual objects onto the machine. They continue the same process. Then they use a towel from the spinner. After that they seem to use a bubbly squishy thing to wipe the discs. Then they continue to do it while also saying spiritual reminders like “gotta pick him up” and other things.

When asked about the art i got some varying answers as some nacirema avoided questions.when i got one of them to talk this is what they said on various topics. When asked about why they did this spiritual thing a village wise lady said that they did the routine to keep the objects clean.she worried that if they didn't do the routine they would get nasty or someone else would do it. They seem to have a lot of faith in the way things happen and on other people. They said that the routine showed that they like to keep things clean but struggled for other answers. Another person, a relative said that they did it to take off leftover food. The child also said that if they didn't do it then they would get sick from eating old foods. This person said that it shows their pursuit of cleanliness

And so as my Nacirema expedition ends we have learned about how they like to keep their spiritual objects clean and use rituals. They somehow have managed to keep this ritual alive and maybe it has helped them but how if only some people do it. They could not have survived with it for long so maybe this is the fall of the Nacirema

~ Deven A.

Potion of the Baby Bones

You must do the ritual of the baby bones to survive and thrive.

If the Nacirema don't do the potion of the baby bones they will lose their baby bones forever. You must take the potion three times per cycle of light. It is very painful to lose a baby bone. There are certain ceremonies with healers to help fix your baby bones but you have to trade with them. There are also other rituals in the shrine room such as cleansing the demons or fixing your aura. There should be 1-3 shrine rooms for an average Landmark that I made because it is a necessity to do these things. This ritual keeps the baby bones healthy so you dont damage you and you dont regret it before hello death day.

The potion of the teeth that you do three times a light cycle is good for your health. Protecting the baby bones will heal your body and bloody pink goo.

~ Trevor S.

Sharp Stones

The Nacirema believed that if they didn’t cut their hair with magical sharp stones and other objects, they would look ugly and be uncomfortable. Cutting their hair is a ritual they have been doing for years and years. Without it they don’t know what they would do.

The Nacirema have special people that have been cutting hair for years to perform such a sacred act on someone's hair. First they collect multiple of the finest, most sharp and magical objects and stones that they can find. Then after that they have the person that is getting their hair sliced, sit down in a seat made of fine leather. Then the slicing then begins. The Special person performing the ritual grabs the hair and gently slices away the bottom of it to make it shorter and shorter. The hair falls to the ground, scatters across the floor and blows away in the wind. They keep cutting and cutting until most of the hair is gone. You can hear the sound of the hair being thinly sliced with a sharp object.

Overall the Nacierama believe that cutting their hair with magical and sacred objects would make them more beautiful and more comfortable. They have managed with this ritual for so long because they need it to make them feel happy and to feel beautiful.

~ Jayden J.

Sticky Paste

The Nacirema have many practices and beliefs and one of their beliefs is cleansing their mouth of germs.

The Nacirema use a brush on a stick to rub their mouth so their mouth would be cleansed of the cavities and germs. They put a sticky paste that will kill the germs. First they put holy water from the fountain on the stick then they rub the stick in their mouth. They brush for like 1 to 2 minutes. After they rub and rub their mouth with the stick they will be done and clean their mouth they are done.

When they finish rubbing their mouth with the stick they will put holy water in their mouth to wash out any germs. Then they will spit the water out so the germ will be out of the mouth. Brushing your teeth will prevent them from becoming rotten.

When people get cavities they have to call a medicine man to help rub their teeth to clean it more. If they can’t clean it the medicine man will take out their teeth and replace it.

Nacirema believes that cleaning their teeth is very important. It will help them by not getting sick and losing their teeth,

~ Winston Y.

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