Rituals of the Nacirema

S - Z

Cure for Boredom

The Nacirema get bored easily, and can only be unbored by staring at a lighted screen and make clicking sounds with their fingers.

The Nacirema get bored often, and they believe that staring at a rectangular panel while making clicking noises entertains them. They seem to all have one thing in common, a hardened oil object, with two hatches that clicks whenever they press down on them. The rectangular strip of hardened molten earth flashes and moves pictures inside it oftenly. They have another rectangular object in front of them, which they use their other hand to also make clicking noises. Majority of the Nacirema that perform this practice seem to be young adults, or kids. They seem to all have a concentrated look on their faces during the practice, staring very intently.

Occasionally, they get angry, perhaps for not clicking fast enough, and they start to say words like @^#%$^ and *&$#%@^. The Nacirema constantly sit down to perform this practice, doing it for hours per day. Some even stay up the whole day to practice the art of clicking.

When interviewing a Nacirema boy, I asked, “What do you worry might happen if you stop doing this practice?” The boy answered with “I’ll get bored.”

The Nacirema’s method of relieving boredness is quite clever. I wonder, how have the Nacirema not have gotten bored of this method of curing boredness. It seems quite repetitive. Maybe they will find other methods in the future.

~ Vincent T.

Daily Cleaning Ritual

The Nacirema people have many holy rituals they do.They believe that they all smell bad and must do a special ritual daily to fix it. Let’s take a look at what exactly this ritual involves

To perform this daily cleansing ritual, each person has a small temple inside their cottage. Each day, one person at a time steps into the temple. Inside the temple is a large stone or glass cupboard. This box has a well that can make holy water rain from the top . The Nacirema people believe that they must take off their sacred garments to ensure the ritual is performed properly. As they step into the box, they are drenched with Holy water that according to my research, must be very very hot in order for this to work. The first step of the ritual is to be entirely soaked in the holy water.

Inside this cupboard usually is a shelf or chest, where the Nacirema people store their potions. The next step in this ritual is to pour the potion onto your hand and harshly massage your head with it. Once you start hurting, you rinse your head off with the rain and repeat the process with another potion. The third step of this ritual requires yet another potion. This time, you pour it onto a scratchy ball of fibers, and scratch it all over your body until you can’t stand the pain any longer. One very important step in this routine is that some Nacirema people like to sing holy anthems during this to distract themselves from the pain. The final step of this routine is to grab a large piece of animal hyde and wrap it around your body to help it absorb the holy water and potions.

On my research journey, I got the chance to interview some locals and they told me some more information about this holy routine. They worry that if they don’t do this routine, They will lose friends, become very ill, lose hair, and smell very very bad. They do this routine because they are very concerned about smelling bad and they do not like to feel gross.

This shows how much the Nacirema really do not like smelling bad. They have many unusual holy magical rituals to prevent this and they believe they must put themselves in pain in order to reduce the horrid smell of the body. I can imagine how painful this must be to do for so many years.

~ Sarah V.

Hypnotizing the Beast

Today I went to a forein land and met with a people call themselves the Nacirema. I found some of them doing a very strange ritual,they would hypnotize beasts with a choke rope into doing their bidding.One thing I noticed about their ritual was that they did not go in a specific direction, but they did seem to stay in their village though. On rare occasions they would take their beast to an open plot of nature to roam free. Normally the Nacirema will spoil the creature by taking it on a lengthy journey, yet they almost never do this for themselves. Most of the journeys that the Nacirema take the beasts on are for the beasts to make waste and or to mark it’s domain.But sometimes on a journey the creature will yell at other kinds of its species if they get too close. Another thing I noticed was that when I was interviewing one of the Nacirema was that they packed the feces of their hypnotized beast into a small sack and held it throughout the journey.The most interesting thing that I noticed is that the creatures were happy after their hypnotization.To conclude this report I wonder why have these people lasted so long with this treacherous routine? How are the beasts able to command the ones it shares a home with?

~ Max S.

Rivalry Between the Orbs

The Nacirema believe the only way to survive is to hit a magical sphere at their enemies, and win.

As I stepped onto the sandy deck I watched as 2 citizens battled 2 other enemies in the blazing sun. To perform the ritual the Nacirema must hit the sphere in a certain area of sand and rally the sphere between tribes, if the sphere leaves the area it will result in punishment. When battling the Nacirema must make sure the sphere does not hit the ground. To save the sphere from hitting the ground the Nacirema dive into piles of sand trying not to get it in their eyes. The Nacirema stand in the blazing sun for hours dripping moisture their bodies produce as they work harder and harder.

When the Nacirema are battling they smack the sphere aiming for the opponents. The Nacirema will yell at their partner to ensure the ball is in the correct spot for their partner to smack it. The Nacirema started this ritual in iiwah, ever since 1995 the ritual has been played non-stop. The nacirema have to work with their partner to ensure they win the battle. If the Nacirema fail in beating the enemies they will feel instant regret and shame.

They enjoy this practice because they make a new friend every time they battle, and they grow better as they battle more and more. The nacirema believe that if they stop the practice they will be viewed badly by their fellow citizens and wouldn't be successful at their battles anymore.

This shows that the Nacirema believe the only way to survive is to hit a magical sphere at their enemies, and win. How do you think the Nacirema have been able to survive for all these years?

~ Courtney W.

Portal of Dimension

The Nacirema, a tribe living south of the Inuit people of Canada, are a strange nation populated by men who believe time is not of importance. They believe that physical work is of negative value and there are more interesting and rewarding rituals and ceremonies they can perform instead.

The Nacirema have many strange rituals and expectations. One strange thing the Nacirema do is lay down on piles of feathers, claiming it is healthy to do this on a regular basis. Other rituals include burning food as though they are sacrificing it, and torturing their interior bodies with a variety of exotic fibers. However, some of their most interesting rituals involve manipulating a portal to show them what they believe to be another dimension, looking at all the strange things happening there. Generally, they sit cross-legged as they stare, apparently hypnotized, into the portal, which they describe as their information stream.

Also, some of the Nacirema appear to belive this act angers the gods and therefore discourage it for prolonged periods of time. This is met with general ridicule. The reason behind this is the Nacirema feel that stopping this routine would make them more eligible for non-ritual work, and so they dishonor their gods by staring into the portal. Also, they seem to believe in war being glorious, as that is one of the most common things to view through the portal. The Naciremans go to war differently than other tribes, as they throw small orbs at each other. The goal appears to be to keep that orb for as long as possible, as it holds special powers. Naciremans chant and scream in support of their tribe, even when there is no one to listen to them. Upon viewing the portal for myself, it appears to remain in an unlighted, dormant state where it must be reactivated by a special tool.

The Nacirema enjoy eating as they stare blankly at the portal. So, they tend to throw seeds atop a fire, wait, take it away, add spices, and eat the result. This is a popular refreshment, though is banned for several years as marriage approaches. They seem to believe that it deters their appearance, which is an important component of the Nacirema lifestyle.

Most Nacirema seem to care more about ritualistic acts than physical labor. It is a true wonder how they still exist after all the actions they take to avoid work.

~ Ryan W.

Enslaving Creatures

The Nacirema have loads and loads of weird, strange, and outlandish rituals or traditions. One of them being a tradition where they turn wild and free animals such as wolves into enslaved creatures for the mere enjoyment of themselves, friends, and family.

In this strange tradition the Nacirema believe that they are helping the creatures by taking them out of their original habitat and enslaving them. They only feed these enslaved creatures 2 times a day, once in the morning and once at night. When they feed them they give the creatures a dry mixture of slaerec, dry meat, and sniarg, and if they are good they may get scraps from their humans meals. Sometimes if a creature is bad they will be yelled at, scolded, and then locked in a metal box for an extended period of time. When they are let out of the metal box the creature is treated like nothing had ever happened and goes back to what they were doing before they were scolded. When these creatures go to sleep they have a small slightly cushioned square on which they sleep on, and this square can vary in sizes depending if the creature is big or not.

Another strange thing that this culture does is when their creature seems to be feeling ill they will take them to the Medicine man for creatures. The Medicine man will then take the creature away from the holder to a back room away from everyone but a select few known and the tnatsissa or second hand to help the creature become healthy again. In some cases the Medicine man will take the creature, put a flexible cone shaped object hooked up to a contraption that has a magical gas in it and put the cone shaped object over the creature's area where they eat and breath. Then within 1 to 2 minutes the creature will go limp and die. After the creature is dead some holders will dig a hole in the ground, lower the corpse in the hole then pile the dirt back into the hole. From how I see it the burying of the creature is an offering to the earth gods. Other times the holder will put the corpse in a fiery pit then once the corpse is burned they will take the ashes and either put them in a box or throw the ashes somewhere like the ocean or the forest.

I had a chance to talk to some people who participate in this ritual and I had asked them what they think would happen if they stopped caring for there creature. One person responded with “If you don’t take care of them they will die and that is not good, no one likes dead creatures.” Why’ll the other person responded with “they’ll whine and complain.”. As you can see from these quotes from my talk, different people in the culture have different perspectives than others on the creatures. To conclude, out of the many strange and weird traditions that the Nacirema have this is one of the weirdest because of how they enslave free creatures. I have spent a long long time staying with some of the holders of these creatures and I still have many questions, but the biggest one I have is how have the Nacirema gone so long without the creatures turning on them and trying to kill them?

~ Safiya S.

Be Lucky

Playing with a sphere is fun and it can teach people to defend themselves. People need to learn how to defend themselves in life and with the amazing sphere you will know how to.

Having a sphere with stripes brings you luck and helps you defend yourself. It helps you to win multiple times when you need it. It goes so fast that you can’t see it.

They make strange sounds when they hit the lucky sphere. You need to be fast to be able to hit the white lucky and unusual sphere. Something magical could happen that you wouldn’t know of.

When you hit the sphere with all your might some little grands of rocks will drizzle into your eyes. That will hurt but in order to win the game you need circles around your eyes that cover your eyes. People on the side will be jumping up and down. Screaming for some team to win the defending game. This game you are always competitive. Sometimes you have the sea next to you when you play. Moving your feet in the little grains or rocks doesn’t hurt unless the grains are really hot from the sun.

Most Nacirema enjoy doing this ritual. I can’t imagine they managed to enjoy this everyday. How does it make them happy?

~ Emma V.

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