The Nacerima

Part A

Different-
  I chose the word different as my first word because as with a lot of cultures this one is different from anything I have heard about before. They have a very unique way of viewing the world and to a lot of people it is a wrong way of looking at it. I am trying to see this culture without the judgments that come to mind from my own way of viewing the world but it is hard.

Magical-
  Magical is the second word I chose because of the way the culture works. Everything seems to revolve around magic, different rituals the Nacerima take part in justify the belief in magic in this culture. It seems as though through whatever a member of this culture does it can be traced back to the individuals belief in the magic element.

Sadistic-
  For lack of a different way of describing it I chose the word sadistic. In trying to see the culture through the eyes of an indifferent being I don't want to say that some of the rituals are wrong just painful ways of showing their devotion to the magical realm they believe in. They have methods that are very different to what other people might see as traditional, but in their own way it makes sense and that is what is interesting about the Nacerima.

Individual-
  Each person in this culture seems to be very individual of each other and have a lack of emotion. The excrement process and the reproductive process are very distorted and secret. The excrement process is said to be ritualized and routinized. They can only take part in this in the privacy of their own home and nobody else can know about it. The reproductive process is equally distorted. It is scheduled as an act. Pregnancy is avoided by limiting intercourse.

Ostentatious-
  They aren't ostentatious in the normal sense of the word but they do show off what they have. For instance the more powerful members of the community have the most shrines. The more shrines one has in the home the more powerful that individual is. Not only do they show off items they also show off themselves. Some of the more beautiful individuals go from town to town charging money for others to stare at them.

Part B

1. As an American I feel disappointed with my decisions, because my words were not all the best. I also had a realization through this experience that every culture is different and that even my own culture has flaws.

2. I didn't figure out that I was talking about my own culture so in that case my words are not biased because I took the most neutral approach. My words show what I truly think of the American culture. The American culture is far from my previously biased view that I had previous to this assignment.

3.  Most of my descriptions are non biased, but if I had to choose a couple words then they would be biased against the culture. A couple of times I had thought during this post that the American culture is a lot better than this one come to find out they are the same.

4. I think that avoiding ethnocentric judgments is very important when studying other cultures. The thing that shows who is an accomplished anthropologist is who makes the least ethnocentric judgments. I think that it is possible to be unbiased but it is a very difficult skill that a person must practice to get good at.