The Nacirema

        The Nacirema have a curious ritual. It involves a small white object with some stitching of some sort that wraps across the entire object. The masses of the Nacirema gather in seats to watch the ritual involving this small white object. The Nacirema both revere and discard this object with alarming regularity. Although many people gather to watch, a relative few are allowed to handle this small white object. Most of those that do handle this small white object do so wearing a special leather gear on their hands. They throw this small white object around to one another quite frequently. However, far more goes on with this small white object that involves one member tossing it at another member while holding a stick. The being with the stick swings the stick and his goal seems to be to make contact with the small white stick. When he does make contact, he is sometimes allowed to walk onto the area where a white diamond shape resides. However, making contact with this little white object does not guarantee a trip to the white diamond shape. Sometimes, the person holding the stick starts to run after hitting the little white object and another person – apparently someone in charge – yells “FOUL” and all the people who were running around stop running and return to their previous positions. This could have something to do with the white lines that are drawn all over the field, but this is not entirely clear. As to the previously mentioned person in charge, there appear to be four of them and they are all dressed identically. One of them is constantly crouching behind another man who wears a mask but this man is dressed like those who are throwing the small white object around. He is crouched slightly behind the man with the stick and another man stands several feet away throwing the small white object towards him. When the man with the stick misses the small white object, this crouching man catches the object. The spectators often seem very excited when the stick-man hits the small white object but they also spend enormous amounts of time eating and talking to each other. In fact, the whole place is very loud as there are usually thousands of people in attendance. From what I could determine, there are usually 9 persons dressed identically standing around in the main area. They are positioned in more or less the same position even as they take turns sharing this field with other similarly dressed persons. The whole entire ritual takes a good deal of time to complete. It seems as though most people know when it’s over because everyone gets up to leave after those in the main area all slap each other’s hands. But it seems only one group of persons get to do the slapping and the non-slappers head into an area off to one side where they were sitting when not in the main area. All in all, it is a very interesting, but very confusing ritual.