APY 275 Test Review 2 Body Image of Nacirema The Nacirema believe that they have to engage in body rituals in order to maintain their personhood They are horrified fascinated with the mouth They believe that the mouth has a supernatural influence on all social relationships They perform rituals to prevent harm their teeth falling out their gums bleeding their jaws shrinking their friends lovers disappearing from their lives They believe that there is a strong relationship between oral moral characteristics They perform a daily body ritual that consists of inserting a small bundle of hog hairs into the mouth along with magical powders and moving in specific gestures Stripping of clothes of supplicant in latipso temple In everyday life the Nacirema avoids exposure of his body and its natural functions Bathing and excretory acts are performed only in the secrecy of the household shrine where they are ritualized as part of the body rites Eduardo s Mesa Eduardo is a shaman and performs rituals mediating between two worlds human supernatural for individuals that need healing To know if the clients have been victims of witchcraft Eduardo performs a guinea pig ritual He uses guinea pigs because they are food animals that are usually in clients homes which means they may have picked up on the clients problems as well Therefore removing the guinea pigs internal organs will tell him if the clients are dealing with any illness or sorcery This will tell him if he needs to do a nighttime seance for the client Mesa Eduardo uses 3 different items to perform the nighttime seance He used to be a sculptor so these are meaningful things to him Each one can determine a different problem The items are the left hand contains objects of evil the right hand contains good the Campo Media contains both evil and good He uses the left hand evil to determine the state of the client A figure representing St Paul moves into the Field of the Sly Dealer to remove Judas the disciple who betrayed Jesus from it temporarily Judas knows what is going on in the realms of evil his dwelling place but he still has an affinity with the realm of goodness For this reason he is able to give a report about the evils affecting the client Unless balance is achieved the judges of the Middle Field will not be able to do their work He has to do all of these things to creare that Cultural logic power balance Doctor s White Coat The doctor s white coat may communicate to patients that they should trust the doctor and it officializes the doctor s role dominance Medical meanings of whiteness healthy or more life The color of the uniforms changed from black to white because they represented cleanliness purity and a fresh start for the medical profession contrary to the color black which is relative to death Levi Strauss on Sorcery There are three kinds of belief that matter the belief of the shaman the belief of the patient and the belief of the community The Zuni Trial The Zuni boy became a sorcerer because as he continuously lied about being one and eventually no one was interested in the trial or proving him innocent or guilty They were interested in proving that he was an actual sorcerer and they allowed him to manipulate them into thinking he was through multiple situations ex when they searched his home looking in the walls Quesalid became to believe the power of shamans because compared to the rituals that he was performing for his clients he believed that his was way more effective so technically he did somewhat become a believer Importance of clinicians attitudes in the placebo effect resemblances to shamans Moerman argues that the beliefs of doctors matter more in bringing about the placebo effect than any beliefs or characteristics that patients might have what patients know not what kinds of people they are and what things mean is what accounts for the effectiveness of much of medical treatment p 140 This idea can relate back to the idea of shamans rituals because generally the effectiveness of the shaman s rituals depend on whether or not the clients actually believe in the meaning behind it along with the shaman Personalistic vs naturalistic healing systems Personalistic healing systems are when diseases are explained as due to active purposeful intervention of an agent may be human non human or supernatural Naturalistic healing systems are when diseases are explained in terms of natural forces or conditions that disturb the body s equilibrium Personalistic illness is a special case in the explanation of all misfortune Curers have to possess supernatural or magical powers and responsibility for illness is often outside the patient s control Naturalistic The primary role of a doctor may be more therapeutic than diagnostic Diagnosis may be made by the sick person and or his or her family without the assistance of a diviner or a shaman the exercise of absolute care should in principle keep a person healthy Therefore concerned family members may actually feel some anger at a person for falling ill How the body is felt differently in different healing systems pulse vs Greek and mo Chinese doctors understood pulse differently than us They believed that mo which means blood vessels pulse could be felt tracked by pressing their fingers to one s wrist The doctors can then determine the state of certain organs depending on where they placed their fingers on the wrist They check for the movement of mo and if it is slippery or rough Western physicians do not believe this idea they offer the explanation that the mo which circulates around the body arises from the blood vessels of the heart that it is because of the ceaseless activity of the heart that the move mo Elements of healing authority sources qualities aims scope apply to biomedical doctors and Hmong shamans Shamans Txiv neebs Might spend up to 8 hours in a sick person s home polite never needed to ask questions could render an immediate diagnosis never undressed patients treated soul as well as body Biomedical doctors Forced patients to come to hospital no matter how sick they were then spent 20 minutes at bedside asked rude and intimate questions about sex and excretion demanded samples of blood urine feces and then made patients wait for diagnosis which might be inconclusive asked patients to take off all their clothes even put fingers in women s vaginas never mentioned the soul took repeated samples of blood which cannot be replenished anaesthetized patients causing soul