Exerpt from "Body Ritual from the Nacirema"

Really funny essay we read in English today...here's an excerpt:

In the hierarchy of magical practitioners, and below the medicine
men in prestige, are specialists whose designation is best translated
"holy-mouth-men." The Nacirema have an almost pathological horror of
and fascination with the mouth, the condition of which is believed to
have a supernatural influence on all social relationships. Were it not
for the rituals of the
mouth, they believe that their teeth would fall out, their gums
bleed, their jaws shrink, their friends desert them, and their lovers
reject them. They also believe that a strong relationship exists
between oral and moral characteristics. For example, there is a ritual
ablution of the mouth for children which is supposed to improve their
moral fiber.

The daily body ritual performed by everyone includes a mouth-rite.
Despite the fact that these people are so punctilious about care of
the mouth, this rite involves a practice which strikes the uninitiated
stranger as revolting. It was reported to me that the ritual consists
of inserting a small bundle of hog hairs into the mouth, along with
certain magical powders, and then moving the bundle in a highly
formalized series of gestures.

In addition to the private mouth-rite, the people seek out a
holy-mouth-man once or twice a year. These practitioners
have an impressive set of paraphernalia, consisting of a variety of
augers, awls, probes, and prods. The use of these objects in the
exorcism of the evils of the mouth involves almost unbelievable ritual
torture of the client. The holy-mouth-man open the clients mouth and,
using the above mentioned tools, enlarges any holes which decay may
have created in the teeth. Magical materials are put into these holes.
If there age no naturally occurring holes in the teeth, large sections
of one or more teeth are gouged out so that the supernatural substance
can be applied. In the client's view, the purpose of these
ministrations is to arrest decay and to draw friends. The extremely
sacred and traditional character of the rite is evident in the fact
that the natives return to the holy--mouth-men year after year,
despite the fact that their teeth continue to decay.

It is to be hoped that, when a thorough study of the Nacirema is
made, there will be careful inquiry into the personality structure
of these people. One has but to watch the gleam in the eye of a holy-
mouth-man, as he jabs an awl into an exposed nerve, to suspect that
a certain amount of sadism is involved. If this can be established,
a very interesting pattern emerges, for most of the population shows
definite masochistic tendencies. It was to these that Professor
Linton referred in discussing a distinctive part of the daily body
ritual which is performed only by men. This part of the rite involves
scraping and lacerating the surface of the face with a sharp
instrument. Special women's rites are performed only four times
during each lunar month, but what they lack in frequency is made up
in barbarity. As part of this ceremony, women bake their heads in
small ovens for about an hour. The theoretically interesting point is
that what seems to be a preponderantly masochistic people have
developed sadistic specialists.