Cultural Descriptions, Part A and Part B Questions

1. Dissatisfaction-Paragraph 4, lines 1-3, "The fundamental belief underlying the whole system appears to be that the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease. Incarcerated in such a body, man's only hope is to avert these characteristics through the use of ritual and ceremony"
In this paragraph Miner is describing to us that the Nacirema believe that to them, there whole body is not beautiful, its ugly to them. They put themselves through many different types of rituals that are very harmful, painful, and almost torturous to them just to make the body more appealing.
2. Trauma-Paragraph 11, lines 4-8, "The holy-mouth-man opens the client's 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 are 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".
What they call "the Holy-mouth-man, is what we would call a dentist fixing our teeth if there's a problem with them and making them perfect. In there case there is no problem with there teeth but with such a fascination of the whole entire mouth they use these rituals to make the mouth perfect even if there's no problem what so ever. The thought of  loosing any teeth is what leads them to go through these rituals.
3. Showpiece-Paragraph 15, lines 1-4, "The supplicant entering the temple is first stripped of all his or her clothes. 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".
Men and women are stripped of there clothes in order to enter the temple and go through with the ritual. It is a shock to wives or husbands to see there loved ones full body exposed because they don't show there bodies, they keep it all covered up from each other. In other words, they are put in front of certain people as to be some sort of, Showpiece, to them.
4. Discomfort-Paragraph 16, lines 3-6, "The vestals awaken their miserable charges each dawn and roll them about on their beds of pain while performing ablutions, in the formal movements of which the maidens are highly trained. At other times they insert magic wands in the supplicant's mouth or force him to eat substances which are supposed to be healing"
There beds are not comfortable, mostly hard and painful. They could be very well to were that's all they can do but lie on the beds until they are awaken and have someone come to them ad have them go through more rituals that are said to be healing to the human body.
5. Reliance-Paragraph 17, lines 4-6, "The patient simply tells the "listener" all his troubles and fears, beginning with the earliest difficulties he can remember. The memory displayed by the Nacirema in these exorcism sessions is truly remarkable".
The "listener" is simply to us like a therapist, someone you can tell everything to and have some of trust with them. To them talking to the "listener" is just another ritual to get rid of all the exorcisms and bad memories that someone may have gone through when they were growing up or when they were really young.

Cultural Descriptions, Part B
1. I feel that my descriptive words fit right for the article.
2. On my part i don't feel like the words i chose are to be to used as ethnocentrism because the words i chose are none different from the Nacirema and American cultures. They don't exhibit any judgement towards any of the rituals or behaviors being described in the article or by the words i chose nor do they exhibit anything bias towards the Nacirema, but one. All the words i chose are not bias in any way, but one of them, because as us Americans, we experience the same things. There rituals are like every day things to us. We look at ourselves in the mirror and may see some dissatisfaction with our face or entire body and we may want to fix that. We go through types of trauma that can be hurtful and shocking to us. We go through discomfort or pain in our bodies so we take medicine to help that just like the Nacirema would do when they were awoke from there hard beds. We like to rely on people that we can trust, talk to and get help from. I would say that the word, showpiece, i chose is bias and judgemental in a way because we don't purposely show people off in front of everyone just to do it, we don't force them in any way to do so. The fact i chose this word is judgemental towards the Nacirema because am judging a ritual of there's that they do everyday.
3. The word showpiece can be switched with the word, expose, and not be bias in any way because in both cultures, the Nacirema and American, do expose ourselves out there but in own will.
4. In this experience, it is best to avoid being judgemental because you shouldn't just judge something right off the bat even if you have some background about it. It's best to learn more about it and know the complete reason why. It is important to describe another culture free from bias as possible as you can in a good manner because the way other cultures do things may seem bad or wrong but its not best to judge that right away. As an anthropologist, it is possible to avoid being bias but we may use words or say things that are bias and judgemental but its nothing out of hate or looking bad upon when we say or do things.