My 5 Descriptive words: Poorly, Unique, Private, Magical, and Sacred

         I chose the word Poorly as one of my descriptive words because it can have many different meanings, depending on how it is used. When I first hear or read the word poorly my mind immediately thinks of someone without a lot of money, but in cases such as this article it means something entirely different, it is still a lack of something, but not a lack of funds. " the culture of this people is still very poorly understood." In this article he is talking about a lack of understanding, but uses a less known word instead of the obvious choice.

      Unique is one of my favorite describing words, because I think it sounds better and more appealing than the more used word, unusual. Unique to me feels special I would much rather someone tell me i'm unique than tell me I am unusual. Unusual can sometimes feel mildly insulting or derogatory, even though the two words mean practically the same thing. "While such a concern is certainly not unusual, its ceremonial aspects and associated philosophy are unique." I like how he chose to use both words in a way that made them both sound positive and make sense even in the same sentence.

        Private, is another describing word I like because, I am a private person and privacy means a lot to me. I also like the way in which Horace Miner uses private, to mean something you do alone or just don't tell others about. "While each family has at least one such shrine, the rituals associated with it are not family ceremonies but are private and secret." I enjoy being able to do things privately, because it benefits me and Private observations in the cultural anthropology area, could be very beneficial.

        My next descriptive word is magical, I chose this word because I enjoy all things fictional and magical. As a child I enjoyed fairy tails and princess dreams, now as an adult, I still enjoy fictional reading, especially when magic or magical creatures are involved. I liked how Horace Miner used the word to describe a person. "In the hierarchy of magical practitioners, and below the medicine men in prestige, are specialists whose designation is best translated as "holy-mouth-men." It is very interesting and draws a readers attention to the reading.
     
       My final descriptive word is Sacred, to me it is a fancy way of describing something that is important to you, but sounds much more appealing than the word important. If for example I were to say that a cultural anthropologists most important tool was their mind, that sounds okay, but to say their most sacred tool is their mind, somehow makes it seem more important, at least to me.  "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." I believe by adding the word extreme he also made the word sacred more powerful and drew more attention to the sentence itself.

Part B: Nacerima

1.  As an American, I feel curious and confused with how Horace Miner describes American culture and I wonder if this is America today, or maybe even a decade ago that he is talking about.

2. I did exhibit some ethnocentrism, when it came to visiting the "Holy-Mouth-Men" and teeth continuing to decay that seemed a bit unnecessary to me as well as the shrine visiting alone, that sounded interesting, but strange.  I  believe this reveals a bias of disliking pointless pain, and a lack of understanding and respect for spiritual procedures.  I feel my chosen words are free of bias in terms of culture, but not in how they were chosen, I chose them merely because I liked them, there was really no other reason, so they are somewhat biased towards me.

3. I believe the word poorly was some what biased and a better word might have been uneducated, because this could mean we lack because we have not been taught instead of assuming we just choose not to learn things that we do not find interesting enough.

4.  It is important to avoid ethnocentric judgments when describing other cultures, because we do not know why they do what they do or what has caused this dramatic change or effect. Just like you should not judge a person by what they look like, you should not judge a society, based on outward appearances. It is important to describe other cultures with out personal bias because, not only are you trying to educate yourself, but your trying to teach other people why things are done a certain way by certain people and you may even teach the people themselves how they came to be this way. You would not want to cast a bad shadow over a culture especially if they are already frowned upon by most other cultures. I do not believe it is possible to completely avoid personal bias, because we were all raised differently and have different morals, what may seem normal to us may seem disgusting to someone else, we cannot change how we think, but we can change what we say and prevent others from experiencing another culture through a biased anthropologist.