Puekam in Nacirema

In the Nacirema society, some succeed and some fail to try. As a member of this complex and peculiar society you are expected to participate in some way or judgement is probable. You must give a gift to be a part of the Nacirema traditions to the face. Some gifts may be heavier and some lighter. You must be cautious concerning the many steps in the elaborate ritual regularly practiced every rising of the sun or consequences may follow. Hopefully the night before you cleansed yourself of the waxes, oils, pigments, preservatives, and paints from the previous ritual. Once you have cleansed yourself, you are ready to begin the next day’s ritual. This practice is focused solely towards females, in fact, if you are a male and perform this ritual you may be publicly humiliating yourself. This ceremony will increase your chances for eye infections, and if not removed properly, will increase your chances for sores and inflamed sebaceous glands on the face. First, you begin by choosing the perfect pigment of liquid. You pick your poison to correct your flaws, and can change shades like a chameleon. However, picking the wrong shade will cause embarrassment. Next, you apply dark shades into the deep hollows of the face. At times, one can also give a gift for a formula to cure their face from tiredness. Then, powder can be applied to your means of vision. These powders can be found in almost every color imaginable and application is so revered that templates depicting how to are commonplace. Once the powder has set they take a sharply pointed stick dipped or filled with pigment and drag it across the rim of their eyes to trace their oculus with dark colors. This practice can be extremely dangerous, having a lance so close to one’s optical lense, and requires a steady hand. They then move onto their next rather perplexing step where a woman must use a magic wand with fibers attached to the end and dip it into a thick, dark mixture of metal powders, waxes, oils, and fibrils. The Nacirema people then open their mouths and widen their eyes as they carefully brush all of the cilia lining their organs of sight coating them with the sticky black material. It is very common for this wand to make contact with the eye causing excruciating pain and discomfort. This part of the face ritual is the most like an art form requiring women to apply the heavy, sticky mixture with great care to ensure there is not too much of the concoction applied and that it is smeared evenly across all of the cilia or face being shamed by their community. Next, moving on to the mouth. In Nacirema, standing out among the rest in the right way is crucial. Shades of pinks, reds, and even dark colors should be applied to the lips. The colors vary from as red as blood to as black as coal. They add character to the ritual and help identify one in society. As the final step of this long and elaborate ritual one should take their brush made of horse hair and apply more red tints to the sides of the face almost giving an embarrassed look or as if another Nacirema has pinched the cheeks of the one performing the ritual. This puzzling and intricate ritual continues to be studied as we try to further understand the cultural signifigance of this ceremony within Nacirema society.