My five descriptive words
Torture:
It would absolutely be torturous for me to have my teeth pulled by the Holy-mouth-men. They perform these rituals once to twice a year. The procedure is painful, it is without any pain medication. There are no disinfecting cream to prevent the mouth from further problems. They dig bigger holes in your teeth in order to apply the magical powder. This ritual is suppose to help rid you of evil spirits. Perhaps the people of this tribe are much more strong minded then I am because I can not look forward for this every year.
Superstitious:
According to the Naricema tribe, they believe that the human bodies are made to be consumed with illness. They think it is ugly and they must adjust it. Their ways of fixing the human bodies involve pulling and digging holes in teeth, baking head in ovens,mutilation of the face and other painful procedures. To inflict such pain to the body and face without any proven medical issue is beyond me. They keep charm even though there is no use for the charm, but fear of what it might do. None of theses procedures have any proven outcome or effectiveness.
Magical:
The Naricema believe that these painful procedures are magical. The herbalist and the holy-mouth-men have magical powers that can set their body and soul free from evil spirits. The member of the tribe give offerings to receive charms for their house. These charms are used for illness and issues they believe are caused by evil spirits. They believe in the magic so much that they hold on to the charms. Their boxes overflow with charms due to all the rituals performances. The charms all had different uses. By the time the box fills up they forget what they have used the charms for in the first place.
Brutal:
These Holy-mouth-men appears to be very brutal in their practice. They way they go about pulling out teeth and the tools they use are barbaric. I don't know if these men actually believe that what they are doing is working or do they just enjoy the pain they inflict on others. Not only are they the ones giving out the pain, they are also given offer ins to do so. Would they stop from doing this even if they do not believe their practice work?
Part B
1. This went right over my head. I couldn't believe I was actually reading about us. The words I used to describe us was insulting. I described us as brutal,and needing to be more educated because we were superstitious. I never saw ourselves in that light before.
2. The choice of words I used did exhibit ethnocentrism. I was judgmental because I couldn't understand why someone would want to inflict that type of pain to themselves or someone else. I assumed the Holy-mouth-men enjoyed the pain they distributed. Calling someone else brutal because the of the choices they've made was wrong.
3. An alternate word or words I could have used for brutal could have been "used available access". Instead of just assuming that they wanted to do the procedures to be brutal, I should have been open minded and think better of other.
4. I think it is important to avoid using judgments that are personal cultural bias because you can be very insulting. If we use what we believe in, to judge others, we don't allow an opportunity for us to learn. If we don't allow ourselves to learn about others, it will be very hard for us to understand others.
