The Nacirema Shrine
Every household has one or more shrines devoted to this goal. The more powerful people in the society have several ritual shrine rooms in their houses. In fact, the wealth of the owners of the houses is often measured in terms of the number of such ritual shrine rooms in a house. The shrine rooms of the more wealthy people are walled with stone. Poorer families imitate the rich by applying pottery plaques to their shrine room walls.
While almost every family has at least one shrine in the home, the ritual ceremonies associated with it are not family ceremonies but are private and secret. The rites are normally discussed only with children, and then only during the period when they are being initiated into these mysteries. The most important part of a shrine is a box or chest which is built into the wall. In this chest are kept the many charms and magical potions without which no native believes he could live. Beneath the charm box is a small basin. Each day every member of the family, one after another, enters the shrine room, bows his head before the charm box, mixes different sorts of holy water in the basin, and conducts a brief ceremony of ritual cleansing.
