For your reading pleasure

In my research on humor I stumbled across the following article by one Horace Miner: “Body Ritual among the Nacirema." Go to American Anthropologist, Vol. 58, No. 3 (Jun., 1956), pp. 503-507. To get the gist, you must read "Nacirema" backwards. It’s well worth the read. I found it on J-Store through my library. A small sample:

“The daily body ritual performed by everyone includes a mouth-rite. Despite the fact that these people are so punctilious about care of the mouth, this rite involves a practice which strikes the uninitiated stranger as revolting. It was reported to me that the ritual consists of inserting a small bundle of hog hairs into the mouth, along with certain magical powders, and then moving the bundle in a highly formalized series of gestures.

“In addition to the private mouth-rite, the people seek out a holy-mouth-man once or twice a year.”