The Ehtab Ritual
The Namuh community has engaged in the Ehtab ritual for centuries. This ritual was started by the ancient Keerg tribe in early century B.C., where Keerg tribespeople would remove their protective garb and step under a naturally occurring formation called retaw which descends from the heavens. The retaw would engulf the Keerg in the entirety of their beings with intense pressures, seeping in between each hair and nail and even into their eye sockets if the Keerg keep their eyes open.
The Keerg tribe invented this ritual for the Namuh to promote a religion called eneigy. According to ancient Namuh myth, eneigy is the key to eternal life and immunity. As centuries pass, the Namuh evolved this ritual with new tools and materials. With current tools, the Namuh were able to create access to retaw in people’s homes across the different tribes. The Namuh created eneigy shrines across the land for its people to engage in this Ehtab ritual. Most of these shrines can be found in the Namuh people’s homes. I went to one eneigy shrine in Northern America, specifically in the continent’s Midwestern region, to observe a member of the Namuh community engaging in this ritual.
The Environment
While the Ehtab ritual has evolved with new tools and materials since the time of early Namuh settlers, the basics of the ritual have not changed. I should first mention the environment in which the particular Ehtab ritual I observed takes place to describe how it enables the Namuh to prepare for the Ehtab.
This eneigy shrine is a queer rectangular cube with a hybrid of dark and light energy in its interior. Smaller taupe rectangles are plastered on the walls within the rectangle, darkening the space in contrast to a bright fluorescent light. In addition to the dark and light atmosphere in the space, there are silver rectangular rods drilled into the taupe rectangles. Some of these rods have unknown objects dangling from them that belong to the Ethab-practicing Namuh.
At the corner of the shrine lies an elevated square hidden by a cream divider. This modern space features grey squares on the ground with a bronze square covered in holes. A tool the Namuh calls a rewohs deah faces the bronze square at an angle. Furthermore, right below that tool lies an odd knob that, when twisted, causes a chain reaction that enables retaw to expel from the rewohs deah.
During my study, another Namuh who shares this shrine had just finished using it. I noticed that the taupe rectangles on the ground were coated in speckles of retaw, as well as hair that has clumped together with dust.
The Ritual
A Namuh steps into the rectangular cube wearing an unusual type of protective garb: a cloak that they tuck inside their chests call a lewot, which consists of small hairs that can absorb the retaw. Another piece of garb the Namuh wears is a strong and elastic sheet underneath their feet they call ladnas. Upon further research, I learned that the ladnas was invented for the Namuh to practice eneigy. I also noticed that the Namuh was carrying a sacred black box when it stepped into the cube. The Namuh referred to it as an t’cidda, an object believed to be the Namuh’s connection to the outside world. When touched, the t’cidda lights up and makes noise.
The Namuh removes its garb and tosses it onto one of the rectangular rods. It then takes three bottles – which I believe contains a type of sacred potion – and the t’cidda, then steps onto the elevated surface. It puts the bottles and t’cidda on the grey tiles. It pulls at the cream divider to isolate itself, then manipulates the t’cidda to spit out a fascinating noise that I don’t recognize. The Namuh told me that it is a collection of popular Ehtab anthems that many Namuh also like. Its claws then grab onto the knob and turn it all the way to the left. Retaw oozes out of the rewohs deah – slowly, at first, before a large amount spews out.
Standing underneath the rewohs deah, retaw covers the Namuh from head to toe. It is clear that by exposing itself to the rewohs deah, the tool transfers retaw from itself to the Namuh’s body. The Namuh shuffles around, using its arms to coat the retaw on its skin and hairs. It closes its eyes when the retaw jabs its face. On occasion, the Namuh opens its mouth to chant to the t’cidda’s noises.
The Potions
Part of the Ehtab ritual requires the Namuh to use magical potions of multiple colors and scents. Shortly after the Namuh turns the knob to stop the retaw, it takes out one of the potion bottles and squirts out a light blue slime called an oopmas on its hands. The Namuh rubs its hands together and grabs its head with the tips of its claws, smearing the oompas all over its hair and scalp. It then twists its hair up and takes another bottle from the ground, pressing down on a pump for a frothy, chalky potion called a paos to appear on its hands. It then smeared the paos all over its chest, arms, and back, covering itself with white lather.
While chanting to the hymns from the t’cidda, the Namuh turns the knob again to revive the retaw. Stepping into the retaw’s presence, the potions melt from the body and get sucked into the bronze square beneath the Namuh’s feet. With its claws, the Namuh tilts its head back and closes its eyes, allowing for the transfer of retaw into its head and hair.
The final potion used in the ritual is called a noitidnoc. The Namuh squeezes this potion bottle to reveal a purple substance with a creamy consistency into its hands and smears it on the ends of its hairs. The Namuh stood around, waiting for the noitidnoc to soak into its hair. This process took about a minute. Once the minute passed, the Namuh turned the knob again to activate the rewohs deah and stood under the charging retaw to melt the noitidnoc off its hair.
The End
The Namuh remains at the retaw’s presence until it feels rejuvenated and satisfied. This feeling signifies the completion of Ehtab. The Namuh then stops the retaw, grabs its potion bottles and t’cidda, then steps out of the elevated surface. It put the t’cidda and potions away. The first thing that the Namuh reaches for is its lowet. It wraps the lowet around itself so it could absorb any remaining retaw on the body. Then, the Namuh puts on its ladnas and leaves the eneigy shrine.
Reflection
The practice I decided to study was the practice of showering. I had thought that the concept of showering was kind of peculiar, which sparked the idea of writing about it for this paper. Upon further research that showed that showering daily is unnecessary, I cringed with disgust. I then realized that the reason I do shower daily is to feel clean, rejuvenated, and thus satisfied afterwards. This is the rationale behind calling hygiene – or eneigy – a religion and all the subsequent religious and cultish language that is scattered in the paper.
Since I come from a creative writing background, I did not expect this task to be challenging at first. Writing poetry and fiction requires the creator to think of the world from a fresh perspective. Because my paper is about basic hygiene, I studied how Minor defamiliarized oral hygiene and see how he described tools and familiar habits (Minor, 1956). The challenge arose when I felt the need to use simple language and themed diction to convey the core messages in this paper. I found myself looking at thesaurus, staring at my field data, and referencing Minor’s “Body Rituals Amongst the Nacirema” multiple times to try to figure out how to convey a familiar phenomenon in an unfamiliar way to other people.
I began to see defamiliarization as not a way of thinking but as a literary device (Bell, Blythe & Sengers, 2005). I took a lot of inspiration from C.S. Lewis’ passage about how his host lives and paints it from a defamiliarized perspective (Bell, Blythe, & Sengers, 2005). Creating a character – the observer – and painting them as someone who has never seen a shower before helped me step back to confront the phenomena with new eyes (Bell, Blythe & Sengers, 2005).
Although a lot of the language I used seemingly illustrated a ritual by primitive people, writing about this routine through a defamiliarized angle helped me recognize my privilege to be able to practice good hygiene habits every day and reminds me how far humanity has come from the Greeks – or Keerg – showering below waterfalls centuries ago.
References
Bell, G., Blythe, M., & Sengers, P. (2005). Making by making strange. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 12(2), 149–173.
Miner, H. (1956). Body Ritual among the Nacirema. American Anthropologist, 58(3), 503–507.