FOLK 1000 Lecture 14: Chapter 5 Overview and Tradition
11 Feb 2017
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Document Summary
Tradition is one of the most imp concepts in folklore: while tradition may seem simple enough to understand, just something handed down thu time w/o change, can be more complicated than it first appears. Henry glassie explains that tradition is the creation of the future out of the past . Glassie, concept of tradition is similar to the concept of history. He argues that neither tradition nor history is the past, but rather, they are creations based on the past. History is not the past; it is an artful assembly of materials from the past, designed for usefulness in the future. In this way, history verges upon that idea of tradition in which it is identified with the resource out of which people create. History and tradition are comparable in dynamic; they exclude more than they include and so remain open to endless revision. Sometimes are replaced by new traditions: example of familial holiday customs.
