Tradition Definition

Cultural assets, historical facts and other socio-cultural elements that are transmitted orally from generation to generation

Tradition is the communication from generation to generation of the historical events that occurred in a certain place and of all those sociocultural elements that occur in the same place..

Orality is mainly the way in which traditions are transmitted and exist. This situation occurred especially in primitive times when writing was not developed and only the spoken word was the only possible way of communication. A good part of the legends and customs come from oral tradition and therefore no written documentation of their origin is kept, for example.

That is to say, all those cultural goods that a generation considers extremely valuable to be rescued and continued through time, and therefore transmits them to the following generations, constitute the tradition of a country.

The values, beliefs, customs, the ways in which a community expresses itself artistically are considered traditional and plausible to be communicated to subsequent generations as tradition..

This in no way means statism, because the vitality of a tradition depends purely and exclusively on its ability to continue renewing itself and adding new elements to those already received.

Folklore expresses the culture of the people

Almost always the tradition, that which is traditional, coincides one hundred percent with what is popularly called folklore. folklore is the expression of the culture of a particular people. Typical dances, stories, legends, oral history, superstitions, crafts, among other things, are faithful representatives of the folklore we mentioned.

Within folklore, four stages are identified: dead (corresponds to an already extinct culture, it is only preserved in travel books, archives, paintings) dying (the culture in question preserves only some details and elements, having lost the typical one for strictly demographic reasons, the elderly only keep it and transmit it to the youngest), alive (it is practiced in daily life) and nascent (new cultural traits that over time have chances to become tradition).

Most of the traditions that exist in a certain nation come from the past of the same, because although as we already mentioned, in the present, there may be popular practices and extended throughout the population, they will only recently be installed and adopted as tradition with the passage of time and after several generations. Although something is practiced a lot today, yes or yes, it demands the passage of time to be classified as a tradition.

Traditions can reach a small nucleus or cover more than one territory

However, traditions can occur at a local and small level, such is the case of a family that, for example, has the tradition of celebrating the new year in a house by the sea together with all the members of that family. Social groups also often develop traditions that are tied to that group’s object of union.

And on the other hand, there are traditions that manifest themselves with a greater scope, affecting more people and even several territories. For example, a sport like soccer turns out to be a sports tradition in Latin America and is the most widespread practice in this region to the detriment of others such as basketball.
Other examples are found in the Christmas festivity where it is a tradition throughout the world to assemble a little tree in which Papa Noel or Santa Claus will leave us gifts. Or in the Christian Easter party that has as a widespread practice eating chocolate eggs on Christ’s resurrection Sunday.

The tango, the barbecue, the mate and the intake of pasta on Sundays at noon turn out to be the most characteristic elements that express the tradition of the Argentines.

Also, the set of what is transmitted, as we mentioned above, is called tradition.

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