Research into popular traditions is probably one of the last frontiers in anthropology and ethnology. By chance or necessity, it coincides with the end of the great geographical discoveries and the mapping of most lands and their inhabitants.
We can imagine these events as a superficial and elastic study by explorers, cartographers and "pre-anthropologists", and at the same time understand the study of popular traditions as a deeper and more careful way to gain knowledge of the same places and the same populations.
Napoleon's interest in popular traditions
The primacy of the study of popular traditions is attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte and the eponymous surveys he promoted, although the purpose of these surveys, conducted between 1809 and 1811 across much of Italy, was far from the disinterested thirst for knowledge that characterizes such studies today. The aim of these surveys, in fact, was to identify and eliminate forms of superstition and dialects that were poorly suited to the ideals of the Enlightenment and the idea of a Nation-Empire.
The first to coin the term " folklore " in the second half of the nineteenth century was Ambrose Merton , pseudonym of William Thoms , who felt it necessary to find a single term suitable for representing the sum of the studies of popular traditions and forms of aggregation aimed at recalling the habits and customs of the past of a given culture. The traditions, festivals, dances, costumes and rites we witnessed as adults or since childhood conceal profound, hidden and usually quite ancient meanings. Often so ancient as to remain buried by the historical and cultural eras that have passed in a given area.
These elements appear in their external form through a multitude of elements, among which stand out: characteristic music, ritual costumes, dishes, folk dances, processions, ritual behaviors, readings of sacred texts and songs whose lyrics often revive an ancient oral tradition that survives and is transmitted only on these occasions.
The importance of celebrating every year
The strength and fragility of these rites lie in their periodicity , often annual: the annual occurrence of a festival or rite increases its impact and participation ; at the same time, this type of cultural transmission can be weakened or even prevented at a given moment by uncommon events, such as disasters or wars.
The elements that characterize a tradition usually, if not always, have a latent meaning that escapes the immediate understanding of those who witness them, whether they are a stranger or a member of the community not initiated into the knowledge of such elements.
The allure of superstition
We speak of social fossils in reference to the concept of survival expressed by anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor , who explained how a belief, idea, or practice, whose original meaning had been lost over time, could survive and reappear just like a fossil, the study of which can lead to a better understanding of past events and cultures. Superstition is the classic example of a social fossil: an object imbued with magic or a pagan magical practice that predates the emergence of a new paradigm and persists in the dominant culture of a subsequent era.
The study of popular traditions therefore represents the study of the culture and history of a people or community, of the intermingling of distant peoples. The study of folklore is ultimately the search for the meaning and purpose of the collective consciousness.
René Verneau
