Invented tradition

Invented traditions are cultural practices that are presented or

perceived as traditional, arising from the people starting in the
distant past, but which in fact are relatively recent and often even
consciously invented by identifiable historical actors. The concept
was highlighted in the 1983 book The Invention of Tradition, edited
by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger.[1] Hobsbawm's
introduction argues that many "traditions" which "appear or claim
to be old are often quite recent in origin and sometimes
invented."[2] This "invention" is distinguished from "starting" or
"initiating" a tradition which does not then claim to be old. The
phenomenon is particularly clear in the modern development of the
nation and of nationalism, creating a national identity promoting
national unity, and legitimising certain institutions or cultural "Ancient" Scottish clan tartans are
practices.[3] an example of an invented tradition
created in the 19th century.

Contents
Application of the term and paradox
Fakelore
Connection to folklore
Criticism
Examples of Fakelore
See also
References
External links

Application of the term and paradox

The concept and the term have been widely applied to cultural phenomena such as the martial arts of
Japan,[4] the "highland myth" in Scotland,[5][6] and the traditions of major religions,[7][8] to mention only a
few. The concept was influential on the use of related concepts, such as Benedict Anderson's imagined
communities and the pizza effect.[9]

One implication of the term is that the sharp distinction between "tradition" and "modernity" is often itself
invented. The concept is "highly relevant to that comparatively recent historical innovation, the 'nation',
with its associated phenomena: nationalism, the nation-state, national symbols, histories, and the rest."
Hobsbawm and Ranger remark on the "curious but understandable paradox: modern nations and all their
impedimenta generally claim to be the opposite of novel, namely rooted in remotest antiquity, and the
opposite of constructed, namely human communities so 'natural' as to require no definition other than self-
assertion."[10] Another implication is that the concept of "authenticity" is also to be questioned.

Fakelore
Fakelore or pseudo-folklore is inauthentic, manufactured folklore presented as if it were genuinely
traditional. The term can refer to new stories or songs made up, or to folklore that is reworked and modified
for modern tastes. The element of misrepresentation is central; artists who draw on traditional stories in their
work are not producing fakelore unless they claim that their creations are real folklore.[11] Over the last
several decades the term has generally fallen out of favor in folklore studies because it places an emphasis
on origin instead of ongoing practice to determine authenticity.

The term fakelore was coined in 1950 by American folklorist Richard M. Dorson[11] in his article "Folklore
and Fake Lore" published in The American Mercury. Dorson's examples included the fictional cowboy
Pecos Bill, who was presented as a folk hero of the American West but was actually invented by the writer
Edward S. O'Reilly in 1923. Dorson also regarded Paul Bunyan as fakelore. Although Bunyan originated
as a character in traditional tales told by loggers in the Great Lakes region of North America, William B.
Laughead (1882–1958), an ad writer working for the Red River Lumber Company, invented many of the
stories about him that are known today. According to Dorson, advertisers and popularizers turned Bunyan
into a "pseudo folk hero of twentieth-century mass culture" who bore little resemblance to the original.[12]

Folklorismus also refers to the invention or adaptation of folklore. Unlike fakelore, however, folklorismus is
not necessarily misleading; it includes any use of a tradition outside the cultural context in which it was
created. The term was first used in the early 1960s by German scholars, who were primarily interested in
the use of folklore by the tourism industry. However, professional art based on folklore, TV commercials
with fairy tale characters, and even academic studies of folklore are all forms of folklorism.[13][14]

Connection to folklore

The term fakelore is often used by those who seek to expose or debunk modern reworkings of folklore,
including Dorson himself, who spoke of a "battle against fakelore".[15] Dorson complained that
popularizers had sentimentalized folklore, stereotyping the people who created it as quaint and
whimsical[11]  – whereas the real thing was often "repetitive, clumsy, meaningless and obscene".[16] He
contrasted the genuine Paul Bunyan tales, which had been so full of technical logging terms that outsiders
would find parts of them difficult to understand, with the commercialized versions, which sounded more
like children's books. The original Paul Bunyan had been shrewd and sometimes ignoble; one story told
how he cheated his men out of their pay. Mass culture provided a sanitized Bunyan with a "spirit of
gargantuan whimsy [that] reflects no actual mood of lumberjacks".[12] Daniel G. Hoffman said that
Bunyan, a folk hero, had been turned into a mouthpiece for capitalists: "This is an example of the way in
which a traditional symbol has been used to manipulate the minds of people who had nothing to do with its
creation."[17]

Others have argued that professionally created art and folklore are constantly influencing each other, and
that this mutual influence should be studied rather than condemned.[18] For example, Jon Olson, a
professor of anthropology, reported that while growing up he heard Paul Bunyan stories that had originated
as lumber company advertising.[19] Dorson had seen the effect of print sources on orally transmitted Paul
Bunyan stories as a form of cross-contamination that "hopelessly muddied the lore".[12] For Olson,
however, "the point is that I personally was exposed to Paul Bunyan in the genre of a living oral tradition,
not of lumberjacks (of which there are precious few remaining), but of the present people of the area."[19]
What was fakelore had become folklore again.

Responding to his opponents' argument that the writers have the same claim as the original folk storytellers,
Dorson writes that the difference amounts to the difference between traditional culture and mass culture.[11]

Criticism
One reviewer (Peter Burke) noted that the " 'invention of tradition' is a splendidly subversive phrase", but it
"hides serious ambiguities". Hobsbawm "contrasts invented traditions with what he calls 'the strength and
adaptability of genuine traditions'. But where does his 'adaptability', or his colleague Ranger's 'flexibility'
end, and invention begin? Given that all traditions change, is it possible or useful to attempt to discriminate
the 'genuine' antiques from the fakes?"[20] Another also praised the high quality of the articles but had
qualifications. "Such distinctions" (between invented and authentic traditions) "resolve themselves
ultimately into one between the genuine and the spurious, a distinction that may be untenable because all
traditions (like all symbolic phenomena) are humanly created ('spurious') rather than naturally given
('genuine')."[21] Pointing out that "invention entails assemblage, supplementation, and rearrangement of
cultural practices so that in effect traditions can be preserved, invented, and reconstructed", Guy Beiner
proposed that a more accurate term would be "reinvention of tradition", signifying "a creative process
involving renewal, reinterpretation and revision".[22]

Examples of Fakelore
In addition to Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill, Dorson identified the American folk hero Joe Magarac as
fakelore.[12] Magarac, a fictional steelworker, first appeared in 1931 in a Scribner's Magazine story by the
writer Owen Francis. He was a literal man of steel who made rails from molten metal with his bare hands;
he refused an opportunity to marry in order to devote himself to working 24 hours a day, worked so hard
that the mill had to shut down, and finally, in despair at enforced idleness, melted himself down in the mill's
furnace in order to improve the quality of the steel. Francis said he heard this story from Croatian immigrant
steelworkers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; he reported that they told him the word magarac was a
compliment, then laughed and talked to each other in their own language, which he did not speak. The
word actually means "donkey" in Croatian, and is an insult. Since no trace of the existence of Joe Magarac
stories prior to 1931 has been discovered, Francis's informants may have made the character up as a joke on
him. In 1998, Gilley and Burnett reported "only tentative signs that the Magarac story has truly made a
substantive transformation from 'fake-' into 'folklore' ", but noted his importance as a local cultural icon.[23]

Other American folk heroes that have been called fakelore include Old Stormalong, Febold Feboldson,[12]
Big Mose, Tony Beaver, Bowleg Bill, Whiskey Jack, Annie Christmas, Cordwood Pete, Antonine Barada,
and Kemp Morgan.[24] Marshall Fishwick describes these largely literary figures as imitations of Paul
Bunyan.[25] Additionally, scholar Michael I. Niman describes the Legend of the Rainbow Warriors – a
belief that a "new tribe" will inherit the ways of the Native Americans and save the planet – as an example
of fakelore.[26]

See also
False etymology
Folklorismus
Imagined community
 Old wives' tale
Hoax
Snopes.com
Urban legend
Mythopoeia
Pseudo-mythology

References
1. Eric Hobsbawm & Terence Ranger, ed. (1983). The Invention of Tradition (https://archive.org/
details/inventionoftradi0000unse). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521246453.
2. Hobsbawm & Ranger (1983), p. 1.
3. The articles in the volume include Hugh Trevor-Roper's "The invention of tradition: the
Highland tradition of Scotland," Prys Morgan's "From a death to a view: the hunt for the
Welsh past in the romantic period," David Cannadine's "The context, performance and
meaning of ritual: the British monarchy and the 'invention of tradition', c. 1820-1977,"
Bernard S. Cohen's "Representing authority in Victorian India," Terence Ranger's "The
invention of tradition in colonial Africa," and Eric Hobsbawm's "Mass-producing traditions:
Europe, 1870-1914."
4. Stephen Vlastos (ed.). Mirror of Modernity: Invented Traditions of Modern Japan. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1998.
5. M. Sievers (2007). The Highland Myth as an Invented Tradition of 18th and 19th Century and
Its Significance for the Image of Scotland (https://books.google.com/books?id=_U-5sq5MDB
QC&pg=PA23&dq=tartan+highland+romantic&hl=En&ei=JqATTq_bD5Gy8QOpk7H8Bw&s
a=X&oi=book_result&ct=book-thumbnail&resnum=5&sqi=2&ved=0CEIQ6wEwBA#v=onepa
ge&q=tartan%20highland%20romantic&f=false). GRIN Verlag. ISBN 3-638-81651-6. pp. 22–
25.
6. Hutton, Ronald (November 3, 2008). "Modern Pagan Festivals: A Study in the Nature of
Tradition". Folklore. Taylor Francis. 119 (3): 251–273. doi:10.1080/00155870802352178 (htt
ps://doi.org/10.1080%2F00155870802352178). S2CID 145003549 (https://api.semanticscho
lar.org/CorpusID:145003549).
7. Masuzawa, Tomoko (2005). The Invention of World Religions. Chicago University of
Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-50989-1.
8. Nur Masalha (2007). The Bible and Zionism: Invented Traditions, Archaeology and Post-
Colonialism in Palestine-Israel. London; New York: Zed Books. LCCN 2006-31826 (https://lc
cn.loc.gov/2006031826). ISBN 978-1-84277-761-9.
9. Anderson, Benedict. "The origins of national consciousness". Nationalism: Critical Concepts
in Political Science 1 (2000): 316, p. 37.
10. Hobsbawm & Terence Ranger (1983), p. 13-14.
11. Dorson, Richard M. (1977). American Folklore (https://archive.org/details/americanfolklore00
dors). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 4 (https://archive.org/details/americanfolklore
00dors/page/4). ISBN 0-226-15859-4.
12. Dorson (1977), 214–226.
13. Newall, Venetia J. (1987). "The Adaptation of Folklore and Tradition (Folklorismus)".
Folklore. 98 (2): 131–151. doi:10.1080/0015587x.1987.9716408 (https://doi.org/10.1080%2F
0015587x.1987.9716408). JSTOR 1259975 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/1259975).
14. Kendirbaeva, Gulnar (1994). "Folklore and Folklorism in Kazakhstan". Asian Folklore
Studies. 53 (1): 97–123. doi:10.2307/1178561 (https://doi.org/10.2307%2F1178561).
JSTOR 1178561 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/1178561).
15. Dorson, Richard M. (1973). "Is Folklore a Discipline?". Folklore. 84 (3): 177–205.
doi:10.1080/0015587x.1973.9716514 (https://doi.org/10.1080%2F0015587x.1973.971651
4). JSTOR 1259723 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/1259723).
16. Dorson, Richard M. (1963). "Current Folklore Theories". Current Anthropology. 4 (1): 101.
doi:10.1086/200339 (https://doi.org/10.1086%2F200339). JSTOR 2739820 (https://www.jsto
r.org/stable/2739820). S2CID 143464386 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:143464
386).
17. Ball, John; George Herzog; Thelma James; Louis C. Jones; Melville J. Herskovits; Wm.
Hugh Jansen; Richard M. Dorson; Alvin W. Wolfe; Daniel G. Hoffman (1959). "Discussion
from the Floor". Journal of American Folklore. 72 (285): 233–241. doi:10.2307/538134 (http
s://doi.org/10.2307%2F538134). JSTOR 538134 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/538134).
18. Olson, Jon (1976). "Film Reviews". Western Folklore. 35 (3): 233–237. doi:10.2307/1498351
(https://doi.org/10.2307%2F1498351). JSTOR 1498351 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/149835
1). According to Newall, 133, the German folklorist Hermann Bausinger expressed a similar
view.
19. Olson, 235.
20. Peter Burke, "Review" (https://www.jstor.org/stable/571469), The English Historical Review
101.398 (1986): 316–317.
21. Richard Handler, "Review" (https://www.jstor.org/stable/679222), American Anthropologist
86.4 (1984): 1025–1026.
22. Beiner, Guy (2007). Remembering the Year of the French Irish Folk History and Social
Memory (https://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/3846.htm). Madison, Wisconsin: University of
Wisconsin Press. p. 272. ISBN 978-0-299-21824-9.
23. Gilley, Jennifer; Stephen Burnett (November 1998). "Deconstructing and Reconstructing
Pittsburgh's Man of Steel: Reading Joe Magarac against the Context of the 20th-Century
Steel Industry". The Journal of American Folklore. 111 (442): 392–408. doi:10.2307/541047
(https://doi.org/10.2307%2F541047). JSTOR 541047 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/541047).
24. American Folklore: An Encyclopedia, ed. Jan Harold Brunvand, Taylor & Francis, 1996, p.
1105
25. Fishwick, Marshall W. (1959). "Sons of Paul: Folklore or Fakelore?". Western Folklore. 18
(4): 277–286. doi:10.2307/1497745 (https://doi.org/10.2307%2F1497745). JSTOR 1497745
(https://www.jstor.org/stable/1497745).
26. Niman, Michael I. 1997. People of the Rainbow: A Nomadic Utopia, pp. 131-148. University
of Tennessee Press. ISBN 0-87049-988-2

External links
Cornelius Holtorf (University of Toronto), "The Invention of Tradition" (https://tspace.library.ut
oronto.ca/citd/holtorf/6.3.html)

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