The Great and the Little Traditions
"In a civilization there is a great tradition of the reflective few, and there is a little tradition of the largely unreflective many. The great tradition is cultivated in schools or temples; the little tradition works itself out and keeps itself going in the lives of the unlettered in their village communities. The tradition of the philosopher, theologian, and literary man is a tradition consciously cultivated and handed down; that of the little people is for the most part taken for granted and not submitted to much scrutiny or considered refinement and improvement.
Robert Redfield: Peasant Society and Culture: An Anthropological Approach to Civilization 1956: 70)
‘The studies of the anthropologist are contextual; they relate some element of the great tradition — sacred topic, story-element, teacher, ceremony, or supernatural being — to the life of the ordinary people, in the context of daily life as the anthropologist sees it happen.’ (Radfield 1956: 89)