Creation of a New Archaic through Ethnographic and Journalistic Strategies. A Case Study from the Romanian Shepherds’ Tradition

Abstract

As eclectic as they are, our times express a multilevel predisposition to re-actuate the ‘archaic tradition’ (unclear and vague expression, in connection with another contemporary obsession, which is ‘authenticity’) as a return-to-nature movement. This process comes from the urban environment and is often formalised through new rituals, which do not absorb original, genuine old rituals, perhaps already vanished, despite being based. on their descriptions and interpretations. The case study discussed in this article is from Romanian tradition and is represented by the wedding in a vegetal sanctuary (Rom. biserica de brazi). I analysed an article published in Formula As, a new-age magazine with a large audience, in order to disclose strategies of a turning a ritual in a legend, that occurs at the intersection between ethnographic and fictional texts.