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Invented tradition can have the ingenuity of borrowing from more ancient practices and materials as a means of emboldening itself. Some newer traditions are flexibile enough to be grafted onto old ones or simply accumulate surrounding ones. This serves to make invented traditions appear more ancient than they are and to welcome more dynamism and vitality into its fold.

The origins of invented traditions are unknown in terms of how they began, but two possible explanations are that they began to form during a revolutionary period or as a result of a project undertaken by an existing institution. Both seek to embed their values into the very relations of society, which shows how traditions serve both a practical and transcendent role for those that create them.

"Invented tradition’ is taken to mean a set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past. In fact, where possible, they normally attempt to establish continuity with a suitable historic past."