The word tradition can refer to:
1. The art of memorizing and preserving a story from generation to generation without the need for a writing system. Tools to aid this process include rhyme and alliteration. The stories thus preserved are also referred to as tradition, or as part of an oral tradition
2. Procedures that are repeated in the same way, generation after generation, year after year. For example, it is now a tradition to have a Christmas tree to celebrate Christmas.
Traditionalism is at its best a desire to protect useful and hard-won traditions, and at worst a form of chauvinism for the past based on nostalgia.