ABSTRACT
The current cultural environment, marked by cultural globalization and economical and spiritual standardization, has turned asset ownership into a widespread goal. While globalizing modernity has generated many changes within everyday existence – even into the people’s mentality, where otherwise over-imposed limits (geographical, administrative, linguistic, historical) have become virtually nonexistent – preservation of cultural memory has become compulsory in order to maintain a necessary contact with the origins – the only way to save the cultural identity of one individual or a group.
In these conditions, fieldwork has become more imperative than ever and the ethnologist’s work more and more vital. We witness a time of emergency ethnology whose result should be the publication of a monograph of the area – approached by means of cultural and social anthropology.
Using this as a starting point, we attempted to outline this monograph of Chilioara village in Sălaj County village, not far from the city of Zalău, but secluded enough to provide a good research field from the perspective of preserving traditional values. The information gathered from villagers led to the image of a once rich and prosper village, aged and marginalized today, but which has developed into the collective memory a strong feeling of belonging to a group and a very obvious portrait of community life.