Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 March 2019
In the 1980s a type of bagpipe, formerly used in parts of Dalarna (Dalecarlia), Sweden, was brought out of the museums, spread all over the country and played again as never before. The very few known traditional bagpipers were rediscovered and their music and life-histories reconstructed to suit new purposes. The subject of this paper is to describe and analyze this process, when parts of a common historical and cultural heritage were transformed and used in contemporary society as objects of identification.