Rituals and traditions have been features of literature at least as far back as Homer' funeral games in The Iliad.

Rituals and Traditions are an integral aspect of human culture & have been since the year dot. Check out Bob Trubshaw's Explore Folklore and Bob Pegg's Rites and Riots for canny overviews of the subject as well as the Metalore surrounding them on the part of succesive generations of folklorists whose wonky volkish interpretations have unwrittem pretty much the entire concept of Neo Paganism & its Neo Fascist associations.

People have been having sex and baking bread for countless millenia too; Ritual & Tradition spring from the same basic urge which is common to all - not just that shadowy class of unwitting lore-carrier known as The Folk by their self-appointed caretakers.