ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at official narratives regarding the festival and related musical practices, and also includes unofficial narratives and critical voices in the heritagization and branding process of the festival. It shows that music also accompanies civilizing forces in the postcolonial scenario, where the civilizing forces are no longer the colonizers, but tourism and capitalism. The chapter discusses festivals and musical performances in the community of Morro Vermelho in relation to the theory of the coloniality of power, the theory of the civilizing process, and in relation to the myth of racial democracy in Brazil. In June 2012, a group of people from Morro Vermelho traveled to Nazare in Portugal with a copy of the local image of Our Lady of Nazare. Year after year, life in Morro Vermelho is geared toward this cyclical return of Our Lady of Nazare, whose arrival is met with great enthusiasm and with a festival of celebration.
