NOTES ON RED IN THE MASTERS AND THE SLAVES

Abstract

For contemporary social and cultural anthropologists, historians and sociologists, certain uses of the red colour among indigenous peoples of North and South America have a magical and prophylatic character. Focusing on the Brazilian panorama from the 16th century to the early thirties of the 20th century, in The Masters and the Slaves Gilberto Freyre analyzed reasons that made red a national favorite colour. The aim of this article is to expose how Freyre associated such prediletion to complex social processes, involving Indigenous culture and Portuguese colonial imaginary in a narrative about the construction of the nation’s identity. Works of Paul Ricoeur and Roberto González Echevarría guide the mainstream theoretical scope of this study.