Like many other popular festivals known by their plastic and performative exuberance, the holy ghost festivals articulate a dimension that we may intuitively recognize as aesthetic but that can not be described and analysed as a differentiated and autonomous one, and the festival can not be recognized as a work of art in the strict sense of the term. The practices that compose it are inspired by moral, magical and religious categories, whose deep reason lies in the individual and collective obligation to please the holy ghost. Such technical, aesthetic, economic, physiological and psychological practices in the festival are implemented as a kind of counter-gift to the holy ghost for the distinct forms of grace given to the human beings.
art; cultural heritages; ethnicity; religion