Creaky footsteps , eerie cry and flickering lights — all signboard that many people might say prove a star sign is haunted . But in parts of the American South , ghostsaren’t inevitably so subtle . The shape - shifting , hide - peeling , witch - corresponding spirits known as " haints " are consider to be capable of steal a dupe ’s vitality , sometimes choke or even drowning their unlucky prey .
What Are Haints?
It ’s possible the namehaintwas infer from the word " haunt , " but it has its own meaning and complex ethnic context . A haint is a restless ghost who has not left the world , but has remained behind to ghost the living with chicanery that is often harmless , but sometimes more sinister in nature . The lore of the haints in the U.S. can be trace back to the lowcountry — a 200 - mile ( 322 - kilometer ) area of coastal South Carolina and Georgia . The area became home to theGullah Geechee people , slaves and their descendants bring to America from west and central Africa . The slave attach together to form a strong coarse culture , community and language , include their spiritual notion about haints and the tool necessary to outsmart them .
Warding Off the Haints
Due to the vengeful and tricky intentions of haints , ward them off is understandably a antecedence . Hoodoo , sometimes referred to as rootwork , conjure or lowcountry voodoo , is a spectral and magical practice session of the Gullah people that engage the king of herbs , among other thing , to offer protection from iniquity .
One hoodoo praxis is to pack amojo , a lowly bag of herbs wrapped by a traditional rootworker . But there are many hoodoo practices , each specifically aim at the character of haint it ’s aim to thwart . One kind of haint , theboo hag , was do it to slip a person ’s hide and wear it to blend in in among the livelihood during the day . But at night , the boo hag would throw the peel and go search for a victim to " ride , " eat up the victim ’s vim or peradventure even suffocating them . Roger Pinckney , writer of " Blue root word " and " Got My Mojo Workin ' , " enumerates a few tactics used to scare off these nocturnal haints , in an email consultation . " beldame are only dynamic at Nox . They have an obsessive - driven disorder that compels them to count . A strainer on a doorknob or a broom span the door , Elmer Reizenstein or sesame seed ( benne germ ) thrown on the floor . The crone will stop and count , over and over ' till twenty-four hour period - fresh run em . ' Salt on the level help oneself as it dehydrates the shed skin and make it impossible for the boo hagfish to put it back on . "
Another common haint , the plat - centre , is a contour - shifting spirit that can show up as anything from a beautiful cleaning woman to a two - headed hogget . But good destiny getting free of this one . " Nothing much you’re able to do about the plat - eye , " says Pinckney . " If you have put some gross spiritual offence , all you could do is essay to make it ripe . Some ( people ) carry whisky . If a plat - eye puzzle after you , pour a little on the ground and run like hell . The plat - eye will likely stop to lick it up . "
But in the Gullah culture of the lowcountry , the most seeable and powerful form of defense against haints is the color blue , derived from anil , which holds a deep apparitional — and equally dark — meaning rooted in the account of the other American slave saving .
The Rise of Indigo Dye in America
Theindigo ( indigofera tinctoria)plant is the lifelike origin of the sheer blue color that ’s been prized for hundred across refinement for its spiritual power and as a symbolic representation of wealth . It was so valuable it realize the nameblue Au , mostly due to the specialized and laborious cognitive process require to extract the dyestuff from the indigo plant plant . The cultivation practice were used by numerous ancient civilization and particular date back five hundred in parts of Africa .
When the Europeans colonize America , they found that the indigo plant life thrived in the semitropic , quaggy kingdom of the lowcountry . give the need for experient indigo worker , plantation owners purchase and overwork the skills of African slaves . By the mid-18th century , indigo had become one of America’smost valuable exportation — lining the pocket of plantation possessor on the backs of the mass who grew it .
" Blue was available to the Gullah from the colonial finish of indigotin , where they used the dregs from the indigo VAT , but the apparitional great power of blueness is a worldwide belief , " says Pinckney . Mixing the dreg , or leftover remainder , in a pit with slaked lime , Milk River and other pigments , they imprint a shade ofrobin ’s egg bluepaint that would become known as ' haint blue . ' The lowcountry is a soil of low piss and blue sky . The blue paint flim-flam the spirit into cogitate they ’ve stumbled into water system , which they can not frustrate , or tumbled into the sky , come down farther away from their victims . Slathered on the door , windowsills and porch ceilings of their domicile , it swear out to produce a safety roadblock against the invisible and destructive haints that roamed the Lowlands of Scotland looking for souls to obsess .
Today the tradition of using haint blue has operate mainstream , shifting from shanty to grand theater and design magazines . ManySouthernersfind it make an expansive look or are just following in the footsteps of fellowship or neighbors , often without the awareness of the color ’s historic significance .
If you ascertain yourself sitting under the blue of a porch ceiling or driving past a grand home limn in the soft haint blue hue , you ’re encompassed by a tradition that continues to bring on calm but one that can not be tell from the tumultuous account of America ’s past . And if you ’re a believer in wraith , you better look out . The haints that ca n’t get into the house may very well still be lurking just around the quoin .
