Gullah/Geechee Folklore: Boo Hag

Geechee Folklore: Boo Hag

  The Geechee/Gullah people are full of beliefs and traditions. One of those beliefs is of the legend of the Boo Hag. The Boo Hag is an evil spirit that uses someone's skin to move among people unnoticed. Without the stolen skin, The Boo Hag is red,and is very warm to the touch. Once night falls, they shed, and hide the skin. Boo Hags are said to hide their skin under porch steps, and under beds. Boo Hags can enter a person's house through the smallest of openings. Once the Boo Hag is inside they sit on the victim's chest and steals their breath. This is known as "ridin'". Boo Hag doesn't kill the person that they ride, because it can come back over, and over again to steal the person's breath, which is how it sustains itself. The Boo Hag rides it's victim all night, and before the sun comes up the Boo Hag has to return to it's skin because it can't survive without skin in the daytime.


 Legend has it that there are warning signs that a Boo Hag might be near. The warning signs are the air will feel damp, and hot, and will smell as if something is rotting. There are a few ways to help prevent a visit from Boo Hag including putting a loaded gun across the head of the bed, as a Boo Hag doesn't like that smell of gunpowder. The Boo Hag is quite nosey so it stops and count things. You can use a brush, or put salt near the bed. The most commonly used way to prevent a Boo Hag from ridin' you is to place a broom by a door, or near you when you sleep so it stops and count the straws until dawn, when it needs to return to it's skin. Since it an evil spirit, using haint blue also helps. It's said that if you wake up in the morning, after having a full night's rest feeling exhausted, there is a chance that you have been visited by Boo Hag. 

Boo Hag story from The Moonlit Road 

Haint Blue: The REAL reason porches have blue ceilings.

The REAL reason  porches have blue ceilings.

In Gullah/Geechee tradition the color blue is used to keep evil
spirits away. The Gullah/Geechee call those evil spirits, Haints. The
practice was brought over from Africa during the slavery. The legend
of the Haint is they can't cross water, so because slaves couldn't
build motes around their houses, they would use a watery mixture of
blue around the openings of their homes. They hoped that the blue
mixture would confuse the Haints into thinking the paint was water.
During slavery, Haint Blue was made in pits, dug in the yard, using
limes, buttermilk, and indigo. The practice of using blue paint on houses still
goes on today, especially in the South. If you've traveled to places such as Charleston, SC or
Savannah, Ga you may have noticed that porch ceilings, shutters, and
the trim on houses are often blue. 

Picture Source: http://www.kitchenandresidentialdesign.com