Haint Paint: The belief that ghosts cannot travel over bodies of water helped create the unique blue shade found on many former slave homes in South Carolina and Georgia.
~HAINTS~ | “De Ole Gullah say, ‘De blu keeps dem ‘Haints ‘away.” In Gullah/Geechee tradition the color blue is used to keep Evil Spirits ~Haints~ away. A practice brought over from Africa during the Slavery; legend is a ‘Haint’ can’t cross water. Slaves would use a watery mixture of blue around the openings of their homes, hoping to confuse the ‘Haints’ into thinking the blue paint was water. During Slavery, ~Haint~ Blu was made in pits, dug in the yard, using limes, buttermilk, and indigo.
By mixing a combination of lime, milk, and whatever pigments they could find that would mimic the blue sea into a pit dug into the soil, they would cover all openings into the home with the haint paint, including doors, window shutters and porch ceilings in an effort to confuse spirits and stop them dead in their tracks.
Did you see a bottle tree and think it was a beautiful piece of folk art. Well it is that indeed but it is also a form of folk magic. And that folk magic can be traced back to northern Europe and Egypt in very early times.
Blue Bottle Trees Are Said To Be The Most Powerful. In the American South Bottle Trees are said to keep away ghosts and evil spirits.
