“To grow up in the South is to be fed a steady diet of grits and ghost stories.”
—Margaret Eby
Introduction
Across the Coastal South, front porches and porticos abound. They are our communal living spaces where on warm evenings neighbors gather to engage in one of the South’s favorite activities – talking and telling stories. Often the ceilings of those outdoor salons will be painted blue. It may be true sky-blue or carry a touch of green, hinting at watery inspiration. The occasional pale purple tinge mingles with blue, reminding us of our temperamental hydrangeas that can’t quite decide which color to display. Sometimes a vivid indigo makes an appearance, peering out from under a gabled façade. Many people find these colors appealing, and use them as a way to bridge outdoor and indoor living spaces. Surprisingly few people know that the origins of those blue-painted porch ceilings (and blue shutters or trim) come to the South by way of slaves, or that we borrow the tradition from West African cultures. Even fewer will be aware these colors are collectively referred to as “haint blue,” created over two centuries ago to confuse ghosts and keep them out of the house.
African Connections
A “haint” is a Southern euphemism for ghost. It is thought to have originated as a colloquial pronunciation of “haunt” among the Gullah and Geechee peoples of the South Carolina low country (Telfair 45). These were the slaves taken from West Africa – the Congo, and the “ Rice Coast” areas of Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Liberia – who were brought to the swamp lands and islands off the coast of the Carolinas to work the rice plantations (Opala). Their traditional African rice farming techniques and slave labor were exploited by white plantation owners beginning in the early 18 th century. Eventually the large coastal South Carolina rice plantations were abandoned beginning as early as the 1860s and were essentially forgotten by the late 19th century. Several possible causes are thought to have contributed to the decline: competition from other rice-growing regions (Opala), the oppressive year-round heat and humidity, and the ever-present threat of malaria may have all been factors that drove the white plantation owners inland. Many of the slaves had at least partial resistance to the parasite that caused malaria, and the climate of their native West African homeland was very similar to the subtropical South Carolina coast. Their culture developed in isolation among the barrier islands until the advent of bridges to the islands linked them to the mainland, but greater contact with the modern world occurred as late as the middle of the 20th century. The extent of the Gullah-Geechee Nation and its culture reaches from the southern shores of North Carolina south to Northeast Florida (www.nps.gov). The official Gullah-Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor encompasses 79 tiny barrier islands that stubbornly cling to the coastline of the southeastern U.S. for nearly 500 miles (Bruce 50). The corridor extends inland by some 30 miles.
Origins of “Haint Blue” Paint
Haints tend to be restless and mischievous, if not downright mean-spirited. Most people would rather not have them in their homes; even if those people are rational, level-headed, and don’t “believe in” ghosts, they don’t want to take any chances that a meandering haint might slip into their home and wreak havoc. Traditionally, ghosts are not supposed to be able to pass over water. Painting the entryway to a house a color that mimics water was thought to prevent them from entering the home by confusing them into thinking they were seeing water.
There is surprisingly little scholarly literature about the origins or practice of using blue paint to ward off malevolent spirits among African slaves and their descendents. It is generally agreed the original haint blue paint came from slaves who grew and harvested indigo on plantations along the coast of South Carolina and Georgia. They mixed milk or buttermilk with powdered indigo pigment and lime to create a vivid but sometimes chalky blue milk paint that was applied to interiors, exteriors, and even furniture to protect people from ghosts (Telfair 45).
“Haint Blue” Porch Ceilings in Jacksonville Florida
Research in the historic Riverside/Avondale area of Jacksonville Florida produced several examples of “haint blue” porches. From the tiniest 1940s cottage to larger colonial-style homes, variations in blue-painted porches could be seen. They seemed to fall into one of two categories: sky-blue or aqua-tinged blue. A pair of homes which sit side-by-side at 1605 and 1615 Osceola Street both have wrap-around porches on their south side and each has a pale aqua ceiling. A large two-story brick and frame home located at 2619 Herschel Street has a deeper sky-blue porch ceiling, barely visible to passers-by. A white two-story colonial home at 1750 Glendale Street has double porches with sky-blue ceilings. Even the ceiling of the detached two-car carport is painted the same sky blue. A small yellow 1940s bungalow on Jean Street has a pale aqua porch ceiling. The owner told me she painted it that color because it reminded her of all the good times she’d had in Savannah. She also mentioned anecdotally that since she painted the ceiling of her porch, she hasn’t had to pressure wash the ceiling because the wasps don’t like the porch anymore, so they no longer build nests there. This was another frequently-cited reason that historic homes often had blue or aqua entrances. The Napoleon Bonaparte Broward house, located on Heckscher Drive in Jacksonville’s Northside, dates from 1878. In 1897, it became the summer house of Florida Governor Broward. This two-story, wood-frame house combines Italianate and Victorian styles (Wood 322) and has blue porch ceilings on its upper and lower levels.
Ghost in a Bottle
If blue paint isn’t enough protection against wandering spirits who might decide that your home looks like a good place to settle in, consider that quirky icon of Southern culture, the bottle tree. Rarely seen outside the South, author and photographer Eudora Welty captured an image of one in the 1930s and described their apotropeic properties in her short story "Livvie." The protagonist is a young African-American woman who marries a much older man and who sees bottle trees on his property, recognizing them as a way to trap wayward spirits (Tabler). Accounts of how a bottle tree actually works to protect people from ghosts differ. Some believe that ghosts are lured inside the bottles during their nocturnal journeys, where they are trapped during the night and eventually destroyed by the sun the next day (Rushing, Chiorazzi). Still others believe to fully be rid of the ghost, the bottle with the “haint” trapped inside must be capped and thrown in a river or lake, where the ghost would be washed away (Tabler). There is general consensus that the most powerful protection comes from cobalt blue bottles.
Controversy
There are outspoken critics who claim the connection between Gullah-Geechee traditions and the use of haint blue paint is non-existent. Queen Quet, the founder and leader of the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition, rejects both the term “haint blue” and the use of the pastel blue hues as authentic reflections of her culture. She insists “…We have no such thing as haint blue. We use indigo blue. We . . . have never called it haint blue. It came from Anglo people that started calling it haint . . . it is offensive to our people and tradition” (Bates). Queen Quet clarifies the original use of deeper blue paint colors in traditional African homes was a way to assure that only positive energy entered the house.
As the dominant culture began to acquire and integrate the cultural norms of the African-American subculture during the latter part of the twentieth century in cities like Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina, it became fashionable to connect with the glossy tourist-centric history doled out in guide books and travel magazines. In the name of cultural preservation, residents could claim their own connection with the past by using “historic” paint colors in and on their homes. And so the use of “haint blue” paint spread across the South while knowledge of its origins dimmed. It has been reduced to a quaint décor motif. Several paint manufacturers offer a palette of "haint blue" for porch ceilings. Consumers aren’t aware of the cultural significance of blue ceilings and shutters beyond the marketing of these colors as “historical.” The bottle tree has suffered a similar fate. It now appears in the yards of middle-class white Southerners, made of wooden dowels or metal rods on which people place their empty wine bottles. It has come to represent affluence and leisure time. Indeed, Queen Quet feels that the dominant culture has misunderstood the spiritual nature of color in the Gullah-Geechee tradition which incorporates both Christianity and its supernatural ancestral religions from West Africa into daily living (Bates). It is this duality that has allowed the culture to survive in the modern world and to pass its wisdom on to us.
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Bruce, Taylor. “The Islands That Time Forgot.” Budget Travel. Dec 2011: 49-53. Print.
Callahan, Ashley and Couch, David L. “New Discoveries in Georgia Painted Furniture.” http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/7aa/7aa983.htm 28 Jan 2008. Web. 20 Sept 2011.
Chiorazzi, Anthony. “In the Land of God and Gullah.” http://bustedhalo.com/features/in-the-land-of-god-and-gullah. 13 September 2010. Web. 09 Oct 2011.
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“History of a Color.” http://historiesofthingstocome.blogspot.com/2011/09/history-of-colour-haint-blue.html. 20 Sept 2011. Web. 09 October 2011
McCullough, Holly Koons, ed. Collection Highlights: Telfair Museum of Art. Athens, GA. University of Georgia Press. 1 January 2005. Print.
Opala, Joseph A. “The Gullah: Rice, Slavery, and the Sierra Leone-American Connection.” http://yale.edu/glc/gullah/index.htm n.d. Web 09 Dec. 2011.
National Park Service. “Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor.” n.d. Web 09 Dec. 2011. http://www.nps.gov/guge/index.html
Rushing, Felder. http://www.felderrushing.net/HistoryofBottleTrees.htm Web. 9 Oct. 2011.
Tabler, Dave. “The Bottle Tree.” http://www.appalachianhistory.net/2010/10/bottle-tree.html .21 October 2010. Web. 8 Sept 2011.
Wood, Wayne. Jacksonville’s Architechtural Heritage: Landmarks for the Future Revised Edition. University Press of Florida. Gainesville.1996. Print.
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