Haint Blue

 

   

   It is very interesting to know what motivates me to write. It is around 6:30 in the morning and I am working out at the gym before I go to school, and a text comes up from a friend, Rhoda Rae, “Have you heard of Haint Blue?” I confess that I didn’t know, because the claiming of ignorance is the first step to a new discovery, and next thing you know, you are down a rabbit hole on the color of blue, mysticism and folklore and culture of people known as the Gullah.

   Haint Blue is very southern. It comes from the slave trade when the Gullah people used blue, usually derived from indigo, to ward off evil spirits. They would make amulets or other talismans with the dye to protect the wearer from ghost and witches, also known as a boo hags. You might be thinking that this sounds like a hoodoo thing, and you are completely right. By the 1730s, slaves working on indigo plantations mixed the blue dye, some dirt and lime into milk paint to produce a blue green that is known now as Haint Blue. This milk paint would be used on the porch ceilings to protect the home from haints (ghosts). The paint is sometimes used on window shutters as well for more protection. The mixture of the milk paint and the lime subdued the harshness of the indigo blue and transformed it into soft blue with a little green into it. It is actually quite nice.  

   There is more to the traditional way to make the color. One of the materials that is used in the milk paint is lye. Lye is used in food preservation as well as in cleaning products including soapmaking.  One of the best things about lye is that it is a great insect repellant, which would be a Godsend for a house that was on the southern east coast.

   The subject of Haint Blue would not be complete until I talked about the people who created it. The Gullahs are Black Southerners that lived in the Lowcountry area of the United States, this includes North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. They are a very proud group of people who maintain a good portion of their African culture and their main language is an English-based creole, which had been influenced by the African languages sentence structure and grammar. It is also from the traditions of the Gullah people that some people put blue glass bottles into the trees surrounding their homes to protect them from evil spirits.

    According to a 2022 issue of Smithsonian magazine, indigo farming is once again live in well in the southern United States. Many artists as well as cloth makers prefer the natural color of true indigo as opposed to colors that are artificially created by chemicals.

   Haint Blue is a magnificent color with an incredible past. The process of milk paint with indigo, lime, lye, and a touch of southern history make it a staple of older homes in the region. It is now May and I am gearing up for my summer break from teaching. Guess what I’m doing. Yep, painting the house. And I have a porch. Hmmmmmmmm…..