Haint Blue Paint
Haint blue is the pale blue-green paint used on porch ceilings, doors and window frames of Gullah homes in the Lowcountry of South Carolina and Georgia, said to keep haints, the restless spirits of the dead, from entering the house. Water is traditionally the veil between the living and the dead, and the blue is read as the colour of water that haints cannot cross; the eerie 'boo hag' who slips in through keyholes is among the beings the colour is meant to repel. Some writers also trace the hue to practical roots, noting that the lime-based blue paint helped repel insects and resist damp, and