Haint blue

Haint blue is a collection of pale shades of blue-green that are traditionally used to paint porch ceilings in the Southern United States.

The ceiling of the slave quarters at the Owens–Thomas House in Savannah, Georgia, built in the early 19th century, was painted haint blue.

[5] The word haint is an alternative spelling of haunt, which was historically used in African-American vernacular to refer to a ghost or, in the Hoodoo belief, a witch-like creature seeking to chase victims to their death by exhaustion.

[2] Additionally, not all Gullah identify with the belief that haint blue can ward off evil spirits, but the historical significance of indigo crops still applies.

Many enslaved Africans of the Lowcountry and their descendants believed in the protective power of haint blue, but the cultivation of indigo as a cash crop in colonial South Carolina to produce the dye also significantly depended on labor from the 18th-century transatlantic slave trade.