Hey, welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh. There's Chuck. Jeri's kind of hanging around us like an unwanted spirit.

Well, we doused here in blue paint as if she were wearing fur in New York in 1985 and she's taken off.

Wow. Mm hmm. That sounded almost scripted.

It was not, man. It was. It was. Of course it's not. It was right off of the the cerebral cortex, the executive function, a.k.a. the old cuff.

Yes.

The problem is, is I just diverted so much brain power to the cerebral cortex that my brainstem made me pee my pants.

Have you ever heard of this haint blue tradition?

Sure. Okay. I didn't know how much people knew about this. This is something I was familiar with because, well, for many reasons. But one of my good friends, Meeta has is from Charleston and great. Has a haint blue Porche seeling.

And I sort of like the tradition and now I know a little bit more about it. Yeah, I mean, Atlanta's not exactly like in the low country, like along the Georgia coast or South Carolina coast, but it's close enough that you could see it kind of trickling in. And I think it does a agreed. So what you're talking about is a specific kind of pink color that you very frequently see in those areas in the south eastern southeast doesn't get much more southeast than that.

You end up in the Atlantic if you keep going. Yes. That you will see on people's ceilings of their porches like this, very pretty like light blue. One of my favorite shades of blue. Too not necessarily blue. I'm not like blue is my favorite color like that. But any kind of like light blue. Pale blue, robin's egg blue. Yeah.

All of those are very, very pretty colors. There's a purpose to this. This though, like this pink color on the ceiling. All right.

Yeah.

So the word hain't they think it may have come from the word haunt, but a hain't in the this low country culture, which we'll get into more in a sec, is a is a restless ghost. Yeah. And it's a ghost.

Like I thought all ghost were sort of like this that has not moved on to whatever world lies beyond and is still here to haunt the living. Yeah.

And it's this is Heyns are specific to a culture of slaves imported from West and Central Africa whose ancestors is kind of formed this community along those the low country and who still have this this very robust culture that believes in hates to think. The difference to me is between like ghosts as we understand them and hate is hain't seem to be much more like all up in your business kind of thing. And they like to mess with you a lot more than like a ghost who's tied to a house and is replaying their murder over and over every night at midnight.

Yeah, I've spent a little bit of time this one weekend with some Gullah Geechee folks and they are really awesome and rich with tradition and have this really, really, really cool accent doodle.

But their food's amazing too. And the food was terrible. I'm kidding. Oh, I was genuinely surprised. It's like some of the best food I've ever had in my life. I would guess so. I mean, low country boil. You just have me right there. Yeah.

So Hoodia there's, you know, a specific type of voodoo that goes on the low country called Hoodoo or Root Work or Khanjar. And that's a practice where they use a lot of herbs, in this case, Haint Blue, to protect people from these evil hants coming into I mean, sometimes it's a little lighter, sometimes it gets pretty heavy and scary. Yeah.

So there's a bug, which is one of the best names for hain't ever. Mm hmm. Boofheads or they seem to be like what is that.

That sleep paralysis tradition from Ireland or Scotland or somewhere over there. I can't remember. But there's a tradition of a old witchy woman standing on your chest while you're sleeping. The Babadook. We I don't think so, but related maybe the wife of The Babadook. But the we talked about in sleep paralysis episode, that is probably where that came from was I was having sleep paralysis. And this sounds very familiar because the bug will stand on your chest while you're sleeping too and try to suffocate you.

Yeah. And also steal your skin and wear your skin during the day so they can blend in. And why there hasn't been a modern horror movie called the Boofhead yet is beyond me.

I don't know either. Right. Or even just paint. Yeah. So that's one kind of hain't. And there's things you can do like using hoodoo or work or whatever. People wander around like carrying little bags of roots and talisman to ward off hain't.

But if you actually have a hint that you're having to deal with in your everyday life that you've attracted somehow one of the things you would do specifically with the BUJAGALI is they have like an obsessive compulsive disorder according to the goal to get and they have to count.

So if you do things like throw rice on your bedroom floor or whatever, the boofhead might come to set on your chest and suffocate you. But instead she's going to end up sitting there counting right all night and then the sun's going to come up and she's going to be toast.

Where have we talked about this before?

Because I have a very, very distinct memory about something being distracted because they had to count whatever you threw.

It was the Eastern and Central European vampires that had that was it? I believe so, yeah. I knew it sounded familiar. Should we take a break?

Yeah.

Was that sudden? It was like a left hook. All right.

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All right, we're back to talk about more morant's, there's another hain't called a plat eye, which also sounds very scary. They are shapeshifters and they can be anything it says here in the House. The first article, anything from a beautiful woman to a two headed hog. And the scary thing about a plotty is that there aren't a lot of defenses against the plan. I save maybe leaving some whiskey out and or pouring it on the ground or something in the plant.

I may stop to lick that up.

Right. But otherwise, you're out of luck with the plan.

I yeah. They say that once a plant is attached itself to yea there's not a lot you can do, you can maybe search yourself and see what kind of as this one expert put it, what kind of grave spiritual offense you've committed, like what have I done and try to make it right. You know.

Yeah but the, the, I also saw that you might end up with the plan I attached to you if you go looking for buried Confederate Treasure, because they say that plaid eyes are frequently ghosts of people who were murdered and improperly buried by a Confederate treasure in order to protect it indefinitely. Oh, interesting. Yeah.

So be careful if you're going to go looking for Confederate treasure buried in the low country, take a little whiskey with you and pour some out for the Platt eyes.

That's right. So that sort of brings us to this haint blue. And I'm sure you're wondering, when are you guys going to talk about the title of this podcast? All right.

And it's now and we did a great show on Indigo, and so we don't need to go over all of that again. But Indigo, just very briefly, was a plant that thrived in the low country and slaves were used to to cultivate the indigo. And it was a big, big cash crop for the South.

It's the reason Georgia legalized slavery, remember? Yeah, that's right.

So this blue was available to the Gullah Geechee people, even though the color and the spiritual power of this blue is sort of all over the world. But they would have this blue and it sort of became the color that they would use because it reminded them of the sky and of the ocean. And the idea was that you paint this on your porch or on a door maybe, and it tricks these spirits into thinking that they're in water or they can't cross or they're in the sky or something like that.

Yeah, because there's one thing you can say about paints, and that is that they're kind of goalball it sounds like at the very least, they have a lot of faults and flaws that can be manipulated by people who know what to look for.

Yeah, they're dumb.

The problem is, is if you're visiting somebody on their porch and they have a blue ceiling on their porch, there might be a hain't hanging out in there. So they didn't make it into the house. They could still be on the porch.

So if I never visit your neighbor and, you know, we should point out that this is is got a rich tradition in this low country culture, but it has very much become part of the mainstream and a very kind of it color for front porch ceilings and stuff like that.

And there's nothing wrong with that. But I think, you know, educate yourself, know where it comes from. I know a little bit about the tradition, right. If you're going to do something like that, I think yeah, totally.

I mean, at the very least, be able to say what that is instead of like that pretty blue. Who knows where it comes from? Who cares?

I had a Volkswagen Beetle that was Robin's Egg Blue. Such a great color man. It was gorgeous. Tough to beat a good robbins'. A blue. Agreed. So way to go, Gullah Geechee people. That's pretty awesome as far as traditions go and keep up the good work. Paddling hates you.

Anything else? Nothing else. All right. Well, if you want to hear more about this, start this episode over because short stuff is out. Stuff you should know is a production of radios HowStuffWorks for more podcasts, My Heart Radio, is it the radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows?