S O U T H E R N H E A LT H & W E L L N E S S I S S U E
BOO HAGS
SAVANNAH IS CONSIDERED ONE OF THE MOST HAUNTED CITIES IN
THE STATES, ATTRACTING MILLIONS OF OF CURIOUS AND INQUISITIVE
FOLKS FROM ALL OVER. LISA PRENTISS REVEALS THE INSIDE SCOOP
ON THE BLUE PAINTED HOUSES SEEN THROUGHOUT THE CITY.
TOLD by LISA MARIE H PHOTOS by JABBERPICS
“Savannah born, Savannah bred,
and when I die, I’ll be Savannah dead.”
Lisa Marie knows the ins and outs of
Savannah’s history. Walking through
Columbia Square she pointed out
building after building, all rich with
history. “The Kehoe House is haunted
by twins. Next to it, the Davenport
House is said to be haunted by a cat.”
There is little paranormal activ-
ity going on here that she does not
know about. Pointing out some of
the ironwork on historical buildings,
32
S OUT H MAGA ZI NE.C OM
she divulges that during the Great
Depression many people sold the
iron work from their homes to support
their families. After the depression
people wanted their beautiful verandas
and gates back so they took the iron
from around their family plots in
Bonaventure Cemetery and brought
it out to the city.
The quick relaying of facts didn’t
stop there. We passed the oldest slave
quarters still intact, The Owens-
Thomas House, and she shared that
it too had the mysterious blue paint
we see on the outside of houses on the
inside ceiling of the slave quarters. So
what is it about this blue paint?
The blue paint is said to keep the
haints out! Haints are believed by the
Gullah people to be lost souls or ghosts
that linger behind and haunt those un-
lucky enough to cross their path. In the
1800’s in the Irish Ghetto, otherwise
known as Olde Forte, people were liv-
ing in squalor and despair due to lack
of running water and living space. The
Gullah root doctors of the time found a
way to turn this misery into opportu-
nity. They would go to Olde Forte and
tell the story of the BooHag, by the
time the story was told, their pockets
would be full. A BooHag is just one of
the many haints that could get in your
home if you didn’t have the haint blue
paint painted on your doors and win-
dows. You definitely wanted to keep
this haint out because the BooHag was
believed to hitch a ride on your back
into your home, when you went to
sleep at night it would rip your skin off
and hang it in your closet, then crawl
inside of you and take your bloody
insides all over the city and collect all
of the evil and bad luck it could find
and stick it to you. It would then come
back to your house and suck the breath
from your family members leaving
them ill and near death before crawling
back into your skin. After hearing the
tale told by the root doctors, people be-
lieved th e BooHag to be the cause of all
of their misery. The root doctors would
then sell them a solution to their haint
problem, and that didn’t come cheap.
They were instructed to have someone
check the closets in the night, if a skin
was hanging they would have to use
the sea salt sold by the root Dr. and
sprinkle it into the skin. This would
burn the BooHag when it crawled
inside your skin and it would jump out.
Sadly, its still in the house, so in order
to get it out they would have to buy
a broom from the root Dr’s to sweep
the house and the BooHag would go
flying out with the dust. Theres just
one problem left... The haints are go-
ing to come right back inside! This is
when the root doctors made the bulk
of their money. They would offer to
come paint the doors and windows in
Haint blue to keep the BooHags out.
They had to make the paint them-
selves using cemetery dirt, indigo and
a sacrificed cat. At one time, all of the
windows and doors of the cottages in
Olde Forte were adorned in haint blue
as well as many houses around the city.
People were willing to pay the price
out of pure desperation, and the root
Dr’s lived happily ever after, using the
money they made to secure beautiful
homes of their own, many right here in
Savannah, as well as Daufuskie Island
and South Carolina. •
To join Lisa on her haunted tours, go to
Americas Most Haunted City Tour (ameri-
casmosthauntedcity.com) or Bonaventure
Cemetery Journeys (shannonscott.com.)