Magic of Haint Blue
You see it on porches, windows, and doors. Learn how an ancient African belief influenced the palette of the South-and how this popular shade is used today.
A long rural roads in South Carolina, flashes of it peek out from clapboard houses. In parts of Charleston, splashes of it stand out among shades of peach, yellow, and pink. It glows like phosphorescence through the sultry heat of Savannah; New Orleans; and Beaufort, South Carolina.
It is haint blue, a historic color that was once perceived to hold magical powers. Painted on porch ceilings, shutters, and around exterior doors and windows, haint blue kept "haints," or haunts, and other evil spirits away.
Where Did It Come From?
The history of haint blue in the South can be traced back to the Gullah/Geechee people, a community with ties to enslaved Africans from the sea islands off South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. The Gullah/Geechee people brought with them the African practice of using haint blue on porch ceilings and shutters and around doorways and windows to prevent misfortune.
"The color haint blue is as much a part of our cultural fabric as the indigo leaves used to dye the garments of our ancestors," says Queen Quet, Chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee Nation and the founder of the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition.
So the legend of haint blue lives on. Passed down byword of mouth for generations, it is part of the collective memory of the South-the place we call home.
-HASKELL HARRIS
(Full-Article Located at)
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3676/is_200708/ai_n19510931
For More Info Sources: southernliving.com/august2007
Copyright Southern Progress Corporation Aug 2007
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved
Leaves of Glass
Did You Know?
It is believed that the idea for bottle trees began in ninth-century Africa, where glass objects were hung on trees as talismans to keep away evil spirits. Later, African American families in the South translated this cultural tradition into bottle trees, stripping the foliage from trees and sliding bottles over the tips of branches to catch any evil spirits coming their way. The trees were so interesting that people across the region started making them. They're even celebrated in the fiction and photography of famed Mississippi writer Eudora Welty.
Though long-ago Southerners used them to capture spirits, you can use a bottle tree to unleash yours-your creative spirit, that is. -GENE B. BUSSELL
(Please note this was paragraph was copied from the following web posting - To view the entire article click the link or copy and paste it into your web browser) ---
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3676/is_200708/ai_n19510920
Tips and Tricks to Install a Bottle Tree:
No Concrete Needed!!
1. Open the bottletree
2. Take out the piece of small pipe that was sent with the tree
3. Place the pipe over the ends of the metal rods and pull downward
4. Install tree in ground and carefully add bottles
Please post any questions that you have about installing your bottle tree. We'll try to answer them within 24 hours!
Tip - To keep the BottleTree from rusting
1. You can use any type wire brush to knock the rust off.
2. Then rinse tree off with garden hose or a wet rag
3. Spray the iron tree with Polyurethane or some type of Clear Protective Coating
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