A boo hag is a mythical creature in the folklore of the

Gullah The Gullah () are a subgroup of the African Americans, African American ethnic group, who predominantly live in the South Carolina Lowcountry, Lowcountry region of the U.S. states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida within ...

culture. It is a locally created, unique contribution to the worldwide hag folklore based on the

syncretic Syncretism () is the practice of combining different beliefs and various schools of thought. Syncretism involves the merging or assimilation of several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, thus ...

belief system of Gullah or Hoodoo cultures.

The Author

Jacob Stroyer

Jacob Stroyer, born enslaved in

South Carolina South Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders North Carolina to the north and northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, and Georgia (U.S. state), Georg ...

in 1849, wrote about hags and conjurers on a plantation in South Carolina.

The Legend

Boo Hag

According to his autobiography: "The

witches Witchcraft is the use of magic by a person called a witch. Traditionally, "witchcraft" means the use of magic to inflict supernatural harm or misfortune on others, and this remains the most common and widespread meaning. According to ''Enc ...

among slaves were supposed to have been persons who worked with them every day, and were called old hags or jack lanterns. Those, both men and women, who, when they grew old, looked odd, were supposed to be witches. Sometimes after eating supper the enslaved would gather in each other's cabins which looked over the large openings on the plantation, and when they would see a light at a great distance and saw it open and shut they would say 'there is an old hag,' and if it came from a certain direction where those lived whom they called witches, one would say 'dat looks like old Aunt Susan,' another said 'no, dat look like man hag,' still another 'I tink dat look like ole Uncle Renty.' When the light disappeared, they said that the witch had gotten into the

plantation Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tob ...

and changed itself into a person, and went around on the place talking with the people like others until those whom it wanted to bewitch went to bed, then it would change itself into a witch again. They claimed that they rode human beings like horses, and the spittle on the side of the cheek when one slept was the bridle that the witch rode with." If enslaved people did not have a Bible, they sprinkled a mixture of cayenne pepper and

salt In common usage, salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl). When used in food, especially in granulated form, it is more formally called table salt. In the form of a natural crystalline mineral, salt is also known as r ...

in the corners and around the room to protect themselves from boo hags. Slave narratives of Gullah Geechees (African Americans) in

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

documented tales of boo hags from formerly enslaved people in the book, '' Drums and Shadows.'' Black people talked about hags who were "witches" that sold their souls to the

devil A devil is the mythical personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that the different conce ...

and had the power to change into animals and insects and drain their victims' spiritual essence. In Gullah

folklore Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, myths, legends, proverbs, Poetry, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also ...

, boo hags are similar to

vampires A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the Vitalism, vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead, undead humanoid creatures that often visited loved ones and c ...

. Unlike vampires, they gain sustenance from a person's breath, as opposed to their blood, by riding their victims. An expression sometimes used in South Carolina is "don't let the hag ride ya." This expression may come from the boo hag legend.

The Story Preservation

The Gullah story, the Boo Hag, was passed down through generations of families, and the people on the islands of Georgia. Between 1930 and 1940, the

Federal Writers Project The Federal Writers' Project (FWP) was a federal government project in the United States created to provide jobs for out-of-work writers and to develop a history and overview of the United States, by state, cities and other jurisdictions. It was ...

kept and maintained the story for historical preservation.

Boo hags outside of Gullah culture

While boo hags are a product of Gullah culture, the legend has become known on a wider scale. The legend has been used as an object lesson in

stranger danger Stranger danger is the idea or warning that all strangers can potentially be dangerous. The phrase is intended to encapsulate the danger associated with adults whom children do not know. The phrase has found widespread usage and many children wi ...

. The legend has also been the subject of song and poetry. In 2005, a boo hag became a character in a children's book called '' Precious and the Boo Hag'' by Patricia C. McKissack and Onawumi Jean Moss. In the story, the boo hag is said to be strange and tricky, and it does anything to get into the house. Precious, the main character, is told by her brother that the boo hag also "...tries to make you disobey yo' mama!" In ''Black Wings, Grey Skies'' by Hailey Edwards, a boo hag has gone rogue and starts killing children and the occasional adult. A group of boo hags decides to help the main character bring the villain down. The book ''Hush Hush'' by Remy Wilkins has the antagonists attempting to open a portal in a hurricane in an attempt to summon the boo hag. Lady Night, a kind boo hag, appears as a character in ''Tristan Strong Destroys the World'', the second book in the Tristan Strong series.

References

External links

Ghosts & Legends Tour of Charleston

Spooky Streets
Contains a note regarding a link between racial inequality and boo hags.
Forum thread with a slightly different account of the legend

The Boo Hag: Georgia Witch Story
{{witchcraft South Carolina culture American folklore South Carolina folklore American legendary creatures Shapeshifting Gullah culture Crones and hags