In Gullah folklore, boo hags are similar to
vampires. Unlike vampires, they gain sustenance from a person's breath, as opposed to their blood, by riding their victims. Hags who were "witches" sold their souls to the
devil and had the power to change into animals and insects and drain their victims' spiritual essence.
Jacob Stroyer, born enslaved in
South Carolina in 1849, wrote about hags and conjurers on a
plantation in South Carolina. According to his autobiography:The
witches 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 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 the corners and around the room to protect themselves from boo hags. Items or surfaces in
haint blue were also used to ward off haints and boo hags. The Gullah story of the boo hag was passed down through generations of families on the islands of Georgia. Between 1930 and 1940, the
Federal Writers Project recorded stories for historical preservation. The
WPA Slave Narrative Collection includes tales of boo hags from formerly enslaved people, as recorded in accounts in the book
Drums and Shadows (1940)
. ==Boo hags outside of Gullah culture==