You’ve probably heard of the Boogeyman, originating in England, the Coco (aka El Cucuy), popular in Hispanophone + Lusophone areas of the world, or even the Bokkenrijders from the Netherlands, but have you ever heard of boo hags?

Ghosts, phantoms, and bad spirits are popular all around the world + go by many different names. For Gullah people, bad spirits are known as boo hags.

Whether folklore or practiced belief, in Gullah culture, it is said that humans have a soul + a spirit and when someone dies, a good spirit will stay behind to watch over their family, but a bad spirit - a boo hag - will steal energy from the living as they sleep, which might explain why you slept through the night, but woke up feeling exhausted. They are described as being bright red, skinless, and having protruding blue veins. Boo hags will sit on the sleeping person's chest + steal their energy throughout the night. If for some reason you wake up with a boo hag on your chest, don’t fight it, because they may just steal your skin.

That’s right - your skin. Boo hags steal skin so that they can go around unnoticed. Before finding a person to steal energy from, they hide their stolen skin, with plans to return to it by sunrise.

So, what can you do to avoid boo hags?

If you read our convo on haint blue paint, you’ll know that the Gullah people believe that evil spirits are repelled by the color, so paint your door and window frames + boo hags won’t be able to get in that way. But they are sneaky + can slip in through cracks, crevices, and even keyholes.

You can also keep a straw broom or a bristle brush in your bedroom. Boo hags have to stop + count every single strand before they can steal your energy because of their curiosity.

Or you can keep a strainer on your door knob so they’ll stop to count the holes.

It may take them all night to count the bristles or holes, making it impossible for them to get back to their skin before sunrise - and if they can’t do that, they’ll be destroyed.

If you’ve ever heard the expression “don’t let de hag ride ya” in place of “goodnight, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite,” now you know where it comes from + just how to protect yourself from the sneaky spirits.