Tasmania’s ‘magic’ markings reveal settlers’ beliefs

Australian historian Dr. Ian Evans investigated the use of “magic” symbols in 19th-century Tasmania.

British settlers, far from home, used superstition for protection of their farms, particularly around the stables.

“Magic was part of their equipment for dealing with the strange situation in which they found themselves in Australia,” Dr. Evans said of the settlers.

Scratched circles called hexafoils and burn marks in barns indicate magical rites of protection used by the settlers.

Hexafoils were thought to protect against human intruders. Burn marks supposedly protected animals.

Dr. Evans’s Tasmanian Magic Project has investigated 21 stables. Twenty of them bore the magical symbols.

Dr. Evans hopes historians in England will start searching through stables there.