Material Histories: Belief, Magic and the Supernatural: the Power of Objects

We live surrounded by material things. Some are mundane and utilitarian, others exotic objects of desire, but all our belongings have something to say about who we are and how we live. Objects reflect both culture and history. Individually and collectively, they shape our lives, link us to others and connect us to the past. Yet objects are often strangely absent from accounts of past lives. This seminar series aims to unpack some of the stories that objects can tell about the present and about the past.  We also hope to provide a forum for discussion for those of us interested in material histories. We aim to cast the net widely, with no limitations on either time or space.

First speaker:

A Boot in the Wall: Folk Magic in Gold-Rush Victoria?

This talk starts with a single, mud-caked leather boot found sealed inside a small compartment in a Ballarat building and asks why anyone would hide footwear in a wall. Drawing on the Australian Magic Research Project’s fieldwork in Victoria, I explore concealed shoes as protective charms, links to British and European folk belief, and what these quiet acts of “everyday magic” reveal about anxiety, migration and community life in nineteenth-century Australia.

Dr David Waldron is Associate Professor of History at Federation University Australia. His research focuses on folklore, local history and community heritage. His works include Sign of the Witch, Snarls from the Tea-Tree and Aradale: The Making of a Haunted Asylum, and the award-winning podcast Tales from Rat City.

Second speaker:

Ruma Besar (The Big House): Encountering the Supernatural in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands

This paper focuses on Oceania House, a colonial-era mansion located in the Australian Indian Ocean Territory of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. Now privately owned, it was formerly home to the Clunies Ross family, who operated a coconut plantation using the labour of “Malay” indentured workers until the islands’ integration with Australia in 1984. Known locally as Ruma Besar or “the Big House,” it is believed by the local Cocos Malays to be a site of supernatural activity following the departure of its original owners. This research situates these beliefs within the broader Malay-Muslim context and considers what they reveal about tensions between official heritage narratives and local understandings of the past. In doing so, it examines how supernatural beliefs provide a means of engaging with difficult histories and heritage and its impact on the present day lives of the community.

Melathi Saldin is a Lecturer in Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies at Deakin University. An archaeologist and critical heritage scholar, Melathi’s research looks at the relationship between difficult heritage, local communities and cultural resilience. She is an International Member of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and Co-Chair of the Sri Lanka ICOMOS National Scientific Committee on Intangible Cultural Heritage. She is co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of Heritage Destruction (2023).

Material Histories is presented by Old Treasury Building in partnership with Deakin University and Australian Catholic University.