(WTAJ) -- In rural Pennsylvania, it can be common to spot a barn star hanging from the side of a house or a barn. Does this decor have a meaning or is it just meant to be a nice piece of artwork?
Barn stars, also known as "Pennsylvania stars" or "primitive stars," were commonly installed on barns by Dutch and German settlers to ward off evil. The stars are also known to bring good luck to farmers.
The Pennsylvania Dutch, primarily in the 19th century, used to decorate their barns in rural landscapes with stars and paintings of suns, stars and moons. These large-scale murals were meant to represent the region's culture and traditional arts.
However, these stars also used to be associated with the supernatural in the 1920s. Travel writers passing through rural Pennsylvania would refer to these barn stars as "hexefoos," which resulted in popular culture adopting the term "hex sign" by the 1940s.
In 1952, Milton Hill, an artist, at the Kutztown Folk Festival introduced the Pa. Dutch hex sign. The signs were round pieces of plywood that had painted designs ranging from traditional barn star patterns to tulips, hearts and doves. At the festival, Hill demonstrated these paintings on large wooden panels.
Johnny Ott, a Pennsylvania Dutch folk artist from Lenhartsville, also painted signs with "superstitious meanings" that were referred to as hex signs. Ott developed numerous designs with specific meanings in the early 1960's and started mass-producing them in 1999.
Although it may sound as though barn stars and hex signs are the same thing morphed into one, they are very different. There is no evidence to suggest that barn stars were used for anything more than to bring attention to culture and religion in an artistic way. Hex symbols, on the other hand, were meant to bring about superstition and mystery.