Traditional ball and shuttlecock games are played worldwide with woven rattan balls, hand-shaped leather balls, feathered shuttlecocks, wooden bats, and simple counted lines drawn on the ground. Most are informal — needing only a ball and a few players — and passed on entirely by children teaching children.
A few have been formalised into international sports with codified rules and international competitions, while the informal versions continue to be played in the same places. The equipment is usually cheap and often made by the players themselves — a rattan ball can be woven by hand in an afternoon, a shuttlecock made from feathers and thread in a few minutes. What survives across generations is not the equipment but the technique: the specific throws, kicks, catches and moves that make each game recognisable.
Explore this craft by country
Each country page describes how this tradition is practised there — its own names, materials, workshops and living makers.