Ritual and festival toys are objects made specifically for cultural or religious festivals, but received by children — and adults — as toys. The line between toy, gift, and ritual object here is deliberately blurred. Common examples include figures made new each year for a specific festival, lanterns carried by children on holy nights, small idols placed in the home, decorative animals or scenes displayed for a season, and processional figures broken or discarded at the festival's end.
The craft of making these pieces is often deeply seasonal — a workshop that makes ritual figures for a few weeks of the year may make other things the rest of the time. The pieces themselves are often made from cheap, quick materials — clay, papier-mâché, coloured paper — because they are not meant to last.
Explore this craft by country
Each country page describes how this tradition is practised there — its own names, materials, workshops and living makers.