The Toy Story of Etikoppaka

Located on the banks of the river Varaha in the Vishakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh is a small village called Etikoppaka. The village has a glorious history where the local Zamindars recognized the possibility of making splendid and attractive toys much before India’s independence. The wooden toys made in this region with a lacquer color are traditionally known as Etikoppaka toys, Etikoppaka Bommalu, or lacquer toys. This art of toy making is also called turned wood lacquer craft.

The toys are made of wood from soft Ankudi trees and are colored with natural dyes derived from seeds, lacquer, bark, roots, and leaves. The lacquered colors are prepared by mixing vegetable dyes with lac (a colorless resinous secretion of insects) during the process of oxidation.

Etikoppaka wooden toys stand out among other techniques of toymaking with their perfectly rounded heads and their cylindrical bodies glistening and smooth.  These toys could be interpreted as symbols of vernacular modernism. The facial features, volumes of the body, and their two-planar ornamentation all point to classic abstraction. As a result, they never go out of style.

The Etikoppaka toys are world-famous and the popular themes of these toys are games, idols, and home utilities like incense holders.