effigy

upright=1.2|thumb|Burning of Judas|Burning of Judas Iscariot, Brazil, 1909 thumb|upright=1.2|Effigy of Ravana, a figure from the [[Ramayana, with burning sparklers, in Manchester, England, in 2006]] An effigy is a sculptural representation, often life-size, of a specific person or a prototypical figure. The term is mostly used for the makeshift dummies used for symbolic punishment in political protests and for the figures burned in certain traditions around New Year, Carnival and Easter. In European cultures, effigies were used in the past for punishment in formal justice when the perpetrator could not be apprehended, and in popular justice practices of social shaming and exclusion. Additionally, "effigy" is used for certain traditional forms of sculpture, namely tomb effigies, funeral effigies and coin effigies.

There is a large overlap and exchange between the ephemeral forms of effigies. Traditional holiday effigies are often politically charged, for instance, when the generalised figures Año Viejo (the Old Year) or Judas in Latin America are substituted by the effigy of a despised politician. Traditional forms are also borrowed for political protests. In India, for instance, effigies in protests regularly take the form of the ten-headed demon king Ravana, as they figure in the traditional Ramlila. In Mexico and the United States piñatas depicting a politician are sometimes taken to protests and beaten to a pulp. Procedures of formal and popular justice are appropriated when the effigy of a politician in a protest figures in a mock trial, mock execution and mock funeral.