Over the fireplace is a hood of basketry plastered to prevent burning. The wicker cradle to which the infant hopeful is bound must not be forgotten. Several small globular wicker baskets for various purposes may also be displayed among the household belongings. The mat of grass stems in which the wedding blanket is folded is also a kind of basketry, as are the twined mats for covering the hatchway of the kiva and the twined fence around the fields.
With all their own resources, the Hopi are great collectors of baskets from other tribes. One must not be surprised to see in use in the Hopi houses the water bottles coated with pitch and the well-made basket-bowls from the Havasupai of Cataract Canyon, the Pimas of southern Arizona, and other tribes touched by Hopi commerce.
The vizors of old masks used in the ceremonies were of basketry, generally a section cut from a Ute basket-bowl, which shows one of the most interesting employments of baskets among the Hopi. The highly decorated trays may also be said to have a sacred character from their frequent appearance in the ceremonies, where they are used to contain prayer-sticks, meal, etc. Appropriately the women's ceremonies display many baskets on the altars, and in the public dances each woman carries a bright plaque. One of the episodes of these ceremonies is full of action when women throw baskets to men who struggle energetically for them. On this account these ceremonies have been called Basket Dances.
One of the frequent sights in a Hopi town is a woman carrying a heaped-up plaque of meal of her own grinding as a present to some friend. This usually happens on the eve of a ceremony, like our Christmas gifts, but no one must fail to notice that an equal present is religiously brought in return.
The Hopi value their baskets; they appreciate fully a pretty thing, and this explains why one of the Sichomovi men, who is rich in Havasupai baskets, has had the good taste to decorate the walls of the best room of his house with these trophies of Cataract Canyon.
Judging from the number of ruins in the Southwest, it might be thought that the former inhabitants spent much of their time in laying up walls and considered the work easy. What these ruins do show in an emphatic way is the organization of the builders and what mutual aid will accomplish.