From the outside perspective of art experts and collectors, Hopi baskets are among the finest such items produced by the Southwest's native peoples. For at least a hundred years, women of Second Mesa pueblos have specialized in weaving coiled baskets from a core of galleta grass, shredded yucca, or rabbitbrush. Indigenous forms include plaques, prayer feather baskets, and, formerly, water bottles. Deep coiled bowls and baskets are twentieth century innovations developed for sale to outside markets. A third manufacturing technique, plaiting, in which yucca strips are bent over and sewed around a wooden hoop of sumac or willow, is employed universally for domestic baskets like sifters, sieves, and storage baskets.
Designs represent natural, geometric, human, and animal forms.
Hopis name a basket for a prominent design element or the basket's current function. The Crow Mother Kachina appears during the children's initiation into a Kachina cult and on the last day of Powamu in February. She carries a coiled plaque laden with corn and bean plants sprouted in a kiva, or sacred underground meeting room. Over time, a Hopi basket passes from the weaver to children, other kin, clan relations, godchildren, and neighbors. Its reciprocal exchange facilitates harmonious relations, establishment of new kinship ties, sharing of goods, and elimination of jealousies.