Such baskets provided women with an important source of income in the early tourist economy. Photograph by Edward Dossetter, 1881. Containers were also woven for a great many other specific functions such as burden baskets, bait baskets, basket quivers for arrows and even stout baskets for anchor stones. Cradles were also fashioned of basketry, although wooden ones were more popular. Fancy baskets for storing soapberry spoons became something of a specialty, as did drinking cups, and very fine examples were woven for domestic use as well as for trade.
Women also wove many types of basketry mats for household use.
Meals were eaten on them, babies were born on them, people slept on them and the dead were wrapped in them for burial. Old mats were recycled as covers for boxes or for covering canoes to keep them from checking in the sunlight. Designs on mats were geometric but could be quite complex. Some patterns had individual names and meanings, and specific designs belonged as a privilege to certain families of high rank. Museum collections contain numerous painted mats, some of which may be attributed to the Haida, but many appear to be intended for the early tourist trade and there is no evidence they were ever produced in Haida country.