Coiled Storage Basket with Black Figures on Yellow Field

This woven storage basket echoes the shape of a Pueblo water jar. Smaller versions of this form would have been lined with pitch and used, with a lid, to hold water, wild grass seeds, or domesticated corn and beans. By the late nineteenth century, the shape was enlarged for the thriving art market. Exact meanings of each design have been lost, but figures depicted with horns, as seen here, usually refer to power coming from or going to the sky. The woven, interlocking forms of light and dark suggest the Apache belief of complete harmony with all elements of the universe.