Navajo Basket - Pictorial, CPP-PJ-444

Ts'aa' are used in a number of ceremonial ways: to hold ritual objects, such as prayer sticks and medicine bundles; to hold yucca suds for ritual baths and hair washing; as drums when inverted and struck with a yucca drum stick; to hold food during the Navajo wedding ceremony, when cornmeal mush (taa'niil) is eaten, and to hold ground white clay (dleesh) , red ochre (chi'i'h), and cornmeal during the kinaalda', the coming of age ceremony for young women at puberty.