Article by Washington Matthews on the Navajo ceremonial basket drum, a coiled sumac-twig basket used inverted as a drum in the nine-night night-chant ceremony. It covers the basket's construction, butt-and-tip rules, decorative band with a gap, plaited rim finish and its legend, and the ritual handling of the basket. A second part describes the yucca-leaf drumstick, how its leaves are gathered, its ritual use and ceremonial unraveling. Two figures show the basket and the drumstick.

Washington Matthews' 1884 study of Navajo weaving, published in the Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. It describes wool, spinning, native and imported dyes (black, yellow, reddish, indigo, bayeta), the upright blanket loom, warping, heald-making and the weaving process. It also covers diagonal and diamond twill weaving on four sheds, blanket types and designs, and belt and sash weaving, compared with Zuñi methods and an Aztec picture. Illustrated with plates, loom diagrams, heald/warp diagrams and photographs of blankets.

Washington Matthews' 1884 paper from the Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology describes Navajo weaving as he observed it in the early 1880s. It covers wool spinning, native and imported dyes (black, yellow, reddish, indigo, bayeta), the upright blanket loom, warp formation, heald making, and the weaving process with batten and reed-fork. It also treats diagonal and diamond twill weaving on four sheds, the weaving of belts and sashes with raised figures, and varieties of blankets. A comparison with Zuni belt weaving and an Aztec picture closes the paper. Illustrated with plates, loom and warp diagrams, and photographs of blankets.