The Hopi are a Native American tribe of the Pueblo group of the Southwest culture area. Also called Moqui, they live in a small group of autonomous villages, lying on or near three high mesas in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi are industrious farmers; they harvest and store large crops of corn, beans, pumpkins, and some fruits. They also weave baskets and blankets and are skillful potters and carvers. Hopi houses, built by the women, are of stone roughly cut and laid and finished in plaster. The Hopi religion, like that of all other Pueblo peoples, includes the worship of the forces of nature, and has many ceremonies intended to invoke or influence supernatural powers. Ancestor worship plays an important role in Hopi ceremonies, and some Christian influences can be detected, particularly in the dating of ceremonies and the observance of saints' days. Private rites are held in underground ceremonial chambers called kivas, and public services and dances are commonly performed out of doors. The most important Hopi religious ceremonies include the kachina fertility mysteries (the kachina is the spirit of an ancestor, usually representing a clan, symbolized in ceremonies by a masked and painted dancer), and the midsummer and midwinter rituals of sun and fire worship. The celebrated Snake dance, actually a rain dance, is considered one of the most spectacular of Native American ceremonies.