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Updated: May 15, 2025
In Tusayan the kivas are rectangular and separated from the houses; in Zuñi and in some other pueblos they are also rectangular, but are incorporated in the house clusters a feature doubtless brought about by the repressive policy of the Spanish monks. In some of the pueblos, as in Taos, they are circular, and in many of the older ruins the same form is found.
They are depended upon to keep the seasonal and other ceremonies going throughout the year, and the Hopi ceremonial calendar has its major event for each of the twelve months, for all of which elaborate preparation must be made, including the manufacture and repair of costumes and other paraphernalia and much practicing and rehearsing in the kivas.
It is situated on the top of the talus, against the cliff, and commands a fine outlook over the cultivable lands in the cove below it and on the canyon bottom proper. There are but few wall remains, but two kivas can still be made out. There is no ledge here, and the walls were built on loose debris of rocks and talus.
The Kōk-kō pass through the town and visit each kiva; they put the head of the serpent through the hatchway, that those who are privileged to assemble in the kivas may see the fetich. The Kō-lō-oo-wĭt-si is then taken to the Kiva of the Earth, Hē-tkā-pa-que.
Some 44 rooms can now be made out on the ground, in addition to 3 or perhaps 4 circular kivas, and the whole number of rooms may have been 55. Assuming, then, that the various portions of the ruin were inhabited at the same time, we would have a total of 90 rooms; but, as many of them could be used only for storage, the population could not have been more than 60 persons.
But it is not hard to feel a close relation between the idea of fire and that of germination which stands out as the chief idea in the whole ritual, particularly in the subtle dramatization of the underworld life and emergence as carried on in the kivas, preceding the public "dance" on the last day.
The habits and requirements of the Pueblo people make it essential that a permanent village should have one or more kivas, and we have in the presence of these structures a criterion by which the character of a village or ruin may be determined. As the kivas in De Chelly are always circular, they can generally be easily distinguished.
The sixth day the inmates of the kivas again go for wood; the seventh day large Tē-līk-tkī-nā-we are made of eagle plumes; the eighth day is consumed in decorating the masks to be worn.
Although as yet our knowledge of the cliff houses of the upper Gila and Salado and their numerous tributaries is very fragmentary, and generalization on that account unsafe, it may be stated provisionally that no circular kivas have yet been found in any ruins of the Gila-Salado watershed.
One well-defined room and two kivas still remain, and there are traces of other chambers. The main kiva formed part of a compact little group of rooms, of which it occupied the front, and appears to have been inclosed by a curved wall of rough construction.
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