FEWKES] PLATFORMS IN CAVATE DWELLINGS 541 
Whether the rock had recesses in it before the caves were enlarged 
would seem to be answered in the affirmative, for similar caves without 
evidences of habitations were observed. These, however, are as a rule 
small, and wherever available the larger caverns have been appropri- 
ated and enlarged by stone implements, as shown by the pecking on 
the walls. The enlargement of these caverns, however, would not be a 
difficult task, for the rock is very soft and easily worked. 
Entering one of these cavate rooms the visitor finds himself in a dark 
chamber, as a rule with side openings or passageways into adjoining 
rooms. Broad lateral banquettes are prominent features in the most 
complicated caves, and there are many recesses and small closets or 
cists. 
The ramifications formed by lateral rooms are often extensive, and 
the chambers communicate with others so dark that we can hardly 
regard them as onceinhabited. In these dimly lighted rooms the walls 
were blackened with smoke, as if from former fires, and in many of the 
largest the position of fireplaces could plainly be discovered. As a 
type of one of the more complicated I have chosen that figured to illus- 
trate the arrangement of these cavate dwellings (figure 245). Many are 
smaller, others have more lateral chambers, but one type is character- 
istic of all. 
A main room (4, figure 245), or that first entered from outside, is 
roughly rectangular in shape, 12 feet long by 6 feet wide, and about 
6 feet high. The floor, however, was covered with very dry débris 
which had blown in from the exterior or, in some instances, fallen from 
the roof. That part of the floor which was exposed shows that it was 
roughly plastered, sometimes paved or formed of solid rock. 
On three sides of this room there is a step 2 feet high, to platforms, 
three in number, one in the rear and one on each side. These plat- 
forms are 5, 6, and 6 feet 6 inches wide, respectively, and of the same 
length as the corresponding sides of the centralroom. It would appear 
that these platforms are characteristic architectural features of these 
habitations, and we find them reproduced in some of the rooms of 
the cliff houses of the Red-rocks, while Nordenskiéld has described 
a kindred feature in the kivas of the Mesa Verde ruins. A somewhat 
similar elevation of the floor in modern Tusayan kivas forms what may 
be called the spectator’s part, in front of the ladder as one descends, 
and the same feature is common to many older Hopi dwellings.! 
JJournal of American Ethnology and Archeology, vol. 1, No.1. All the Tusayan kivas with which 
I am familiar have this raised spectator’s part at one end. The altars are always erected at the 
opposite end of the room, in which is likewise the hole in the floor called the sipapi, symbolic of 
the traditional opening through which races emerged to the earth’s surface from an underworld. 
Banquettes exist in some Tusayan kivas; in others, however, they are wanting. The raised plat- 
form in dwelling rooms is commonly a sleeping place, above which blankets are hung and, in some 
instances, corn isstored. A small opening in the step often admits light to an otherwise dark granary 
below the floor. In no instance, however, are there more than one such platform, and that com- 
monly partakes of the nature of another room, although seldom separated from the other chamber by 
a partition. 
