FEWKES] THE ACROPOLIS OF SIKYATKI 645 
much blackened by soot, are found on the eastern wall. Room a has no 
passageway into room b, but it opens into the adjoining room ¢ by an 
opening in the wall 3 feet 4 inches wide, with a threshold 9 inches 
high. 
The shape of room b is more irregular. It is 8 feet 1 ineh long by 4 
feet 5 inches wide, and the floor is 5 feet 2 inches below the surface. 
In one corner there is a raised triangular platform 2 feet 7 inches aboye 
the floor. A large cooking pot, blackened with soot, was found in one 
corner of this room, and near it was a cireular depression in the floor 
17 inches in diameter, evidently a fireplace. 
Room ¢ is smaller than either of the preceding, and is the only one 
with two passageways into adjoining chambers. Remains of wooden 
beams in a fair state of preservation were found on the floors of rooms 
cand b, but they were not charred, as is so often the case, nor were 
there any ashes except in the Supposed fireplace. 
Room d is larger than those alr eady mentioned, being 7 feet 8 inches 
by 5 feet, and connects with room c¢ by means of a passageway. Rooms 
eand f communicate with each other by an opening 16 inches wide. 
We found the floors of these rooms 4 feet below the surface. The 
length of room ¢ is 8 feet. 
Room fis 6 feet 8 inches long and of the same width ase. The three 
chambers gy, h, and i are each 6 feet 9 inches wide, but of varying width. 
Room g is 5 feet 2 inches, h is 8 feet 6 inches, and ?, the smallest of all, 
only a foot wide. These three rooms have no intercommunication, 
The evidence of former fires in some of these rooms, afforded by soot 
on the walls and ashes in the depressions identified as old fireplaces, is 
most important. In one or two places I broke off a fragment of the 
plastering and found it to be composed of many strata of alternating 
black and adobe color, indicating successive plasterings of the room. 
Apparently when the surface wall became blackened by smoke it was 
renewed by a fresh layer or wash of adobe in the manner followed in 
renovating the kiva walls today.! 
An examination of the dimensions of the rooms of the acropolis will 
show that, while small, they are about the average size of the chambers 
in most other southwestern ruins. They are, however, much smaller 
than the rooms of the modern pueblo of Walpi or those of the cliff ruins 
in the Red-rock region, elsewhere described. Evidently the roof was 
2 or 3 feet higher than the top of the present walls, and the absence of 
external passageways would seem to indicate that entrance was through 
the roof. The narrow chamber, 7, is no smaller than some of those which 
were excavated at Awatobi, but unless it was a storage bin or dark 
closet for ceremonial paraphernalia its fune ion is not known to me. 
'The replastering of kivas at Walpi takes place during the Powamu, an elaborate katcina eelebra- 
tion. I have noticed that in this renovation of the kivas one corner, as a rule, is left unplastered, 
but have elicited no Satisfactory explanation of this apparent oversight, which, no doubt, has sig- 
nificance. Someone, perhaps overimaginative, suggested to me that the unplastered corner was the 
same as the break in encircling lines on ancient pottery. 
