118 PUEBLO ARCHITECTURE. 
by means of a ladder, and through just such an opening as the hateh- 
way of the kiva. Another explanation commonly offered is that they 
are made underground because they are thus cooler in summer, and 
more easily warmed in winter. 
All these factors may have had some influence in the design, but we 
have already seen that excavation to the extent here practiced is wholly 
exceptional in pueblo building and the unusual development of this 
requirement of kiva construction has been due to purely local causes. 
In the habitual practice of such an ancient and traditional device, the 
Indians have lost all record of the real causes of the perpetuation of 
this requirement. At Zuni, too, a curious explanation is offered for the 
partial depression of the kiva floor below the general surrounding level. 
Here it is naively explained that the floor is excavated in order to 
attain a liberal height for the ceiling within the kiva, this being a room 
of great importance. Apparently it does not occur to the Zuni archi- 
tect that the result could be achieved in a more direct and much less 
laborious manner by making the walls a foot or so higher at the time 
of building the kiva, after the manner in which the same problem is 
solved when it is encountered in their ordinary dwelling house con- 
struction. Such explanations, of course, originated long after the prac- 
tice became established. 
METHODS OF KIVA BUILDING AND RITES. 
The external appearance of the kivas of Tusayan has been described 
and illustrated; it now remains to examine the general form and method 
of construction of these subterranean rooms, and to notice the at- 
tendant rites and ceremonies. 
Typical plans.— All the Tusayan kivas are in the form of a paralello- 
gram, usually about 25 feet long and half as wide, the ceiling, which is 
from 54 to 8 feet high, being slightly higher in the middle than at either 
end. There is no prescribed rule for kiva dimensions, and seemingly 
the size of the chamber is determined according to the number who are 
to use it, and who assume the labor of its construction. A list of typi- 
cal measurements obtained by Mr. Stephen is appended (p. 136). 
An excavation of the desired dimensions having been made, or an 
existing one having been discovered, the person who is to be chief of 
the kiva performs the same ceremony as that prescribed for the male 
head of a family when the building of a dwelling house is undertaken. 
He takes a handful of meal, mixed with piki crumbs, and a little of the 
crumbled herb they use as tobacco, and these he sprinkles upon the 
ground, beginning on the west side, passing southward, and so around, 
the sprinkled line he describes marking the position to be occupied by 
the walls. As he thus marks the compass of the kiva, he sings in a 
droning tone “Si-ai, a-hai, a-hai, si-ai, a-hai”—no other words but these. 
The meaning of these words seems to be unknown, but all the priests 
agree in saying that the archaic chant is addressed to the sun, and it 
