MINDELEFF, ] WORK BY WOMEN. 129 
wall and provided with orifices for the attachment of looms. This 
feature is a common accompaniment of kiva construction and pertains 
to the use of the ceremonial room as a workshop by the male blanket 
weavers of Tusayan. It will be more fully described in the discussion 
of the various uses of the kiva. 
The essential structural features of the kivas above described are 
remarkably similar, though the illustrations of types have been selected 
at random. Minor modifications are seen in the positions of many of 
the features, but a certain general relation between the various con- 
structional requirements of the ceremonial room is found to prevail 
throughout all the villages. 
Work by women.—After all the above described details have been pro- 
vided for, following the completion of the roofs and floors, the women 
belonging to the people who are to occupy the kiva continue the labor 
of its construction. They go over the interior surface of the walls, 
breaking off projections and filling up the interstices with small stones, 
and then they smoothly plaster the walls and the inside of the hateh- 
way with mud, and sometimes whitewash them with a gypsiferous clay 
found in the neighborhood. Once every year, at the feast of Powuma 
(the fructifying moon), the women give the kiva this same attention. 
Jonsecration.—When all the work is finished the kiva chief prepares 
a baho and “feeds the house,” as it is termed; that is, he thrusts a 
little meal, with piki crumbs, over one of the roof timbers, and in the 
same place inserts the end of the baho. As he does this he expresses 
his hope that the roof may never fall and that sickness and other evils 
may never enter the kiva. 
Tt is difficult to elicit intelligent explanation of the theory of the baho 
and the prayer ceremonies in either kiva or house construction. The 
baho is a prayer token; the petitioner is not satisfied by merely speak- 
ing or singing his prayer, he must have some tangible thing upon which 
to transmit it. He regards his prayer as a mysterious, impalpable por- 
tion of his own substance, and hence he seeks to embody it in some 
object, which thus becomes consecrated. The baho, which is inserted 
in the roof of the kiva, is a piece of willow twig about six inches long, 
stripped of its bark and painted. From it hang four small feathers 
suspended by short cotton strings tied at equal distances along the 
twig. In order to obtain recognition from the powers especially ad- 
dressed, different colored feathers and distinct methods of attaching 
them to bits of wood and string are resorted to. In the present case 
these are addressed to the “chiefs” who control the paths taken by the 
people after coming up from the interior of the earth. They are thus 
designated : 
To the west: Siky’ak--....-.-.-- (Oran W PANU Oe a oeae Yellow Cloud. 
soubhis \Satkwal se 2 e2 OMA TW 522s ss Blue Cloud. 
Cast Baliga Saar see eee Oma UWP seeeee oe Red Cloud. 
north: Kwetsh...-....... OMaMWile eee ee .--White Cloud, 
8 ETH 9 
