MINDELEFF. | KIVA OWNERSHIP. 133 
pits are formed along the side of the stone bench, to provide for various 
lengths of warp that may be required. On the opposite side of this 
same kiva a number of similar holes or depressions are turned into the 
mud plastering of the wall. All these devices are of common oceur- 
rence at other of the Tusayan kivas, and indicate the antiquity of the 
practice of using the kivas for such industrial purposes. There is ¢ 
suggestion of similar use of the ancient circular kivas in an example 
in Canyon de Chelly. At a small cluster of rooms, built partly on a 
rocky ledge and partly on adjoiming loose earth and rocky débris, a land 
slide had carried away half of a cireular kiva, exposing a well-defined 
section of its floor and the débris within the room. Here the writer 
found a number of partly finished sandals of yucca fiber, with the long, 
unwoven fiber carefully wrapped about the finished portion of the work, 
as though the sandals had been temporarily laid aside until the maker 
could again work on them. A number of coils of yucca fiber, similar 
to that used in the sandals, and several balls of brown fiber, formed 
from the inner bark of the cedar, were found on the floor of the room. 
The condition of the ruin and the débris that filled the kiva clearly sug- 
gested that these specimens were in use just where they were found at 
the time of the abandonment or destruction of the houses. No traces 
were seen, however, of any structural devices like those of Tusayan 
that would serve as aids to the weavers, though the weaving of the par- 
ticular articles comprised in the collection from this spot would prob- 
ably not require any cumbrous apparatus. 
Kiva ownership.—The kiva is usually spoken of as being the home 
of the organization which maintains it. Different kivas are not used in 
common by all the inhabitants. Every man has a membership in some 
particular one and he frequents that one only. The same person is 
often amember of different societies, which takes him to different kivas, 
but that is only on set occasions. There is also much informal visiting 
among them, but a man presumes to make a loitering place only of the 
kiva in which he holds membership. 
In each kiva there is a kiva mungwi (kiva chief), and he controls to a 
great extent all matters pertaining to the kiva and its membership. 
This office or trust is hereditary and passes from uncle to nephew 
through the female line—that is, on the death of a kiva chief the eldest 
son of his eldest sister succeeds him. 
A kiva may belong either to a society, a group of gentes, or an in- 
dividual. If belonging to a society or order, the kiva chief commonly 
has inherited his office in the manner indicated from the “eldest brother” 
of the society who assumed its construction. But the kiva chief is not 
necessarily chief of the society; in fact, usually he is but an ordinary 
member. <A similar custom of inheritance prevails where the kiva be- 
longs to a group of gentes, only in that case the kiva chief is usually 
chief of the gentile group. 
As for those held by individuals, a couple of examples will illustrate 
the Tusayan practice. In Hano the chief kiva was originally built 
