inp SLE} SIGNIFICANCE OF KIVA PLAN. 135 
tile group, who in this case is also chief of the order, proposes to his 
kin to build a separate kiva, and that being agreed to, he assumes the 
direction of the construction and all the dedicatory and other cere- 
monies connected with the undertaking. An instance of this kind 
oceurred within the last year or two at Oraibi, where the members of 
the “Katchina” gentes, who are also members of the religious order of 
Katehina, built a spacious kiva for themselves. 
The construction of a new kiva is said to be of rare occurrence. On 
the other hand, it is common to hear the kiva chief lament the deca- 
dence of its membership. In the “Oak Mound” kiva at Sichumovi there 
are now but four members. The young men have married and moved 
to their wives’ houses in more thriving villages, and the older men have 
died. The chief in this case also says that some 2 years ago the agent 
gave him a stove and pipe, which he set up in the room to add to its 
comfort. He now has grave fears that the stove is an evil innovation, 
and has exercised a deleterious influence upon the fortune of his kiva 
and its members; but the stove is still retained. 
Significance of structural plan.—The designation of the curious orifice 
of the sipapuh as “the place from which the people emerged” in con- 
nection with the peculiar arrangement of the kiva interior with its 
change of floor level, suggested to the author that these features might 
be regarded as typifying the four worlds of the genesis myth that has 
exercised such an influence on Tusayan customs; but no clear data on 
this subject were obtained by the writer, nor has Mr. Stephen, who is 
specially well equipped for such investigations, discovered that a defi- 
nite conception exists concerning the significance of the structural plan 
of the kiva. Still, from many suggestive allusions made by the various 
kiva chiefs and others, he also has been led to infer that it typifies the 
four “houses,” or stages, described in their creation myths. The si- 
papuh, with its cavity beneath the floor, is certainly regarded as indi- 
cating the place of beginning, the lowest house under the earth, the 
abode of Myuingwa, the Creator; the main or lower floor represents 
the second stage; and the elevated section of the floor is made to denote 
the third stage, where animals were created. Mr. Stephen observed, 
at the New Year festivals, that animal fetiches were set in groups upon 
this platform. It is also to be noted that the ladder leading to the 
surface is invariably made of pine, and always rests upon the platform, 
never upon the lower floor, and in their traditional genesis it is stated 
that the people climbed up from the third house (stage) by a ladder of 
pine, and through such an opening as the kiva hatehway; only most of 
the stories indicate that the opening was round. The outer air is the 
fourth world, or that now occupied. 
There are occasional references in the Tusayan traditions to circular 
kivas, but these are so confused with fantastic accounts of early mythic 
structures that their literal rendition would serve no useful purpose in 
the present discussion. 
