174 THE CLIFF RUINS OF CANYON DE CHELLY _ [etH. ann. 16 
and other conditions into a new. region with different requirements, and 
that occupancy of the latter region did not continue long enough to 
conform the methods to the new conditions. 
KIVAS OR SACRED CHAMBERS 
The kivas, or estufas as they formerly were called, are sacred cham- 
bers in which the civil and religious affairs of the tribe are transacted, 
and they also form a place of resort, or club, as it were, for the men. 
Their functions are many and varied, but as this subject has already 
been discussed at length! it need not be enlarged upon here. In Tusa- 
yan the kivas are rectangular and separated from the houses; in Zuni 
and in some other pueblos they are also rectangular, but are incorporated 
in the house clusters—a feature doubtless brought about by the repress- 
ive policy of the Spanish monks. In some of the pueblos, as in Taos, 
they are circular, and in many of the older ruins the same form is found. 
In the large ruins of Chaco canyon the kivas occur in groups arranged 
along the inner side of the rooms; always, where the ground plan is 
such as to permit it, arranged on the border of an inner court. In Can- 
yon de Chelly the kivas are always circular and are placed generally on 
the outer edge of the settlement, which is usually the front. 
As the function of the kivas is principally a religious one, they are 
found only in permanent villages where religious ceremonies were per- 
formed. They are neyer found in subordinate settlements, or farming 
villages, or outlooks, unless such settlements came to be inhabited all 
the year—in other words, until they became permanent villages. The 
habits and requirements of the Pueblo people make it essential that a 
permanent village should have one or more kivas, and we have in the 
presence of these structures a criterion by which the character of a 
village or ruin may be determined. As the kivas in De Chelly are 
always circular, they can generally be easily distinguished. 
The circular kiva is unquestionably a survival in architecture—a relic 
of the time when the Pueblo people dwelt in circular lodges or huts—and 
its use in conjunction with a rectangular system entailed many difficulties 
and some awkward expedients to overcome them. The main problem, 
how to use the two systems together, was solved by inclosing the cir- 
cular chamber in a rectangular cell, and this expedient aided in the 
solution of the hardly less important problem of roofing. The roof of 
the kiva was the roof of the chamber that inclosed it. 
It seems to have been a common requirement throughout the pueblo 
country that the kiva should be wholly or partly underground. So 
strong was this requirement in Tusayan that the occurrence of natural 
clefts and fissures in the rock of the mesa top has dictated the location 
of the kivas often at some distance from the houses. But in De Chelly 
there were some sites where the requirement could not be filled without 
extensive rock excavation wholly beyond the power of the builders, 



'8th Ann. Rept. Bur. Eth., ‘A study of Pueblo architecture in Tusayan and Cibola,” by Victor 
Mindelefi; Washington, 1891 
