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SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS 



VOL. 'J2 



circular Alesa Verde type and of several granaries and living rooms. 

 The approaches to it from the mesa rim are very precipitous and it 

 was necessary to construct four ladders and otherwise improve the 

 trail to enable visitors to see it. 



On the walls of one of its two kivas there survives a very good 

 example of decorated plastering. As shown in the accompanying 

 illustration (fig. 72) there is a dado or lower part of the kiva wall 

 which is painted red, and on its upper edge there are arranged at 

 intervals clusters of triangular symbols (three in number) around 

 which extends a row of dots. The Hopi identify these triangles as 



Fig. 72. — Interior of kiva, showing mural decoration, niches, and pilaster. 

 Painted Kiva House, Mesa Verde National Park. (Photograph by Fewkes.) 



.symbols of butterflies. They are of common occitrrence on the walls 

 of several kivas and survive in certain secular rooms of the cliff 

 dwellers. These triangles with surrounding dots occur constantly on 

 the oldest cliff-dweller pottery, as shown in the accompanying figures. 

 The ventilator shaft is represented in the painted kiva by a tortuous 

 passage, extending under walls and opening some distance from the 

 room. It is spacious enough to serve as an entrance into the cere- 

 monial chamber. Although Baron Nordenskiold made extensive ex- 

 cavations in Painted Kiva House and devoted several pages of his 

 memoir to a description of it and the specimens he found there, many 

 objects (fig. J}^") remained in rear chambers which were found in 

 1921. 



