HOLMES ANNIVERSARY VOLUME 



manner, at or near the middle of the wall, but near one corner, or 

 where the inner straight wall of the rectangular chamber joins the 

 curved inner wall of the main room, a position into which it was 

 probably forced by the existence of a large fallen rock which covers 

 this end of the kiva. Two sticks placed diagonally in the walls of the 

 external opening of the vertical shaft cross each other, limiting the 

 size of the aperture, which is too small for passage by a human being. 

 Similar sticks are found in the shafts of some of the circular Mesa 

 Verde kivas, indicating that the vertical shaft in Kiva D is the same 

 as the shafts in circular subterranean kivas where there is no differ- 

 entiation of the space back of the deflector into a rectangular 

 chamber. 



The rectangular room above mentioned is unique in kivas of 

 Mesa Verde cliff-dwellings. If the vertical shaft may be regarded as 

 a ventilator, one of the straight walls forming the rectangular room 

 might be comparable with the deflector; through it two passageways 

 open side by side into the main or D-shaped chamber. The rectangular 

 chamber, morphologically representing the space in circular kivas 

 between the deflector and the wall, may be interpreted as a room 

 in which personators or actors in ceremonial dramas remained until 

 the time for them to emerge through the doorways into the main 

 room. If such were its use, the object of the vertical flue might then 

 be to supply fresh air, just as in other cases it served for ventilation 

 of the whole kiva. 



The walls of Kiva D have no columns or pilasters with intervening 

 banquettes, but there are two breaks in the top of the walls that sug- 

 gest places for parallel supports for the rafters of a flat roof, a well- 

 known characteristic of kivas of the second type. 



SECULAR ROOMS 



Most of the secular rooms of Oak-tree House exhibit no striking 

 peculiarities. They vary in size and shape, filling the rear of the cave 

 and extending round the eastern and western ends. These living rooms 

 were doubtless used as sleeping quarters and possibly for storage; the 

 corn-grinding, cooking, and other domestic occupations were more 

 commonly confined to the terraces or open plazas, where fireplaces 

 are indicated by depressions in the floor and by smoke discoloration. 

 The walls of these rooms, as a rule, are intact but roofless; they show 

 no evidence of former roof beams, the cliff itself furnishing the side 

 walls of the rear rooms, and in a few instances the roofs. Skeletons 

 and offerings to the dead have been found under the floors of some 

 of these rooms. 



[104] 



