But the native explanations of the
traditional plan are vague and contradictory.
In the floor of the typical kiva is a sacred cavity called the sipapuh,
through which comes the beneficent influence of the deities or powers
invoked. According to the accounts of some of the old men the kiva was
constructed to inclose this sacred object, and houses were built on
every side to surround the kiva and form its outer wall. In earlier
times, too, so the priests relate, people were more devout, and the
houses were planned with their terraces fronting upon the court, so that
the women and children and all the people, could be close to the masked
dancers (katchinas) as they issued from the kiva. The spectators filled
the terraces, and sitting there they watched the katchinas dance in the
court, and the women sprinkled meal upon them, while they listened to
their songs. Other old men say the kiva was excavated in imitation of
the original house in the interior of the earth, where the human family
were created, and from which they climbed to the surface of the ground
by means of a ladder, and through just such an opening as the hatchway
of the kiva. Another explanation commonly offered is that they are made
underground because they are thus cooler in summer, and more easily
warmed in winter.
All these factors may have had some influence in the design, but we have
already seen that excavation to the extent here practiced is wholly
exceptional in pueblo building and the unusual development of this
requirement of kiva construction has been due to purely local causes.
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