[Illustration: Fig. 31. Loom post in kiva at Tusayan.]
[Illustration: Plate LXII. Remains of a reservoir on T?aaiyalana.]
_Kiva ownership._--The kiva is usually spoken of as being the home of
the organization which maintains it. Different kivas are not used in
common by all the inhabitants. Every man has a membership in some
particular one and he frequents that one only. The same person is often
a member of different societies, which takes him to different kivas, but
that is only on set occasions. There is also much informal visiting
among them, but a man presumes to make a loitering place only of the
kiva in which he holds membership.
In each kiva there is a kiva mungwi (kiva chief), and he controls to a
great extent all matters pertaining to the kiva and its membership. This
office or trust is hereditary and passes from uncle to nephew through
the female line--that is, on the death of a kiva chief the eldest son of
his eldest sister succeeds him.
A kiva may belong either to a society, a group of gentes, or an
individual. If belonging to a society or order, the kiva chief commonly
has inherited his office in the manner indicated from the "eldest
brother" of the society who assumed its construction. But the kiva chief
is not necessarily chief of the society; in fact, usually he is but an
ordinary member. A similar custom of inheritance prevails where the kiva
belongs to a group of gentes, only in that case the kiva chief is
usually chief of the gentile group.
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