Kiva

Kivas

Kiva is, in the majority of the cases, a round and buried part. For the Hopis, to enter there, it is to change time. On his ground, one finds in the center of the part a small hole stopped by a piece of wood which one opens during the ritual ones. This hole names sipaapu like the hole of the emergence of the Large Canyon (a mythical conduit connecting the world of the men to the world " of avant"). It is by means of the same term that Hopis indicate, in a way humorous, but relevant, the sex of the women. To open Sipaapu, it is to communicate with those of the lower part, those which died or which was not born.

Let us observe that the kivas is also a hole, this time in the ceiling, which thus leads to the ground of the village. The descent is done by a scale. Inside, the walls are compared to the walls of the world, at the same time as the benches represents the houses of the village.

The kivas served, and are used still in Pueblos (Hopi, Zunis, Zia, Taos etc) of room of ceremony just like our churches today but also of retirement, meeting etc When somebody in the village fell sick, Anasazis practiced a ritual ceremony to obtain its cure. They also requested so that it rains, or so that hunting and harvests are good.

These circular rooms were also useful for the meetings, to store goods or to weave cotton fabrics (the climate of Mesa Verde did not allow the culture of cotton, which indicates that as for the potteries or the jewels, the Anasazis practiced barter). Very few kivas preserved their roof, composed of beams and clay. In general, the kivas had a very good system of ventilation. When fire there was made, the fresh air went down by a conduit located in one from the walls and smoke escaped by the central opening of the roof.

One finds in all the ruins Anasazi, these curious qualified buildings of " Kivas" , differentiated always well in the formal plan: in the center and the east of the Anasazi territory, they round, are established sometimes on the surface, of another time buried. In the west, they are rectengulaire. One knows the small ones as in Mesa Verde (four to five meters in diameter), but also of very large (up to 20 meters). All the villages counted some several and sometimes, as with Pueblo Bonito (photo above) up to 30.

See too

Sources

Conference with the Sorbonne de Charlotte Arnaud (pulpit of Sander van der Leuw) December 2001

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