Kivas
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

A kiva (also ''estufa'') is a space used by
Puebloans The Pueblo peoples are Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans in the Southwestern United States who share common agricultural, material, and religious practices. Among the currently inhabited Pueblos, Taos Pueblo, Taos, San Il ...
for rites and political meetings, many of them associated with the
kachina A kachina (; Hopi language, Hopi: ''katsina'' , plural ''katsinim'' ) is a spirit being in the religious beliefs of the Pueblo people, Native Americans in the United States, Native American cultures located in the south-western part of the Unite ...
belief system. Among the modern
Hopi The Hopi are Native Americans who primarily live in northeastern Arizona. The majority are enrolled in the Hopi Tribe of Arizona and live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona; however, some Hopi people are enrolled in the Colorado ...
and most other Pueblo peoples, "kiva" means a large room that is circular and underground, and used for spiritual
ceremonies A ceremony (, ) is a unified ritualistic event with a purpose, usually consisting of a number of artistic components, performed on a special occasion. The word may be of Etruscan origin, via the Latin . Religious and civil (secular) ceremoni ...
and a
place of worship A place of worship is a specially designed structure or space where individuals or a group of people such as a congregation come to perform acts of devotion, veneration, or religious study. A building constructed or used for this purpose is s ...
. Similar subterranean rooms are found among ruins in the
Southwestern United States The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural list of regions of the United States, region of the United States that includes Arizona and New Mexico, along with adjacen ...
, indicating uses by the ancient peoples of the region including the
ancestral Puebloans The Ancestral Puebloans, also known as Ancestral Pueblo peoples or the Basketmaker-Pueblo culture, were an ancient Native American culture of Pueblo peoples spanning the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southe ...
, the Mogollon, and the
Hohokam Hohokam was a culture in the Indigenous peoples of the North American Southwest, North American Southwest in what is now part of south-central Arizona, United States, and Sonora, Mexico. It existed between 300 and 1500 CE, with cultural p ...
. Those used by the ancient Pueblos of the Pueblo I Period and following, designated by the Pecos Classification system developed by archaeologists, were usually round and evolved from simpler pit-houses. For the Ancestral Puebloans, these rooms are believed to have had a variety of functions, including domestic residence along with social and ceremonial purposes.


Evolution

During the late 8th century,
Mesa Verde Mesa Verde National Park is a national park of the United States and UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Montezuma County, Colorado, and the only World Heritage Site in Colorado. The park protects some of the best-preserved Ancestral Pueblo ...
ans started building square pit structures that archeologists call protokivas. They were typically deep and in diameter. By the mid-10th and early 11th centuries, these had evolved into smaller circular structures called kivas, which were usually across. Mesa Verde-style kivas included a feature from earlier times called a ''
sipapu A (a Hopi word) was a small hole or indentation in the floor of a (pithouse). Kivas were used by the Ancestral Puebloans and continue to be used by modern-day Puebloans. The symbolizes the portal through which their ancient ancestors first e ...
'', which is a hole dug in the north of the chamber that is thought to represent the Ancestral Puebloans' place of emergence from the underworld. When designating an ancient room as a ''kiva,'' archaeologists make assumptions about the room's original functions and how those functions may be similar to or differ from those used in modern practice. The
kachina A kachina (; Hopi language, Hopi: ''katsina'' , plural ''katsinim'' ) is a spirit being in the religious beliefs of the Pueblo people, Native Americans in the United States, Native American cultures located in the south-western part of the Unite ...
belief system appears to have emerged in the pre-Columbian Southwest around 1250, while kiva-like structures occurred much earlier. This suggests that the room's older functions may have been changed or adapted to suit the new religious practice. As cultural changes occurred, particularly during the Pueblo III Period between 1150 and 1300, kivas had a prominent place in the community. However, some kivas were built above ground. Kiva architecture became more elaborate, with tower and great kivas incorporating specialized floor features. For example, kivas in Mesa Verde National Park were generally keyhole-shaped. Finding one kiva for each five or six rooms was normal in most larger communities. Kiva destruction, primarily by burning, has been seen as a strong archaeological indicator of conflict and warfare during this period. Fifteen top rooms encircle the central chamber of the vast Great Kiva at Aztec Ruins National Monument. After 1325 or 1350, except in the
Hopi The Hopi are Native Americans who primarily live in northeastern Arizona. The majority are enrolled in the Hopi Tribe of Arizona and live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona; however, some Hopi people are enrolled in the Colorado ...
and
Pueblo Pueblo refers to the settlements of the Pueblo peoples, Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, currently in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. The permanent communities, including some of the oldest continually occupied settlement ...
region, the ratio changed from 60 to 90 rooms for each kiva. This may indicate a religious or organizational change within the society, perhaps affecting the status and number of clans among the Pueblo people.


Great kiva

Great kivas differ from regular kivas, which archeologists call Chaco-style kivas (although
Chaco Canyon Chaco Culture National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park in the American Southwest hosting a large concentration of pre-Columbian indigenous ruins of pueblos. The park is located in northwestern New Mexico, betwee ...
also features great kivas), in several ways; first and foremost, great kivas are always much larger and deeper than Chaco-style kivas. Whereas the walls of great kivas always extend above the surrounding landscape, the walls of Chaco-style kivas do not, but are instead flush with the surrounding landscape. Chaco-style kivas are often found incorporated into the central room blocks of great houses, but great kivas are always separate from core structures. Great kivas almost always have a bench that encircles the inner space, but this feature is not found in Chaco-style kivas. Great kivas also tend to include floor vaults, which might have served as foot drums for ceremonial dancers, but Chaco-style kivas do not. Great kivas are believed to be the first public buildings constructed in the Mesa Verde region.


See also

* Casa Rinconada * False Kiva *
Fogou A fogou or fougou (pronounced "foo-goo") is an underground, dry-stone structure found on Iron Age or Romano-British-defended settlement sites in Cornwall. The original purpose of a fogou is uncertain today. Colloquially called , , , giant holts ...
* Koshare Indian Museum and Dancers * Pueblo clown *
Souterrain ''Souterrain'' (from French ', meaning "subterrain", is a name given by archaeologists to a type of underground structure associated mainly with the European Atlantic Iron Age. These structures appear to have been brought northwards from Gaul d ...
*
Temenos A ''temenos'' ( Greek: ; plural: , ''temenē''). is a piece of land cut off and assigned as an official domain, especially to kings and chiefs, or a piece of land marked off from common uses and dedicated to a god, such as a sanctuary, holy g ...
* Zemlyanka


References

;Citations ;Bibliography * * * * *


Further reading

* * *


External links


La Kiva tradicional
de Oscar Freire * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kiva Religious places of the Indigenous peoples of North America Puebloan architectural elements Pueblo culture Semi-subterranean structures