very
important village throughout all changes of form, due to variations of
environment and other causes, the evidence of chambers of exceptional
character. The chambers are distinguishable from the typical dwelling
rooms by their size and position, and, generally, in ancient examples,
by their circular form. This feature of pueblo architecture has survived
to the present time, and is prominent in all modern pueblos that have
come under the writer's notice, including the villages of Acoma and
Jemez, belonging to the Rio Grande group, as well as in the pueblos
under discussion. In all the pueblos that have been examined, both
ancient and modern, with the exception of those of Tusayan, these
special rooms, used for ceremonial purposes, occupy marginal or
semidetached positions in the house clusters. The latter are wholly
detached from the houses, as may be seen from the ground plans.

_Origin of the name._--Such ceremonial rooms are known usually by the
Spanish term "estufa," meaning literally a stove, and here used in the
sense of "sweat house," but the term is misleading, as it more properly
describes the small sweat houses that are used ceremonially by
lodge-building Indians, such as the Navajo. At the suggestion of Major
Powell the Tusayan word for this everpresent feature of pueblo
architecture has been adopted, as being much more appropriate. The word
"kiva," then, will be understood to designate the ceremonial chamber of
the pueblo building peoples, ancient and modern.

_Antiquity of the kiva._--The widespread occurrence of this feature and
its evident antiquity distinguish it as being especially worthy of
exhaustive study, especially as embodied in its construction maybe found
survivals of early methods of arrangement that have long ago become
extinct in the constantly improving art of housebuilding, but which are
preserved through the well known tendency of the survival of ancient
practice in matters pertaining to the religious observances of a
primitive people. Unfortunately, in the past the Zuni have been exposed
to the repressive policy of the Spanish authorities, and this has
probably seriously affected the purity of the kiva type. At one time,
when the ceremonial observances of the Zuni took place in secret for
fear of incurring the wrath of the Spanish priests, the original kivas
must have been wholly abandoned, and though at the present time some of
the kivas of Zuni occupy marginal positions in the cell