clusters, just
as in many ancient examples, it is doubtful whether these rooms
faithfully represent the original type of kiva. There seems to be but
little structural evidence to distinguish the present kivas from
ordinary large Zuni rooms beyond the special character of the fireplace
and of the entrance trap door, features which will be fully described
later. At Tusayan, on the other hand, we find a distinct and
characteristic structural plan of the kiva, as well as many special
constructive devices. Although the position of the ceremonial room is
here exceptional in its entire separation from the dwelling, this is due
to clearly traceable influences in the immediate orograpic environment,
and the wholly subterranean arrangement of most of the kivas in this
group is also due to the same local causes.

[Illustration: Plate LII. K'iakima, plan.]

_Excavation of the kiva._--The tendency to depress or partly excavate
the ceremonial chamber existed in Zuni, as in all the ancient pueblo
buildings which have been examined; but the solid rock of the mesa tops
in Tusayan did not admit of the necessary excavation, and the
persistence of this requirement, which, as I shall elsewhere show, has
an important connection with the early types of pueblo building,
compelled the occupants of these rocky sites to locate their kivas at
points where depressions already existed. Such facilities were most
abundant near the margins of the mesas, where in many places large
blocks of sandstone have fallen out from the edge of the surface
stratum, leaving nearly rectangular spaces at the summit of the cliff
wall. The construction of their villages on these rocky promontories
forced the Tusayan builders to sacrifice, to a large extent, the
traditional and customary arrangement of the kivas within the
house-inclosed courts of the pueblo, in order to obtain properly
depressed sites. This accidental effect of the immediate environment
resulted in giving unusual prominence to the sinking of the ceremonial
room below the ground surface, but a certain amount of excavation is
found as a constant accompaniment of this feature throughout the pueblo
region in both ancient and modern villages. Even at Zuni, where the
kivas appear to retain but few of the specialized features that
distinguish them at Tusayan, the floors are found to be below the
general level of the ground. But at Tusayan the development of this
single requirement has been carried to such