rs may have had some influence in the design, but we have
already seen that excavation to the extent here practiced is wholly
exceptional in pueblo building and the unusual development of this
requirement of kiva construction has been due to purely local causes.
In the habitual practice of such an ancient and traditional device, the
Indians have lost all record of the real causes of the perpetuation of
this requirement. At Zuni, too, a curious explanation is offered for the
partial depression of the kiva floor below the general surrounding
level. Here it is naively explained that the floor is excavated in order
to attain a liberal height for the ceiling within the kiva, this being a
room of great importance. Apparently it does not occur to the Zuni
architect that the result could be achieved in a more direct and much
less laborious manner by making the walls a foot or so higher at the
time of building the kiva, after the manner in which the same problem is
solved when it is encountered in their ordinary dwelling house
construction. Such explanations, of course, originated long after the
practice became established.

METHODS OF KIVA BUILDING AND RITES.

The external appearance of the kivas of Tusayan has been described and
illustrated; it now remains to examine the general form and method of
construction of these subterranean rooms, and to notice the attendant
rites and ceremonies.

_Typical plans._--All the Tusayan kivas are in the form of a
parallelogram, usually about 25 feet long and half as wide, the ceiling,
which is from 51/2 to 8 feet high, being slightly higher in the middle
than at either end. There is no prescribed rule for kiva dimensions, and
seemingly the size of the chamber is determined according to the number
who are to use it, and who assume the labor of its construction. A list
of typical measurements obtained by Mr. Stephen is appended (p. 136).

[Illustration: Plate LV. Matsaki, plan.]

An excavation of the desired dimensions having been made, or an existing
one having been discovered, the person who is to be chief of the kiva
performs the same ceremony as that prescribed for the male head of a
family when the building of a dwelling house is undertaken. He takes a
handful of meal, mixed with piki crumbs, and a little of the crumbled
herb they use as tobacco, and these he sprinkles upon the ground,
beginning on the west side, passing southward, and so around, the
sprinkled line he describes mar