KIVA

subterranean ceremonial and social chamber found in the Pueblo American Indian villages of the southwestern United States, particularly notable for the colourful mural paintings decorating the walls. Because the kiva is related to the family origins of the tribe and because two or more tribal clans always inhabit a Pueblo community (see pueblo), there are always at least two kivas per village. A small hole in the floor of the kiva (sometimes carved through a plank of wood), called the spapu, served as the symbolic place of origin of the tribe. Although its most important purpose is for ritual ceremonies, for which altars are erected, the kiva is also used for political meetings or casual gatherings of the men of the village. Women are almost always excluded from the kiva. The traditional round slope of the earliest kiva, in contrast to the rest of Pueblo architecture, which is square or rectangular, recalls the circular pit houses of the prehistoric basket-weaving culture from which these tribes, primarily Hopi and Zuni, descend (see cliff dwelling). The kiva murals depict sacred figures or scenes from the daily life of the tribe. The style of these paintings tends to be geometric, with an emphasis on straight rather than curved lines and with the entire mural laid out in a linear pattern around the walls. The murals are painted on adobe plaster with warm, colourful pigments made from the rich mineral deposits of the area. Frequently the Indians plastered over an old mural to paint a new one on top; in recent years the several layers of a number of kiva murals have been unpeeled and restored.