[57] This kiva, one of the finest and in some features the most exceptional in Cliff Palace, is not indicated in Nordenskiöld's plan.
[58] Nordenskiöld describes a ventilator constructed in the same way.
[59] In ceremonial rooms of ruins in the Navaho National Monument this curve is represented by a raised step.
[60] Among the Hopi at the present day certain fetishes, as the effigies of the Great Plumed Serpent, are regarded as so sacred that when not in use they are kept in jars set in a banquette, the surface of which is level with the neck of the jar. These receptacles are closely sealed with a stone slab when the images are deposited in them. Possibly the jars set in the kiva banquettes of Cliff Palace may have been used for a similar purpose: i. e., were receptacles for fetishes held in such veneration that, as is the case with the Great Serpent effigies of the Hopi, one even touching them may, in the belief of the people, be afflicted with direful disorders.
[61] See Bulletin 50, Bureau of American Ethnology.
[62] The two circular kivas of Kukuchomo, near Sikyatki, have this large banquette and in other respects resemble the ruins of Canyon de Chelly. Kukuchomo marks the site of a settlement, of the Coyote clan of the Hopi in prehistoric times.
[63] As a huge rock had fallen from the roof of the cave in which this kiva lies, since it was first occupied, it would appear that the place was abandoned on that account.
[64] Nordenskiöld's description of this kiva has been quoted earlier in this paper. In the description of a ceremonial room of a somewhat similar or of the same type in Spruce-tree House the term "warrior room" is used; there is nothing to warrant this designation, however, and it would be better to consider it simply as a kiva of the second type.
[65] For instance, the complicated reredos of many of the modern Hopi altars is made of flat wooden slabs, the manufacture of which would be very difficult for a people ignorant of iron. These probably replaced painted stone slabs of simpler character, examples of which have been found in ruins and indeed still survive in some of the oldest rites.
[66] This object probably came from near Tokónabi, the ancient home of the Snake people of Walpi, on San Juan river. Fourteen of these tcamahias form part of the Antelope altar in the Snake Dance at Walpi.