In the floor of the typical kiva is a sacred cavity called the sipapuh, through which comes the beneficent influence of the deities or powers invoked. According to the accounts of some of the old men the kiva was constructed to inclose this sacred object, and houses were built on every side to surround the kiva and form its outer wall. In earlier times, too, so the priests relate, people were more devout, and the houses were planned with their terraces fronting upon the court, so that the women and children and all the people, could be close to the masked dancers (katchinas) as they issued from the kiva. The spectators filled the terraces, and sitting there they watched the katchinas dance in the court, and the women sprinkled meal upon them, while they listened to their songs. Other old men say the kiva was excavated in imitation of the original house in the interior of the earth, where the human family were created, and from which they climbed to the surface of the ground by means of a ladder, and through just such an opening as the hatchway of the kiva. Another explanation commonly offered is that they are made underground because they are thus cooler in summer, and more easily warmed in winter. All these factors 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 Zuñi, 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 Zuñi 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.