At Isleta, in conversation with an educated and very reliable Indian, now federal judge of the pueblo, I was told it is still a regular thing through the winter evenings to assemble the boys, to whom the older men “tell the stories of our origin and our beliefs. We begin about nine o’clock every night and talk till three in the morning, and it takes two weeks of such talks to complete the story.” This suggests that in Isleta, at any rate, there still exists the ancient custom of the boys sleeping in the _estufa_, going home only for their meals, just as Spartan boys were taken from the homes of their parents to receive the arduous Spartan training. Not only were the _estufas_ or _kivas_ used for clan and pueblo councils and for the education of the boys, but nearly all the early Spanish chroniclers write as if the men used them also as a sort of club-house where they could keep warm on cold winter days. Coronado speaks of “very good rooms underground and paved at Granada (or Háwikuh) which are made for winter and are something like hot baths,” and again “places where the men gather for consultation. The young men live in the _estufas_, which are underground, square or round.” Father Escobar writes, “There are many good _estufas_ in each pueblo, which, with little fire, are very warm and wherein they pass the snow and cold of winter.”[30] In some tribes there was certainly a discrimination made between _kivas_, or purely ceremonial chambers, and _estufas_ for more commonplace purposes, where even the sweat baths[31] were sometimes given. It is said that Keresan tribes always have two _kivas_. We have no reason to think that more than a single form existed at Ácoma. The _kiva_ was reserved for the business of the clan, which included the training for the rituals, to be announced to the pueblo in due season by the town crier. Here also are celebrated the secret rites of the fraternities and priesthoods, in many of which there are grades of promotion through which only may an individual slowly attain the goal of his ambition and become a power in his tribe. In times of council meeting, not even the Indian women may approach the _kivas_ save to place food within reach of the entrance.[32] If need arises to summon forth a member, prearranged signals are used. The fire on the hearth may sometimes point out the position of a hidden _kiva_ to a wise-eyed stranger, such as the one who wrote that at Ácoma “far into the night the watcher is aware of a spiral of smoke curling above the dark hatchway from the sacred fire that never dies nor ever shall.”[33] It is desirable to correct a popular misconception that the _kiva_ was ever in any sense a temple. The only temple the Indian knew, or would think worthy, was the great outdoors. Forest aisles or mountain shrines alone served for the place of communion with Divinity.[34]