Directly across the kiva in the west side was the entrance which had also been put here years before. It was merely a tunnel with a roof of small juniper branches. The outside end was open and was just large enough for the ends of a two-pole ladder to rest. Indians usually go into their kivas through the roofs, but not here. They climbed down the ladder, stooped, and with knees in a flexed position scurried through the tunnel to the inside. The five pits in the floor, which have been mentioned before, were apparently no longer needed for they were filled in with dirt and stones tightly packed. A thin layer of dirt was thrown over the entire floor surface. Kiva floors are generally plastered over and during this period of occupation the Tyuonyi women, more than likely, were the ones who smeared four fine coats of adobe over the floor and smoothed it out with their hands. I have neglected to mention one of the most important things of all—the Sipapu or ceremonial entrance from the underworld. It was the place of ceremonial emergence into this earthly life. Archæologists generally find a small hole in the floor of almost every kiva. But here at Tyuonyi a special kind of Sipapu was made. A piece of soft volcanic ash was formed into a rectangular block and buried edgewise in the floor. A small hole shaped like an icecream cone was drilled in the top as the spirit entrance. The Indians have a legend about this. It is symbolic of the entrance to the land of “Earth Old Women” and of the place where the human race originated. Long ago they climbed up a Douglas Spruce Tree and came into this world through a lake called Sipapu. And when they die the spirits go to Sipapu and on to the underworld. It is said that this lake is located in the sand hills north of Alamosa, Colorado. How important the kiva was to the Indians of Tyuonyi! Sipapu represented the place of creation and to them it was important in no small way. The cacique of each one of the big tribal kivas, both Squash and Turquoise, was a direct representative of the Earth Mother or “Earth Old Woman.”