The kivas are seldom true circles, being usually elongated one way or another. Some instances occur which are rectangular, such as the room shown in figure 19, which was apparently a kiva. Nordenskioeld[19] illustrates an example which appears to have been oval by design, differing in this respect from anything found in De Chelly. Most of the kivas have an interior bench, about a foot wide and 2 feet above the floor. This bench is sometimes continuous around the whole interior, sometimes extends only partly around. Wherever the chimney-like structure is attached to a kiva the bench is omitted or broken at that point. The kiva wall on the floor level is always continuous except before the chimney-like feature. The most elaborate system of benches and buttresses seen in the canyon occurs in the principal kiva of the Mummy Cave ruin. This is shown in the ground plan, figure 16, and also in figures 82 and 83. In the ruins of the Mancos, Nordenskioeld found kivas in which this feature is carried much further. He illustrates[20] an example with a complete bench regularly divided into six equal parts by an equal number of buttresses or pillars (properly pilasters) extending out flush with the front of the bench. This is said to be a typical example, to which practically all the kivas conform. It has also the chimney-like structure, to be described later. Like the rectangular kivas of Tusayan the circular structures of De Chelly have little niches in the walls. Probably these were places of deposit for certain paraphernalia used in the ceremonies. [Footnote 19: Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde, p. 63, fig. 36.] [Footnote 20: Loc. cit., figs. 6 and 7, pp. 15-16.] Some of the kivas have an interior decoration consisting of a band with points. Figure 72 shows an example that occurs in ruin No. 10 in De Chelly, in the north kiva. The band, done in white, is about 18 inches below the bench, and its top is broken at intervals into groups of points rising from it, four points in each group. In the north kiva the interior wall is decorated by a series of vertical bands in white. One series occurs on the vertical face of the bench; the bands are 2 inches wide and 8 inches apart. Another series occurs on the wall, and consists of bands 21/2 to 3 inches wide, about 2 feet high and 12 to 14 inches apart. The bands were observed only on the southern and western sides of the kiva, but originally there may have been others on the north and east. [Illustration: Fig. 73--Pictograph in white.] [Illustration: Fig. 74--Markings on cliff wall, ruin No. 37.] [Illustration: Fig. 75--Decorative band in kiva in Mummy Cave ruin.]