Kiva
A kiva is a ceremonial and meeting room of the Pueblo cultures . The word itself comes from the Hopi language . A pueblo usually includes several kivas, a large one for all residents and several smaller ones for the individual clans.
The circular kivas are half or completely underground. Tree trunks formed the roof. These were then plastered with clay, so that a flat accessible area was created again in the underground facilities. A ladder that was put through a hole in the roof was used as access. In the case of semi-underground kivas, a ladder led down from a small vestibule.
Facility
Each kiva is equipped with a fireplace and an air shaft. There are stone benches all around on the inner wall. This grouping, which usually consists of six units, represents the possible directions of movement (in addition to the cardinal points up and down). A small hole in the ground, the sipapu , symbolizes the entrance to the underworld or the way through which people came into this world. In at least two Kivas ( Yellow Jacket Canyon and Sand Canyon in Colorado) the Sipapu is assigned a peculiar figure. During the construction of the kiva, large-format pictures of the fertility goddess Kokopelli were first painted on the ground before these were covered and hidden by the actual floor of the kiva.
Some kivas are connected by underground tunnels to nearby multi-story towers. The function of the towers and their connection to the kivas is unclear.
An originally reconstructed kiva can be seen in the Aztec Ruins National Monument near Aztec in New Mexico . There are also numerous specimens in Mesa Verde National Park , Colorado , which are well preserved apart from the original canopy.
use
The use of the rooms in prehistoric times can only be roughly derived from the archaeological finds. As a result, apart from rituals, social and practical activities always took place in the cult rooms.
In the period between 1100 and 1300 there was a shift in uses in the kivas. While grinding stones were previously a typical find in Kivas, they then disappeared from the religiously connoted area and have since been found in living rooms. On the other hand, post holes made from upright looms have been found in Kivas since around 1150 . These match the images of people in woven skirts that have appeared around this time.
From these findings it is concluded that with the formation of the Southwestern cult, a gender-specific use of the kivas takes place. Only men were allowed to visit the places of worship. The women with the task of food preparation assigned to them were no longer allowed to enter. On the other hand, men take over the production of the woven textiles on the upright loom in the winter season, when agriculture is idle. Previously only the weaving of ribbons on warp cords attached without a frame to posts was known, with the new technology the task became a male activity. The production of textiles for everyday use as well as special ritual objects became an essential source of social status in the community.
When the Spaniards subjugated the southwest, they demanded large quantities of textiles from the indigenous peoples, along with other forms of forced labor. This need exceeded the possibilities of traditional weaving, on the other hand the Spaniards introduced sheep and thus wool in addition to the cotton they had previously used . Hence, in all pueblo cultures, weaving became a general work that included women and children. The exploitation of the Indians led to the Pueblo uprising in 1680 , in which the Spaniards were temporarily forcibly expelled from the southwest into what is now Mexico.
The Hopi then returned to the gender division of labor. In the Eastern Pueblo cultures on the Rio Grande , on the other hand, weaving became a female activity. This distribution persisted when the Spaniards came back. It was not until the 20th century that the Hopi women took over the production of textiles on looms using western technology.
Web links
- Aztec Ruins National Monument (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bruce A. Bradley: Architectural Petroglyphs at Sand Canyon Pueblo (5MT765) Southwestern Colorado . In: Kiva, Vol. 54, No. 2 (1989), pp. 153–161, 159 ( JSTOR 30247374 at Jstor)
- ↑ Dennis Slifer: Kokopelli - The Magic, Mirth, and Mischief of an Ancient Symbol . Gibbs Smith, 2007, ISBN 978-1-4236-0174-6 , p. 81.
- ↑ Unless otherwise stated, the chapter is based on: Ruth Burgett Jolie: Exploring Textile Traditions, Gender Shifts, and Social Capital in the American Southwest . In: North American Archaeologist, Volume 35, Issue 4 (2014), pp. 375-403