kiva

KEE-vah
A circular, partly underground ceremonial room in Ancestral Puebloan architecture, entered by ladder through a hole in the roof. The sipapu — a small hole in the kiva floor — represents the place of emergence from the world below. A kiva is not a ruin; many are still in active ceremonial use in the pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona.
Etymology
Hopi. The word belongs to the culture that built and still uses them.
desert human settlement Indigenous terrain
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