Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Articles

Kivas, the Middle Place and What Is Not Published

Citation Formats

General Reference

APA Style

BibTeX

Learn More
Kivas, the Middle Place and What Is Not Published

Pueblo religion is village religion. Each pueblo holds its own ceremonies, its own societies and its own account of emergence into this world from those below, and of arrival at a middle place where the people were told to stay. The kiva, a chamber usually entered from above, is where much of the work is done, and the small opening in its floor marks the place of emergence.

The ceremonial year is divided between the seasons and, at many pueblos, between moieties or societies, with responsibility for particular ceremonies held by named groups rather than by the village at large. Rain is the constant subject, in a country where the difference between a harvest and a failure is a few weeks of weather.

Almost every pueblo restricts what may be recorded, photographed or repeated, and several close their villages to visitors on ceremonial days. That restriction is not uniform and it is not the atlas's to interpret, so what is described here is the institutions rather than any ceremonial detail. It is worth stating why the restriction exists. Spanish suppression in the seventeenth century, followed by American administrative bans on ceremonies well into the twentieth, taught these communities that what is written down can be used against them.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Article On

Sources
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.

View At A Past Year

The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.