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prettygoodwordkiva (KEE-vuh) - n., a usually round, usually partly underground chamber in a Pueblo settlement, used for both ceremonial and social/political purposes.
The entrance is almost always through the center of the roof, by a ladder down. In this case, "Pueblo" refers to not just the various Pueblos of New Mexico (ETA: and edges of Texas) descended from the Ancestral Puebloans (formerly known as Anasazi) who started building them in the 8th century, but the unrelated nearby Hopi and Zuni peoples whose ancestors were culturally influenced by their neighbors, and are today considered part of a sort of greater Puebloan cultural zone. Interestingly, the Tewa-and-related speaking Pueblos today call the structure kiva (and Zuni use kiwihsti, same word altered for Zuni phonemics -- the Zuni speak a language isolate unrelated to anything else, as best we can tell), which comes from Hopi kíva, which has at its root kihö, house. [Sidebar: the kid's elementary school had a round outdoor amphitheater-like space, used for meetings and ceremonies weather permitting, they called the Kiva -- not the only school in the area to do this.]
---L.
The entrance is almost always through the center of the roof, by a ladder down. In this case, "Pueblo" refers to not just the various Pueblos of New Mexico (ETA: and edges of Texas) descended from the Ancestral Puebloans (formerly known as Anasazi) who started building them in the 8th century, but the unrelated nearby Hopi and Zuni peoples whose ancestors were culturally influenced by their neighbors, and are today considered part of a sort of greater Puebloan cultural zone. Interestingly, the Tewa-and-related speaking Pueblos today call the structure kiva (and Zuni use kiwihsti, same word altered for Zuni phonemics -- the Zuni speak a language isolate unrelated to anything else, as best we can tell), which comes from Hopi kíva, which has at its root kihö, house. [Sidebar: the kid's elementary school had a round outdoor amphitheater-like space, used for meetings and ceremonies weather permitting, they called the Kiva -- not the only school in the area to do this.]
---L.
Yes ...
Date: 2025-08-06 02:29 am (UTC)