PHASE 4: Interior Kiva Finishing and Use

After the roof was finished there was still a lot of work to do on the interior. Most Pueblo III kivas were plastered with mud on the interior lower lining wall, and most bench walls. This is a time consuming process because the mud not only has to be applied by hand, but it has to be periodically smoothed and compacted as it dries to avoid significant cracking. I really didn't enjoy this part, either mud preparation or application. However, once the walls were plastered and the plaster had dried, I whitewashed the lower lining walls and the faces of the pilasters. Peter Pino brought me some pieces of gypsum that come from near Zia Pueblo (there is a large open-air mine that supplies gypsum for plasterboard). I burned these pieces in my fireplace during the winter and then when I needed whitewash, I ground them into powder. I added water to small quantities of this (essentially plaster of Paris) and used the thin liquid to paint the plastered walls. The main problem I had was that the whitewash kept setting up into hard white plaster. I had to only mix small amounts and had to keep adding water as I used it. Finally, I painted a stripe of red brown (also material from Zia)around the base of the wall, and have since added a red stepped design on top of it. The whitewash has made an amazing difference in the brightness of the interior. When the sun shines through the hatchway onto the wall the inside lights right up. It also makes a difference with brightness from fires in the hearth.

Kiva interior

Kiva interior

Kiva interior

There is more interior work to do. I will be adding photos as I get them. I have finished interior wall plastering and whitewashing. I have still to plaster the bench walls, whitewash them (and I plan to whitewash the primary beams too), and put in a packed mud floor. Using the kiva has compacted the native dirt, but it still loosens up easily. All of the wall niches, the sipapu, and the central hearth are finished. Last February, our small dog was killed by the neighbor's dog so we buried her in a place of honor under the floor of the kiva.

Much of the feel of the kiva cannot be expressed in photographs. It's too bad you can't take in the wonderful smell of the juniper smoke.



Here are some interesting features of my kiva. These show how solar alignments can be accidental. The first shows the sun highlighting a T-shaped symbol I built into the north bench wall. The time is noon and the day is winter solstice. The second shows the sun highlighting the sipapu at noon on the fall equinox. The third, is the sun as it strikes a niche in the lower wall in the early afternoon of the fall equinox. These should be a cautionary tales for archaeo-astronomers, they were entirely accidental. There are so many variables involved in these coincidences that I can't imagine doing them intentionally. I would have to take into account not only the orientation of the kiva but the placement of the hatchway, the height of the hatchway, the thickness of the hatchway lining, and the exact placement of the symbol in the wall, the niche, and the sipapu. All of these things have to be in the correct arrangement to each other for this to happen. Yet, without trying, this is exactly how it turned out! Was this carma or what?

Through time, the kiva has needed maintenance and refurbishing. After its use for a number of filming sessions (television programs in the US, Korea, Japan, Germany, and France) it became a bit beat-up, especially the floor. I finally got inspired to replaster the floor for yet another filming session in September 2002. While I was at it, I decided to seal-up the opening to the tunnel to the tower (not yet built), and to patch-up various other places. This included resealing the floor-level vent tunnel closing slab , rebuilding the hearth, and rewhite washing and repainting the walls . I have always had problems with massive cracking of plaster, whatever mud I used. This time, I spread the mud on the floor by hand and then as it dried, compacted it with a floor smoothing stone. This by itself did not eliminate cracking. So, as the floor dried, I abraded it with a wet corn cob. This produced a slurry on the surface that filld the cracks. With a couple of these floor abrading episodes, the plaster came out reasonably smooth and the cracks are very fine.



I'll keep adding to these pages as things change. Keep checking back. P>

Back to Pit Digging and Masonry Lining

Back to Pithouse Demolition

Back to Kiva Roofing

Back to Main Page