Kiva is a Hopi word for "ceremonial room." Anasazi kivas were underground chambers which may be compared to churches of later times. Based upon modern Pueblo practice the Anasazi may have used them to conduct healing rites or to pray for rain, luck in hunting, or good crops.
Kivas also served as gathenng places, and weaving was sometimes done there. A roof of beams and mud covered each kiva; access was by ladder through a hole in the center. The small hole in the floor is a sipapu, the symbolic entrance to the underworld.