Aztec West Audio Tour: The Center

There are dozens of kivas, or ceremonial chambers, throughout the great house.

Andrew Kearns

The trail through the Aztec West great house is 0.5 mile in length and requires about 40 minutes to complete using the audio tour. Most of the trail is paved and accessible to wheelchairs, with some steps and low doorways. Wheelchairs are available at the visitor center to borrow upon request.

• The Center

  
  

  The fourth cultural story on the Aztec West self-guided audio tour.
  Audio Transcript

  The Center. At the very beginning of this Place by Flowing Waters, The People gathered to build a Great Kiva. In so doing, they enacted the joining of the primal period of nature that bonded them as one people, male and female: Sky and Earth, sun and moon, winter and summer. The Great Kiva represented the First House created by The People upon their emergence from the Earth's Navel. The Great Kiva was a place where all the clans met to celebrate that First Story. The Great Kiva was a center of the Cosmos, where the six sacred directions symbolically came together, where the People reconnected with their spiritual and mythic origins and were nourished by the spiritual Center, the Earth's Navel. Imagine the Great Kiva filled with The People of this Place by Flowing Waters as they awaited the first sunlight on the summer solstice. This was a sacred event, the beginning of a new cycle of life celebrated by all people. It was a time of renewal and thanksgiving. As you sit in the Great Kiva, you too are participating in this Celebration of Life. You have walked in the footsteps of The People of this Place by Flowing Waters. Remember that "place that The People think about."