The doorways themselves are small pottery lined openings about the size of a coffee cup, but they make the interior of the Kiva a sacred place. Light and heat come from an inside fire ring, fed by a ventilation shaft that sucks down clean air from the surface. A deflector wall keeps the fire from being blown out. On the wooden roof structure corn and beans are drying. The aid of the spirits is needed in hunting antelope and big horn sheep, and in conjuring grain and beans from the earth.
Rock paintings call to the spirits of the animals to allow themselves to be hunted.
Pottery effigies of ducks perhaps hold water but also call it forth since ducks are creatures of the wetlands. Special drains and reservoirs catch runoff, but the Anasazi are dry farmers growing varieties of bean, corn and squash that can handle near desert conditions. In the heat of the Colorado summer, beans are cooked by dropping hot rocks into the cooking water to keep it on a low simmer. Corn is stored on the cob, along with jars holding strips of dried squash, nuts, and sunflower seeds for the winter. The potters, working in shaded alcoves, make their storage and cooking vessels from coils of the white sedimentary clay of the Colorado plateau.