Sipapu

Sipapu is a Hopi word which refers to a small hole or indentation in the floor of a kiva. Kivas were used by the Ancestral Puebloans and continue to be used by modern-day Puebloans. The sipapu symbolizes the portal through which their ancient ancestors first emerged to enter the present world.

Moreover, The Hopi Sacred Stories explain that this is the hole in which the first peoples of this world entered. As "They" stepped outside of the "Sipapu", they morphed from lizard-like beings into homo sapiens, or human form (See Waters, 1963, and later reprints; Courlander, 1971). It is from this point that the "First Peoples" of the Earth began to divide and separate, creating differing tribes along the first journeys of the first humans.