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10. ADAPTATION OF A SPACE

The remainder of the stops along the Ruins Trail are considered part of the convento. It included rooms where the blue-robed Franciscan friar and perhaps a few converted Jemez assistants conducted church business, cooked and ate meals, and slept. They also held classes to learn trades, religion, and the Spanish language.

The room to the right of the trail evidently had two uses through time. Built originally as a Spanish room in the convento, it was later converted into a square kiva. In the 1930's excavators found the following clues pointing towards the latter use:

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One possible explanation for this remodeling is that the people of Gisewa re-established their ancient religious traditions after the Spanish clergy had departed during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and transformed it for their own purposes in the last years of the 17th Century.

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