Long before any permanent settlers pushed to the wilderness, adventurous traders penetrated to remote regions with the whisky keg, and as they seldom expected to go to the same place twice, they usually swindled the native outrageously. Many of these were Frenchmen, and they were given the name of _Coureurs du Bois_. There were also always certain outlaws who found safety in putting a great distance between themselves and the law. These classes were more apt to stir the native up against the European than to render intercourse easy, and often, in early times as well as in our day, they incited the Amerinds to war for the sake of their own gains. But it was the coming of actual settlers which caused the greatest trouble. They appropriated the soil, killed the game, and otherwise interfered with rights which the tribe concerned had for centuries, perhaps, regarded as theirs alone. In the case of the Hudson Bay Company, it being well understood that they occupied certain points merely for trade, no trouble was ever experienced. _For two hundred years this company traded all over the northern part of the continent without a serious rupture with any tribe!_ Each tribe held its own lands as before, so far as the company was concerned, hence there was no clashing; but with settlers taking up choice places it becomes another matter. [Illustration: GENERAL TYPE OF CHIMMESYAN, HAIDA, AND TLINKIT CHIEF’S COSTUME, NORTH-WEST COAST The Chilkat blanket which this man has over his shoulders “is so called because the best specimens come from the Chilkat country,” says Niblack. All the North-west coast tribes use it. The warp is cedar bark twine and the woof a yarn made of mountain-goat wool. See pages 128, 142. ] [Illustration: PERFORATED DISCOIDAL STONE, ILLINOIS] The stories of Cabeza de Vaca, Soto, Cortes, Coronado, John Smith, La Salle, Tonti, Joliet, Lewis and Clark, Fremont, and many others are valuable, not only for the adventures contained in them and the descriptions of new country, but because of the descriptions of Amerinds as they existed in the beginning. Our understanding of the routes of some of these explorers is not always strictly accurate, and the accuracy of the route has much to do with our properly placing geographically the Amerinds named therein. There are grave discrepancies in the tracing of that of Coronado, for example. In another place I have presented my views on this subject.[404] [Illustration: HOBOBO, THE FIRE KATCINA IN THE SOMAIKOLI CEREMONY, CICHUMOVI, 1884 From a drawing by the author, after one of his photographs. The mask enclosed the whole head, and was of cloth, stained green, with globular eyes attached ] [Illustration: CIRCLE OF DANCERS IN THE INTERVALS BETWEEN THE APPEARANCES OF THE VARIOUS KATCINAS IN THE MOKI SOMAIKOLI CEREMONY, CICHUMOVI, ARIZONA, 1884 Photographed by the author ]