and
agricultural land, the colors would appear in small spots, while by far
the greater part of the map would remain uncolored.

_Hunting claims_.--The great body of the land within the area mapped
which was occupied by agricultural tribes, and all the land outside it,
was held as a common hunting ground, and the tribal claim to territory,
independent of village sites and corn fields, amounted practically to
little else than hunting claims. The community of possession in the
tribe to the hunting ground was established and practically enforced by
hunting laws, which dealt with the divisions of game among the village,
or among the families of the hunters actually taking part in any
particular hunt. As a rule, such natural landmarks as rivers, lakes,
hills, and mountain chains served to mark with sufficient accuracy the
territorial tribal limits. In California, and among the Haida and
perhaps other tribes of the northwest coast, the value of certain
hunting and fishing claims led to their definition by artificial
boundaries, as by sticks or stones.[5]

[Footnote 5: Powers, Cont. N.A. Eth. 1877, vol. 3, p. 109: Dawson,
Queen Charlotte Islands, 1880, p. 117.]

Such precautions imply a large population, and in such regions as
California the killing of game upon the land of adjoining tribes was
rigidly prohibited and sternly punished.

As stated above, every part of the vast area included in the present map
is to be regarded as belonging, according to Indian ideas of land title,
to one or another of the Indian tribes. To determine the several tribal
possessions and to indicate the proper boundary lines between individual
tribes and linguistic families is a work of great difficulty. This is
due more to the imperfection and scantiness of available data concerning
tribal claims than to the absence of claimants or to any ambiguity in
the minds of the Indians as to the boundaries of their several
possessions.

Not only is precise data wanting respecting the limits of land actually
held or claimed by many tribes, but there are other tribes, which
disappeared early in the history of our country, the boundaries to whose
habitat is to be determined only in the most general way. Concerning
some of these, our information is so vague that the very linguistic
family they belonged to is in doubt. In the case of probably no one
family are the data sufficient in amount and accuracy to determine
positively the exact areas defin