In the majority of Native American hunter-gatherer societies, wolves were usually killed for body parts used in rituals, or to stop them raiding food caches, though some tribes would raid wolf dens to kill pups when wolf populations became too large for the Natives to live with. This also served as a method of acquiring food, as wolf pups were considered a delicacy. Native Americans were aware of the dangers of habituated wolves, and would quickly dispatch wolves following them too closely. Active hunting of wolves was rare because many tribes believed that such an act would cause game animals to disappear or bring retribution from other wolves. The Cherokee feared that the unjust killing of a wolf would bring about the vengeance of its pack mates, and that the weapon used for the deed would be useless in future unless exorcised by a medicine man. However, they would kill wolves with impunity if they knew the proper rites of atonement, and if the wolves themselves happened to raid their fish nets. When the Kwakiutl killed a wolf, the animal would be laid out on a blanket and have portions of its flesh eaten by the perpetrators, who would express regret at the act before burying it. The Ahtna would take the dead wolf to a hut, where it would be propped in a sitting position with a banquet made by a shaman set before it. When men from certain Eskimo tribes killed a wolf, they would walk around their houses four times, expressing regret and abstaining from sexual relations with their wives for four days. Young Apaches would kill wolves, cougars or bears as a rite of passage. Although some of the first European colonists traveling to North America would report back that wolves were more populous in the New World than in Europe, writings from the Lewis and Clark Expedition indicate that wolves were seldom seen except in aboriginal buffer zones.