We may even recognize that in all parts of the world songs are found in which the words are subordinated to music. As we sing tunes without words, either because the words are not known,—or, more significantly, on a refrain, on vocables consisting of syllables without meaning,—so songs carried along on a meaningless burden are found in all parts of the globe. They are not often recorded because the collection of material of this kind is quite novel, but the data that we have in hand prove that the connection between song and burden is universal. The Eskimo have songs carried along on the syllables _amna aya_, _iya aya_, and other similar ones. In some cases there is a certain emotional significance inherent in the burden, as on the Northwest coast of America where the songs refer to different supernatural beings, each having its own characteristic syllables: the cannibal spirit _ham ham_, the grizzly bear _hei hei_ and so on. According to the usual definition of poetry we should perhaps exclude these songs, but that is impossible because the transition from songs carried along by the burden alone and others that contain significant words is quite gradual. In many cases a single word is introduced at a definite point of the tune and the verses contain each one single word. This may be the name of the supernatural being to which the song refers. Thus we have in British Columbia Ham ham hamaya, He-who-travels-from-one-end-of-the-world-to-the-other ham ham. Ham ham hamaya, The-great-cannibal-of-the-north-end-of-the-world, ham ham. Ham ham hamaya, He-who-carries-corpses-to-be-his-food, ham ham. In other songs the significant words are more elaborate. They are phrases fitted to the tunes, often by doing violence to the ordinary forms of the words. The words are controlled by the tunes. I might imitate this in the following way: Instead of “I saw the great spirit travelling about”. We might have I sawhaw the greaheat sp’rit tra’ling ’bout, ham ham. This process is not quite unfamiliar to us in so far as we use the apostrophe for syllables that in ordinary speech are not slurred, when we expand a long vowel over several tones, when we utilise archaic pronunciations for the sake of the meter, or when wrong accents are introduced. Disregard for the words is found also in borrowed songs which are sung in a language that is not understood and in which the words (which are usually mispronounced) have only the value of a burden that may be connected with a certain emotion determined by the use of the song. All these forms are found everywhere and must therefore be considered the foundations of poetry.