A song, provided it does not contain intelligible words, may be of purely formal esthetic value, which depends upon its melodic and rhythmic character. Even these forms may be attached to more or less different groups of ideas of emotional value. On the other hand the established significance of the song may vary materially when different sets of words are used with it. We observe this in our own culture, when diverse thoughts are expressed in the same metre or when distinct poems are sung according to the same tune,—as, for example, happened in the transfer of folksongs into religious songs. I do not know in how far this may happen in primitive poetry. Among the tribes that I know best there is a decided tendency to associate a certain rhythm with a certain set of songs. Thus the five part rhythm of the Northwest coast of America seems to be closely connected with the religious winter ceremonial; the mourning songs with slow regular beating. The inherent relation between literary type and culture appears also clearly in narrative. The motives of action are determined by the mode of life and the chief interests of the people, and the plots give us a picture of these. In many typical tales of the Chukchee of Siberia the subject of the tale is the tyranny and overmastering arrogance of an athletic hunter or warrior and the attempts of the villagers to free themselves. Among the Eskimo a group of brothers often take the place of the village bully. Among both groups of people who live in small settlements, without any hard and fast political organization, the fear of the strongest person plays an important role, no matter whether his power is founded on bodily strength or on supposed supernatural qualities. The story uses generally a weak, despised boy as savior of the community. Although tales of overbearing chiefs do occur among the Indians they are not by any means a predominant type. The principal theme of the Indians of British Columbia, whose thoughts are almost entirely taken up by the wish to obtain rank and high position in the community, is the tale of a poor man who attains high position, or of the struggles between two chiefs who try to outdo each other in feats that will increase their social standing. Among the Blackfeet the principal theme is the acquisition of ceremonies, possession and practise of which is a most important element in their life. All these differences are not entirely those of content but they influence the form of the narrative, because the incidents are tied together in different ways. The same motive recurs over and over again in the tales of primitive people, so that a large mass of material collected from the same tribe is liable to be very monotonous, and after a certain point has been reached only new variants of old themes are obtained.