ABSTRACT
The practice of augury in Borneo has received at least passing mention from nearly every natural scientist or ethnographer to visit the island since the nineteenth century. Freeman therefore 'reads' Bomean augury as saying something not about birds and men but about something else, about purposiveness in human society. The key to interpreting site-rejection in particular, and the system of augury in general, is the indeterminacy of the physical environment of Borneo, the impossibility of correctly predicting critical agro-ecological conditions, and the consequent need to devise pluralistic rather than deterministic agricultural strategies. There is considerable variation among households in the practice of augury. There are circumstances in which it is not the augural rules but the system itself that is violated. In the Kantu' system of augury, as in the dolphin training analysed by Bateson, there is a critical level where choice and learning are systematically suppressed.
