The siliq, a small mountain bird identified with the grey-cheeked fulvetta, is the great oracle of Atayal life. Its call and the manner of its flight are read as direct communication from the utux: a clear, favourable sign opens the way for a hunt, a journey, a betrothal or a war-party, while an adverse cry or a crossing flight halts the enterprise and sends the people home. So binding is its authority that no serious undertaking was begun without consulting it, and the reading of the siliq stood beside the keeping of gaga as a daily discipline linking the Atayal to the ancestral spirits. Bird augury of this kind is shared across the Formosan peoples, but the siliq holds a particularly central place in Atayal practice.