“Words and gestures transport us to a realm of experience where what the eye sees and the ear hears is not the same as what the mind perceives… A piacular ox is the sacrificer himself and in the ox he dies in symbol. But the sacrificer is not present. The hand of the officiant on the back of the ox represents his hand. And when we look for the ox about to be slaughtered we see a cucumber.” –E.E. Evens-Pritchard, Nuer Religion, 1956