Does the evolution of humanity begin with an infectious mimesis, that is, mutual imitation that escalates to violence? Is the Christian God nothing more than a sacralized scapegoat, who had to bear the brunt of the uncontrollably spreading mimesis? The Franco-American literary scholar René Girard claims this and states that the sacred and violence are two interchangeable terms, as all religions, prohibitions, rituals, and myths are fundamentally rooted in sacrificial rituals involving arbitrarily chosen scapegoats to pacify society. To support his theory, Girard draws on ethnographic reports from cultures such as the Yanomami, which seem to be in a state of perpetual warfare due to a lack of violence containment.