section_path: In culture
section_name: In culture
paragraph_text: In culture
  
  From early in civilisation, cattle have been used in barter; an advantage of using cattle as currency is that it allows the seller to set a fixed price. Cattle play a part in several religions. Veneration of the cow is a symbol of Hindu community identity. Slaughter of cows (including oxen, bulls and calves) is forbidden by law in several states of the Indian Union. In Christian art, the Evangelist St. Luke is symbolised as an ox. The second and longest surah of the Quran is named Al-Baqara ("The Cow"); it mentions cows seven times. The ox is one of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac. The astrological sign Taurus is represented as a bull in the Western zodiac. The akabeko (赤べこ, red cow) is a traditional toy from the Aizu region of Japan, thought to ward off illness. In the Jewish religion, cattle appear as the golden calf, the idol that the Israelites made when Moses was on Mount Sinai, and as the red heifer, used for certain ritual purifications. In film, Ferdinand the Bull is a 1938 animated short about a bull who prefers smelling flowers to fighting other bulls, or taking part in bullfights; in Sweden, the film is broadcast every year at Christmas time. In literature, Ernest Hemingway 's 1932 book Death in the Afternoon describes the history, ceremony and traditions of Spanish bullfighting, while his 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises involves both the running of the bulls and bullfighting.