Literature: The scalping soldier promptly uses it as a visual metaphor and pronounces a curse upon the Lamanite army. Stephen D. Ricks explains the parallel Old Testament simile curse:
In sight of the exiles in Babylon, Ezekiel was commanded to pack up his knapsack by day and to depart by evening while they still watched. This pantomime was to symbolize the fate of those who were yet in Jerusalem and other parts of the land, who would be taken captive and forced to become vagabonds in order to sustain themselves (Ezek. 12:1–10). This pantomime reflects, in fact, what happened to some of those at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. Even King Zedekiah attempted to escape from Jerusalem by night but was captured by the Babylonians and blinded (2 Kgs. 25:3–7; Jer. 39:4–7, 52:6–11).
Then the interpretation of the pantomime is given, and the entire act is interpreted as a type of what would happen to the people: “Like as I have done, so shall it be done unto them: they shall remove and go into captivity” (Ezek. 12:11). The symbolic acts of the prophets are similar to the simile curses found in the ancient Near East, in which a curse is dramatized by some kind of symbolic action.