Burial of Old Major's Skull

After the expulsion of Snowball, the skull of Old Major, the revered boar whose dream had sparked the Rebellion, was disinterred from the orchard and set up on a stump at the foot of the flagstaff, beside the captured gun. Every Sunday morning, after the green flag was hoisted, the animals were required to file past the skull in a reverent manner before entering the barn. This ritual, imposed by Napoleon, transformed the memory of the revolution's founding into a mechanical act of obeisance, binding the animals to the new order through a visible relic of the past.

Years later, at a meeting with a deputation of farmers from the neighbouring farms, Napoleon announced that the custom of marching past the skull had been suppressed and that the skull itself had already been buried. The announcement came as part of a broader series of changes designed to promote confidence among the human visitors: the word "Comrade" was to be abandoned, the hoof and horn were removed from the green flag, and the flag would henceforth be plain green. The burial of the skull erased the last tangible link to the egalitarian promise of the Rebellion, replacing it with the mundane symbolism of a farm that now sought to be indistinguishable from any other human-run enterprise.