Reverent Procession Past Old Major's Skull

After the expulsion of Snowball, the spring ploughing had begun, and a new Sunday-morning ritual was introduced on Animal Farm. The skull of Old Major, by then clean of flesh, was disinterred from the orchard and set up on a stump at the foot of the flagstaff, beside the gun. Every Sunday at ten o'clock, after the flag was hoisted, the animals were required to file past the skull in a reverent manner before entering the big barn to receive their orders for the week. The spatial arrangement of the barn itself changed: Napoleon, Squealer, and Minimus — the pig with a gift for composing songs and poems — sat on the front of the raised platform, with the nine young dogs forming a semicircle around them, and the other pigs sitting behind, while the rest of the animals faced them from the main body of the barn. This procession turned the dead leader's remains into a sacred object, a physical anchor for the authority of the new regime.

The ritual fused the symbolism of the original Rebellion with the emerging cult of Napoleon. The skull, once buried in the orchard, was now publicly displayed as a relic of the founding moment, transforming Old Major from a comrade into a saint. The weekly procession, the flag, and the gun created a ceremonial cycle that naturalised hierarchy and submission. Squealer's speeches, which credited Napoleon with every success and spoke of his wisdom and goodness, were reinforced by this solemn march past the founder's skull. The animals, who had once debated resolutions in the Meeting, now received orders in silence, their reverence for the dead pig binding them to obedience to the living one. The procession was part of a broader system of formalities — the Spontaneous Demonstrations, the poems, the songs — that replaced the participatory spirit of the early Rebellion with staged devotion.

Years later, as Napoleon sought to consolidate relations with neighbouring human farmers, the ritual was abruptly abolished. At a banquet for Mr. Pilkington and other visitors, Napoleon announced that the "very strange custom" of marching every Sunday morning past a boar's skull nailed to a post in the garden would be suppressed, and the skull had already been buried. The green flag was also stripped of its hoof-and-horn emblem, and the animals were forbidden to address one another as "Comrade." The skull, once the centrepiece of a weekly act of veneration, was removed from view — not because its power had faded, but because its revolutionary symbolism had become an obstacle to the pigs' integration with the human world. The burial of the skull marked the final stage of the pigs' transformation: having once used the dead leader's remains to sanctify their rule, they now discarded them as they prepared to pass for human beings themselves.