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| In this video frame frame, military officers prepare to lift South African President Nelson Mandela's casket following his funeral service in Qunu, South Africa, Sunday, Dec. 15, 2013. |
QUNU, South
Africa (AP) -- His flag-draped casket resting on a carpet of animal
skins, Nelson Mandela was laid to rest Sunday in the green, rolling
hills of the eastern hamlet where he began his extraordinary journey -
one that led him from prison to the presidency, a global symbol of
endurance and reconciliation in the fight against South Africa's racist
rule.
Artillery boomed and military aircraft
roared through a cloud-studded sky, as the simple and the celebrated
gathered to pay their final respects in Mandela's native village of Qunu
at a state funeral that blended ancient tribal rituals with a display
of the might of the new, integrated South Africa.
"Yours
was truly a long walk to freedom and now you have achieved the ultimate
freedom in the bosom of your maker," Brig. Gen. Monwabisi Jamangile,
chaplain-general of the South African military, said as Mandela's casket
was lowered into the ground at the family gravesite. "Rest in peace."
"I
realized that the old man is no more, no more with us," said Bayanda
Nyengule, head of a local museum about Mandela, his voice cracking as he
described the burial attended by several hundred mourners after a
larger funeral ceremony during which some 4,500 people, including heads
of state, royalty and celebrities, paid their last respects.
The
burial ended a 10-day mourning period that began with Mandela's death
on Dec. 5 at 95, and included a Johannesburg memorial attended by nearly
100 world leaders and three days during which tens of thousands of
South Africans of all races and backgrounds filed past Mandela's casket
in the capital, Pretoria.
For South Africans,
it was also a time for reflection about the racial integration they
achieved when Mandela presided over the end of apartheid, and the
economic inequality and other challenges that have yet to be overcome
and seem certain to test his legacy's endurance.
The
burial site marked a return to Mandela's humble roots, but the funeral
trappings were elaborate. South African honor guards from the army, navy
and air force, including both black and white officers, marched in
formation along a winding dirt road.
In
contrast to the military pomp, some speakers evoked the traditions of
the Xhosa tribe, to which Mandela's Thembu clan belongs.
"A
great tree has fallen, he is now going home to rest with his
forefathers," said Chief Ngangomhlaba Matanzima, a representative of
Mandela's family who wore an animal skin. "We thank them for lending us
such an icon."
Another speaker, Zolani Mkiva,
served for many years as Mandela's praise singer, a traditional role in
which he shouted out the leader's attributes to audiences, prefacing
Mandela's many stations in life with the words "very important:" person,
prince, patriot, politician, prisoner, philosopher, president,
pensioner, patient, papa.
"The bones of our ancestors are vibrating. The waves of African oceans are reverberating," Mkiva said.
In
keeping with Xhosa traditions, Mandela's casket was brought to Qunu
Saturday draped in a lion skin, an honor bestowed on those of a high
rank like Mandela, who is the son of a traditional clan chief. His body
lay for the night in his family home before burial, a time when
tradition dictates that family elders "talk" to the body to explain to
his spirit what is happening.
South African
television showed Mandela's casket at the family gravesite, but the
broadcast was stopped just before the coffin was lowered into the ground
at the request of the Mandela family, which often talked of how it had
to share its patriarch with the nation and the world.
His
body was buried around noon, "when the sun is at its highest and the
shadow at its shortest," said Cyril Ramaphosa, deputy leader of the
country's ruling party, the African National Congress.
Mandela
spent 27 years as a prisoner of apartheid, then emerged to lead a
delicate transition to democracy when many South Africans feared the
country would sink into all-out racial conflict. He became president in
the first all-race elections in 1994 and served one five-year term.
At
the funeral ceremony, Mandela's portrait looked over the assembly from
behind a bank of 95 candles representing each year of his life. His
casket, transported to the tent on a gun carriage and draped in the
national flag, rested on a carpet of cow skins.
Mandela's
widow, Graca Machel, and his ex-wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, were
dressed in black Xhosa head wraps and dresses. Guests included veterans
of the military wing of the ANC, as well as U.S. Ambassador Patrick
Gaspard and other foreign envoys.
Britain's
Prince Charles, Monaco's Prince Albert II, Oprah Winfrey, billionaire
businessman Richard Branson and former Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan
Tsvangirai also were there.
At one spot
overlooking Mandela's compound, several hundred people gathered to watch
the televised ceremony. A group of Zulu traditional dancers with spears
and shields gathered nearby to pay their last respects to Mandela.
"He's a first class guy in the world," dancer Musa Ngunbane said.
Ahmed
Kathrada, an anti-apartheid activist who was jailed on Robben Island
with Mandela, remembered his old friend's "abundant reserves" of love,
patience and tolerance. He said it was painful when he saw Mandela for
the last time, months ago in his hospital bed.
"He
tightly held my hand, it was profoundly heartbreaking," Kathrada said,
his voice breaking at times. "How I wish I never had to confront what I
saw. I first met him 67 years ago and I recall the tall, healthy strong
man, the boxer, the prisoner who easily wielded the pick and shovel when
we couldn't do so."
Recalling her
grandfather's simple roots, Nandi Mandela said he went barefoot to
school as a boy in Qunu, where he herded cattle before eventually became
president and a figure of global renown.
"It is to each of us to achieve anything you want in life," she said.
In
the Xhosa language, she referred to her grandfather by his clan name:
"Go well, Madiba. Go well to the land of our ancestors, you have run
your race."
