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South Africa buries Mandela

The coffin of former South African President Nelson Mandela is seen draped in a South African national flag during his funeral in his ancestral village of Qunu in the Eastern Cape province.

QUNU, South Africa — Nelson Mandela was buried Sunday in the African ground he loved after a funeral ceremony that included a 21-gun salute and fly-overs by military aircraft as well as a eulogy by a traditional leader wearing an animal skin.

Mandela's casket was lowered into the earth after military pallbearers carried it to the family gravesite in the rolling hills of Qunu, the rural village in eastern South Africa which was the childhood home of the anti-apartheid leader who became the country's first democratically-elected president.

Banyanda Nyengule, head of the Nelson Mandela Museum in Mthatha and Qunu, was one of the eyewitnesses to the private burial and said it hit him hard.

"I realized that the old man is no more, no more with us you know," Nyengule said. "The moment when the coffin went down into the ground I felt too ... emotional."

South African television showed Mandela's casket at the family gravesite, but the broadcast went to a different scene just before the coffin was lowered at the request of the Mandela family.

It was South Africa's final goodbye to the man who reconciled the country in its most volatile period.

Several hundred people attended the burial. Earlier, more than 4,000, some singing and dancing, gathered for a funeral service in a huge tent at the family compound of Mandela, who died Dec. 5 at the age of 95 after a long illness. They sang the national anthem in an emotional rendition in which some mourners placed fists over their chests.

South Africa buries MandelaReuters: SABC via Reuters TV

Graca Machel, the widow of former South African President Nelson Mandela

Mandela's portrait looked over the assembly in the white marquee from behind a bank of 95 candles representing each year of his remarkable life. His casket, draped in the national flag, was placed on a carpet of cow skins below a lectern where speakers delivered eulogies.

"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. "We thank them for lending us such an icon."

The tent ceremony was broadcast on big screens in the area, including at one spot on a hill overlooking Mandela's property. Several hundred people gathered there, some wearing the black, yellow and green colors of the African National Congress — the liberation movement-turned political party that Mandela had led — and occasionally breaking into song.

Nandi Mandela said her grandfather went barefoot to school in Qunu when he was boy and eventually became president and a figure of global import.

"It is to each of us to achieve anything you want in life," she said, recalling kind gestures by Mandela "that made all those around him also want to do good."

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."

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."

Some mourners wiped away tears as Kathrada spoke, his voice trembling with emotion.

Mandela's widow, Grace Machel, and his second wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, were dressed in black Xhosa headwraps and dresses. Guests included veterans of the military wing of the African National Congress as well as United States Ambassador Patrick Gaspard and other foreign envoys.

Britain's Prince Charles, Monaco's Prince Albert II, U.S. television personality Oprah Winfrey, billionaire businessman Richard Branson and former Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai were also there.

South Africa buries Mandela

British entrepreneur Richard Branson, right, and TV host Oprah Winfrey, center, attend the funeral ceremony for former South African President Nelson Mandela

South African honor guards from the army, navy and air force marched in formation amid rolling green hills dotted with small dwellings and neatly demarcated plots of farmland. Clouds cast shadows over the landscape.