
QUNU, South Africa (AP) — Anti-apartheid champion Nelson Mandela was
buried in his home village on Sunday after a funeral that mixed ancient
tribal rituals with a display of the might of the new, integrated South
Africa.
Military officers, both black and white, rolled Mandela's flag-draped
coffin to the family burial plot in the village of Qunu. Formations of
planes and military helicopters, South African flags flapping from the
bellies,
flew over the green hills where thousands of mourners had
gathered.
Unlike a public memorial service on Tuesday at a stadium
that was rife with problems, the funeral and burial — broadcast on many
TV channels — went smoothly, although behind schedule. The ceremonies
mixed solemnity with joy at Mandela's accomplishments, lasted all
morning and into the afternoon and were fit for African royalty.
Mandela, South Africa's first black president, is descended from
royalty.
Several thousand gathered in a huge white tent at the Mandela family
compound for the state funeral that preceded a private service at the
gravesite. Songs, speeches and the boom of artillery rang across the
fields and a tribal chief draped in animal skin declared: "A great tree
has fallen."
Mandela, who spent 27 years in jail as a prisoner of the racist white
government and emerged to lead a transition to a multiracial democracy,
died on Dec. 5 at the age of 95 after a long illness.