Songs, speeches and the boom of artillery rang across Nelson Mandela's home village during his funeral Sunday as a tribal chief adorned in a leopard skin declared: "A great tree has fallen."
South Africa was saying goodbye for the last time to the man who reconciled the country in its most vulnerable period.
The funeral drew 4,500 guests, from relatives and South African leaders to Britain's Prince Charles, American civil rights activist Reverend Jesse Jackson and talk show host Oprah Winfrey.
"The person who is lying here is South Africa's greatest son," Cyril Ramaphosa, deputy leader of South Africa's ruling ANC party who was acting as one of the masters of ceremonies, said as the service got under way.
Several thousand guests, some singing and dancing, gathered in a huge tent at the family compound of the anti-apartheid leader, who died Dec. 5 at the age of 95 after a long illness. When the funeral service began, they sang the national anthem in an emotional rendition in which some mourners placed fists over their chests.
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, transported to the tent on a gun carriage and draped in the national flag, rested 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."
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."
'Profoundly heartbreaking'
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.
Former South African President Nelson Mandela's casket is transported on a gun carriage to his burial place following his funeral service for in Qunu, South Africa, Sunday. (Odd Andersen/The Associated Press)
Mandela's widow, Grace Machel, and his second wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, were dressed in black and sat on either side of South African President Jacob Zuma.
Guests included veterans of the military wing of the African National Congress, the liberation movement that became the dominant political force after the end of apartheid, as well as U.S. 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.
''After his long life and illness he can now rest ... His work is done.'- Victoria Ntsingo
More than an hour into the service, people were still filling empty seats in parts of the marquee. Soldiers moved in to occupy some chairs.
Chief Ngangomhlaba Matanzima, a representative of Mandela's family, thanked military doctors who were part of the medical team that took care of Mandela during his hospital stays and at his home in the final months of his life. He asked them to stand up. Mourners applauded.
"You did a great job in taking care of our father. We can't thank you enough for that," Matanzima said.
'His work is done'
Fellow anti-apartheid veteran Archbishop Desmond Tutu was also among those who arrived shortly after dawn at a vast, domed tent erected in a field near Mandela's home, having resolved a last-minute mix-up over his invitation.
As Mandela's flag-draped coffin was borne from the house on a gun-carriage, a battery of cannons positioned on the hillside fired a 21-gun salute, sending booms echoing across the sun-drenched valley.
The coffin was followed into the huge tent, decked out inside in black, by Mandela's grandson and heir, Mandla, and South African President Jacob Zuma.
It was then placed on black and white Nguni cattle skins in front of a ring of 95 candles as the service started with a choir singing Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika, the evocative national anthem adopted after the end of apartheid in 1994.
Mandela's death plunged his 53 million countrymen and millions more around the world into mourning, and triggering more than a week of official memorials to the nation's first black president.
As many as 100,000 people paid their respects in person at his lying in state at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, where he had been inaugurated as president, an event that brought the curtain down on more than three centuries of white domination.
When his body arrived on Saturday at his ancestral home in Qunu, 700 kilometres south of Johannesburg, it was greeted by ululating locals overjoyed that Madiba, the clan name by which he was affectionately known, had "come home".
"After his long life and illness he can now rest," said grandmother Victoria Ntsingo, as military helicopters escorting the funeral cortege clattered overhead.
"His work is done."
Mandela served just one term as leader of Africa's biggest and most sophisticated economy, and formally withdrew from public life in 2004, famously telling reporters at the end of a farewell news conference: "Don't call me, I'll call you."
His last appearance in public was at the 2010 World Cup final in Johannesburg's Soccer City stadium, waving to fans from the back of a golf cart.
Mandela spent 27 years in jail as a prisoner from apartheid, then emerged to lead a delicate transition to democracy when many South Africans feared that the country would sink into all-out racial conflict. He became president in the first all-race elections in 1994.
While South Africa faces many problems, including crime, unemployment and economic inequality, Mandela is seen by many compatriots as the father of their nation and around the world as an example of the healing power of reconciliation.
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