Hat tip: Yahtc
Qunu, South Africa (CNN) — A funeral cortege carrying Nelson Mandela’s body arrived Saturday in his ancestral village of Qunu, in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province, where he’ll be buried Sunday amid the lush green hills of his boyhood.
After a plane carrying his casket touched down in Mthatha, the closest airport to Qunu, it was taken in a procession past mourners who lined the roads to his rural home.
The mood among the crowd appeared to be one of celebration of his life, as well as sadness for his passing.
The nation’s first black president had often said he felt most at peace here at his rural home in the southeastern corner of the nation.
http://www.chicagonow.com/chicagos-real-law-blog/files/2013/12/image001-5.jpg
SG2 & Yahtc, thank you so much for bringing us the highlights from Madiba’s funeral. The photos are stunning. My heart is full and I’m happy Madiba is at peace now.
I would love to say you are welcome, Ametia. However, all of these highlights are the caring work of SG2!
Thanks again, SG2!
Yahtc; you and SG2 stayed up into the wee hours of the morn, bringing firsthand commentary. So THNAK YOU!
YVW, Ametia. Thank you.
Check this out :)
http://3chicspolitico.com/2013/12/14/live-stream-nelson-mandela-state-funeral/#comment-215603
as it should be
I am amazed I woke up and came back at this moment.
If you have responded here, SG2, I cannot see your response.
I’ll post photos after I get some sleep. I’m going to bed in a few minutes.
Thank you for all that you have already posted, SG2.
You must be very sleepy now.
Sleep well!
People making their way to the grave site.
I am back.
Yes. That’s when I came back.
Now I can’t see your question. At first the page did not allow me to respond.
My computer problem?
The proceedings are now moving to grave site where about 400 people will attend.
President Jacob Zuma : “We will not say goodbye, for you will live forever in our hearts.”
Graca Machel wiping away the tears. Her facial expression has been the same all week. My heart goes out to her.
Oprah and Stedman
Wow!
Did you see the 3 military helicopters waving the South African flag and the 6 fighter jets? Very beautiful. It made me cry. *tears*
Yes. Oh, I thought you asked this above.
This is incredible. You know it took a ton of focus and love to form this image.
Ahmed Kathrada: Nelson Mandela has gone to join the A-Team of the ANC.
Beautiful.
Good night, I will have to watch video replay tomorrow. :)
Good night, Yahtc! Sweet dreams.
Thank you so much for posting all of these photos, SG2.
YVW!
So good to hear this talk in Xhosa.
95 candles
Aren’t they beautiful?
Yes, such a moving sight!
http://abcnewsradioonline.com/storage/news-images/120513_NelsonMandela_UN_FREEUSE.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1387036013105
Casket just passed Oprah.
Beautiful music…wonderful choir.
The hills where Mandela will be buried is breath-taking.
Yes.
Amazing.
You could tell the mood was going to be electrifying when the ANC women’s league came in singing and dancing.
I don’t have the live feed yet. What am I doing wrong?
Click on the first video. The tribute SABC.
Okay….I just clicked the first one above.
Thanks!
I am going to begin watching the SA news station video you linked in about 15 minutes but probably won’t be commenting.
Just printed it out. Thanks!
Oprah Winfrey arrived with long-time partner Stedman Graham in Qunu.
Mandela Funeral: Thousands Arrive In Qunu
http://news.sky.com/story/1182508/mandela-funeral-thousands-arrive-in-qunu
The Prince of Wales and Oprah Winfrey are among the guests jetting in to Mthatha airport near Qunu to attend today’s ceremony.
Thousands of people are expected to say a final goodbye to Nelson Mandela when he is laid to rest in his ancestral home today.
Some 4,000 people have been invited to attend the funeral of the anti-apartheid hero including family members, African leaders and several heads of state.
The mourners will include retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who had earlier said he was “heartbroken” to have apparently missed out on an invite.
Guests have been taking their seats and the The Prince of Wales has arrived at an airport near the remote village where the South African president grew up, for the service this morning.
Traditional tribal rituals at Mandela’s funeral
http://news.yahoo.com/traditional-tribal-rituals-mandela-39-funeral-102048795.html
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — An ox will be slaughtered, the deceased will be wrapped in a leopard skin and a family elder will keep talking to the body’s spirit: The state funeral for South Africa’s anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela on Sunday will also include those rituals from the tradition of the Xhosa people, to whom Mandela’s Thembu clan belongs.
The funeral in Mandela’s southeastern childhood village of Qunu will be an eclectic mix of traditional rituals, Christian elements and those of a state funeral.
Here’s a brief look at the Xhosa people and the main elements of their burial traditions:
The Xhosa people
The majority of the country’s 7 million Xhosa people live in the country’s southeast, in the Eastern Cape province. Their language, Xhosa, is famous for its three click sounds. The Xhosa recognize the presence of ancestral spirits and call upon them for guidance. Veneration for the world of the ancestors, or Umkhapho in Xhosa, plays an important role in their culture. The ceremonial slaughtering of animals is one of the ways the ancestors are called upon for help, according to a website of South Africa’s Tourism Department.
Speaking Xhosa
Almost 10 days since Madiba left that ill-ridden body. His SOUL is eternal.
AMEN!
Yes, his soul IS eternal!
and I will also always keep him in my heart!
So I see a count down on the second video screen….it’s at 2:42.
Does this mean that the funeral starts then or just that live news starts then?
That’s what I’m thinking it starts at 2:42. I hope we get to see it. I do know the burial will not be televised. Looks like I’m going to pull an all nighter.
I want to also, SG2
Now, what about this that rikyrah posted?
Will that be a live program or a recap?
I’m not sure but I’ve been searching the guide looking for something on Mandela. AlJazeera America will sit down with former President Jimmy Carter on Sunday to discuss Mandela. IIRC it’s 6pm central, 7pm est.
Thank you, SG2!
SG2,
Thanks for starting this special page!
YVW, ladies!
With a hole in its heart, South Africa buries Mandela
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/15/us-mandela-death-idUSBRE9B417U20131215?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews
(Reuters) – South Africa buries Nelson Mandela on Sunday, closing one momentous chapter in its tortured history and opening another in which the multi-racial democracy he founded will have to discover if it can thrive without its central pillar.
The Nobel peace laureate, who suffered 27 years in apartheid prisons before emerging to preach forgiveness and reconciliation, will be laid to rest after a state funeral mixing military pomp with the traditional rites of his Xhosa abaThembu clan.
The ceremony in the rolling hills of the Eastern Cape has drawn 4,500 guests, from relatives and South African leaders to foreign guests including Britain’s Prince Charles and American civil rights activist Reverend Jesse Jackson.
The anti-apartheid leader died in Johannesburg on December 5 aged 95, plunging his 53 million countrymen and millions more around the world into grief, 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 to his lying in state at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, where he was inaugurated as president in 1994, 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 km (450 miles) 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.”
“DON’T CALL ME”
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.”
Love it : “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”