Mandela Buried in Rolling Hills of South Africa

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.”

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.

This article appeared in print on page 5 of the December 16th, 2013 edition of Hamodia.