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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."
• "I realized that the old man is no more, no more with us," said Bayanda Nyengule, head of a local museum about Mandela, his voice cracking as he described the burial attended by several hundred mourners after a larger funeral ceremony during which some 4,500 people, including heads of state, royalty and celebrities, paid their last respects.
• 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 and three days during which tens of thousands of South Africans of all races and backgrounds filed past Mandela's casket in the capital, Pretoria.
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Xhosa tribal rituals featured in Mandela's state funeral
• JOHANNESBURG (AP) -- Nelson Mandela's casket was draped in a lion skin, an ox was ritually slaughtered and a family elder kept talking to the body's spirit: The state funeral for South Africa's anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela on Sunday included these rituals from the tradition of the Xhosa tribe, to whom Mandela's Thembu clan belongs.
• The coffin of the country's first democratically elected President was wrapped in the South African flag, standing atop animal skins during the funeral in Mandela's southeastern childhood village of Qunu. The ceremony was an eclectic mix of traditional rituals, Christian elements and the military honors of a state funeral.
• His body was buried around noon, "when the sun is at its highest and the shadow at its shortest," Cyril Ramaphosa, deputy leader of the country's ruling party, the African National Congress, said during the ceremony.
• Here's a brief look at the Xhosa people and the main elements of their burial traditions:
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AP-GfK poll: Obama's health care problem goes beyond website as many say coverage is eroding
• WASHINGTON (AP) -- Americans who already have health insurance are blam (Continued on page 28)
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