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              African Traditions, Military Pomp for Mandela Burial

   by Reuters

   Nelson Mandela will be laid to rest on Sunday in an elaborate ceremony
   combining a state funeral and all its military pomp with the
   traditional burial rituals of his Xhosa clan to ensure he has an easy
   transition into the afterworld.
   Many South Africans will revere Mandela, who during his life became a
   global symbol of peace and reconciliation, even more now that he has
   died, since ancestors are widely believed to have a guiding, protective
   role over the living.
   Around 46 percent of the population practices traditional African
   religions, according to a 2010 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion &
   Public Life, a Washington-based research center.
   ''Mandela, of the abaThembu people and South Africa's first black
   president, died a week ago at the age of 95. Thousands of people have
   filed passed his body as it lies in state in Pretoria this week.
   He will be buried by his family following their traditional burial
   rites on Sunday in Qunu, their ancestral home in the rural Eastern Cape
   province, 700 km (450 miles) south of Johannesburg.
   If the rites are not carried out, the abaThembu believe the dead will
   come back in spirit to demand they are performed.
   "We as Africans have rites of passage, whether it is a birth, marriage
   or funeral. Mandela will be sent off into the spiritual world so that
   he is welcomed in the world of ancestors. And also so that he doesn't
   get angry," said Nokuzola Mndende, a scholar of African religion.
   "His wrath won't be on the state if these ceremonies don't take place,
   it will be on his children," Mndende said.
   A man who for many embodied the Christian values of forgiveness,
   Mandela was the product of Xhosa traditional upbringing and Methodist
   schooling.
   In his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela spoke approvingly of
   the Xhosa rituals which his mother, a convert to the Methodist faith,
   resisted but his father followed, presiding over slaughter rituals and
   other traditional rites.
   Cattle slaughter
   For the abaThembu, the ritual of accompanying Mandela's spirit will
   include the slaughtering of an ox in the early hours of Saturday
   morning before receiving his body, flown in from Pretoria.
   The ox meat is then boiled without spices in big, iron black pots in
   open fires outside.
   "On Saturday, once the body has been received, the elders will speak
   and perform some rituals and then the body will spend the night at the
   home," said Chief Mfundo Mtirara, spokesman for the abaThembu royal
   house.
   ''In the early hours of Sunday morning, before the funeral officially
   begins, another ox will be slaughtered as part of the family ritual of
   saying goodbye.
   After that Mandela's body will be handed over to the church and then to
   President Jacob Zuma for the state funeral.
   Finally King Dalindyebo, king of Mandela's clan, is expected to perform
   salutations to the dead that will send Mandela to the world of the
   ancestors.
   The king's men will then join him in a last salutation before everyone
   returns home to wash their hands outside the family yard and have
   lunch.
   A week later, the family take part in a ritual to "wash the spades"
   that dug his grave and, after a year has passed, another ox is
   slaughtered and the mourners remove their black mourning garb.
   South Africa remembers Nelson Mandela
   ''
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   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/reu-african-traditions-military-pomp-
   for-mandela-burial/1808926.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/reu-african-traditions-military-pomp-for-mandela-burial/1808926.html