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 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.
[to top of second column] |
 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.
(Additional reporting by Ed Stoddard;
Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)
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