Nelson Mandela has embarked on the final leg of his exceptional 95-year journey, as his remains were flown to his rural childhood home for traditional burial.
Sunday's interment will bring down the final curtain on 10 days of national mourning and global tributes for the prisoner-turned-president who transformed his country and inspired the world.
Tens of thousands had packed a soaked stadium in Soweto for a memorial service Tuesday and up to 100,000 people filed past Mandela's open-casket for the three days it was displayed at the Union Buildings in Pretoria.
The same venue had witnessed his inauguration as South Africa's first black leader two decades earlier.
Mandela's flag-draped casket was flown to Qunu in Eastern Cape province after a send-off organised by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) which he once led.
President Jacob Zuma, flanked by Mandela's widow Graca Machel and ex-wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, said South Africa needed "more Madibas" - using Mandela's clan name - in order to prosper.
"Yes we are free but the challenge of inequality remains," Zuma said, citing the twin blights of poverty and unemployment on the country's economic progress.
"We would like to say, go well Tata (father). You have played your part and you have made your contribution," he added.
Mandela's favourite poem Invictus was printed on the back of the memorial program and a verse was read out during the send-off.
Mandela's grandson Mandla recalled how as a young child he would hear people in the then blacks-only township of Soweto shouting "Amandla! (power") and "Viva Mandela".
"I though I must be a very popular kid," he joked.
Since Mandela's death at his Johannesburg home on December 5, South Africans have turned out in pouring rain and blistering sunshine to say goodbye to the anti-apartheid icon.
There were scuffles on the final day of the lying in state on Friday, as police had to turn away tens of thousands of frustrated mourners who were unable to get in to view the body.
On arrival at the airport near Qunu, Mandela's casket will be carried to his home village in a military convoy and will receive a 21-gun salute and a flyover by the South African Air Force.
Sunday's funeral will begin at 8am (1700 AEDT) with a two-hour ceremony for 50,000 people, including foreign dignitaries such as Britain's Prince Charles.
But Mandela's friend and fellow Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu will not be there, the archbishop's office said on Saturday, amid allegations he was not invited for political reasons.
The burial itself will be a strictly private affair, barred to both the public and the media, on the wishes of the Mandela family.
"They don't want it to be televised. They don't want people to see when the body is taken down," government spokeswoman Phumla Williams told AFP.
A small crowd had gathered at Mthatha airport to welcome Mandela's casket.
Clutching two photographs of himself with Mandela, Solomon Juries, 50, had travelled from Cape Town, with other former members of the ANC's armed wing.
"Its very, very emotional for me to be here," Juries said.
"I just get emotional when I think he's gone and we will only hear about him but never see him again," he added.
The funeral will be held according to traditional Xhosa rites overseen by male members of Mandela's clan.
