Nelson Mandela was buried Sunday in the small town he grew up in, capping ten days of mourning for the South African leader and anti-apartheid crusader.

"Now I have lost a brother. My life is a void. I don't know who to turn to," Ahmed Kathrada, one of Mandela's oldest friends, told mourners in a football field-sized dome in the Eastern Cape hills where Mandela was born.

Mandela's casket was draped with the South African flag before it was carried up a hill to a burial place in Qunu.

Instead of a parade of world leaders that praised the life of Mandela at the large national service this week, family members recalled the former President on Sunday. "He was a lot of fun to be around. He was a great storyteller. At dinner he liked telling stories about his childhood and he preferred telling stories laughing at himself," Nandi Mandela, his granddaughter, told attendees.

Mandela was given a 21-gun salute, and South African jets flew overhead, as the casket was carried to his family burial spot.