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Nelson Mandela's body has begun its final journey to his ancestral home in the village of Qunu where he will be laid to rest in a strictly private affair barred to both the public and the media. The journey to the small village in East Cape province started on Saturday shortly after the governing ANC paid its last respects to the man who led it to power, becoming the country's first black president after a long and painful struggle against racist, white-minority rule. Mandela's coffin, draped with the national flag, was carried by a military aircraft to Qunu, where he was born and grew up herding cattle. Al Jazeera's Haru Mutasa, reporting from East Cape, said many people in the province viewed Mandela, who rose from a humble background to lead Africa's most powerful nation, as a "source is inspiration". In a keynote address delivered in Pretoria in honour of Mandela, President Jacob Zuma hailed Madiba, the clan name by which the Nobel laureate was known, as a "man of action". "Since the day our leader passed on, we have remembered him in a very special way. We have received messages of condolences from around the world," Zuma said. He said Mandela, who joined the ANC in his early 20s, was able to "combine theory and practice", making it easy for him to practise what he preached. Earlier, Mandela's grandson, Mandla, gave a speech about the former president's long struggle for freedom. Mandela, who was battling a chronic lung infection for months, died last Thursday at the age of 95. His burial will take place on Sunday in Qunu, the little village in the East Cape province where Mandela was born and grew up. "Saturday 14 December, 2013 marks the beginning of our father's final long walk back to Qunu, his resting place," said family spokesman Temba Matanzima. Al Jazeera's Haru Mutasa, reporting from East Cape, said many people in the province viewed Mandela, who rose from a humble background to lead Africa's richest nation, as a "source is inspiration". On Sunday, some 5,000 people, including foreign dignitaries, are expected to participate in a formal, two-hour ceremony beginning at 8am (0600 GMT). The funeral procession from the airport to Qunu will be led by the armed forces and Mandela will receive a 21-gun salute and a flyover by the South African Air Force. Since his death at his Johannesburg home on December 5, South Africans have turned out in pouring rain and blistering sunshine to say goodbye to the man they viewed as a liberator. Tens of thousands packed a soaked stadium in Soweto for a memorial service on Tuesday, which was attended by more than 70 world leaders. 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 seat of government where he was inaugurated two decades earlier.