Nelson Mandela marked the 10th anniversary of his release from South Africa's jails yesterday by returning to his rural village birthplace to open a museum dedicated to his life.
Villagers in traditional beaded dress and government ministers were among the crowd of about 500 people who welcomed Mr Mandela back to Mvezo village, in the rural Eastern Cape province, where he was born nearly 82 years ago.
"Coming here reminds me of my days as a child," the retired president told the crowd, regaling them with tales of how he caught pigs at the village and of his circumcision, a Xhosa initiation rite into manhood.
"I was born in this area where my father was a ruling chief," he said of the remote location, reached by a bumpy dirt road dotted with traditional mud homes with thatched roofs.
He caused some unease and embarrassment, however, by joking about how his father had beaten all four of his wives, including his own mother.
"Just remember, if we beat you it is because we love you," said Mr Mandela. To nervous laughter from the crowd, the retired president said his father had specifically beaten his wives only on the buttocks because they would be too embarrassed to report him and show their injuries.
South Africa is one of the most violent countries in the world, with among the highest rate of rape and abuse of women. Mr Mandela is still very highly respected, but occasionally his sense of humour jars with the sensibilities of his listeners. He has recently made repeated jokes about being "a pensioner", which many people feel is in bad taste, given his great wealth compared to the grinding poverty of most elderly black South Africans. However, most people are prepared to excuse such lapses on the grounds of his age and his attachment to aspects of his own traditional culture. The remains of the homestead where Mr Mandela was born, and lived until aged six, have been preserved in this tiny village, about 50 km south of the city of Umtata. They comprise the first portion of the planned three-part Nelson Mandela museum whose other components are in nearby Qunu village, where he still has a farm, and Umtata, 940 km south of Pretoria.
The three-part project is expected to bring tourist dollars, jobs and development to one of South Africa's poorest and least developed provinces.
"The anticipated flow of visitors and tourists will have economic spinoffs for the whole community," the Deputy Arts Minister, Ms Brigitte Mabandla, told the gathering.
Mr Mandela's release from prison in 1990 was ordered by the last apartheid president, Mr F.W. de Klerk, and heralded the end of white minority rule.