Mandla Mandela visited Nelson Mandela's home in the up-market Johannesburg suburb of Houghton on Monday (December 9).

The late anti-apartheid hero's grandson sang and danced his way through large crowds of mourners who were laying flowers and paying tribute to Mandela.

Mandla Mandela made headlines earlier this year when a judge ordered him to return the remains of three of Nelson Mandela's children - including those of his father - from a memorial centre dedicated to his grandfather where he had moved them two years ago.

Since Mandela's death on December 5, South Africa has been gripped by mass emotions unrivalled since the day he was freed after 27 years in apartheid jails, and his victory in the first all-race elections four years later, in 1994.

Tributes have flowed in from around the world and across political and religious divides.

Nelson Mandela is due to be buried on December 15 in Qunu, his ancestral home in the rolling, windswept hills of the Eastern Cape province, 700 kilometres (450 miles) south of Johannesburg.

Mandela's burial in the family cemetery will be a mixture of military formality and Xhosa tradition, including elders from his abaThembu tribe.