PRETORIA, South Africa — Singing crowds gathered outside the hospital where Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s former president, lay in a critical state for a third consecutive day on Tuesday, as family members held an emergency meeting at his ancestral village.

Mr. Mandela’s eldest daughter, Makaziwe, at least two grandchildren and clan elders gathered at Mr. Mandela’s retirement house in Qunu, the remote southern village where he grew up, according to news media reports.

The subject of the meeting was not publicly disclosed, but Naplisi Mandela, an elder of the Mandela family, told the South African Press Association that they had gathered to discuss “delicate matters” — a euphemism widely interpreted to mean preparations for Mr. Mandela’s death.

Meanwhile, in Pretoria, doctors continued to treat Mr. Mandela for a lung ailment that he contracted on Robben Island, the notorious apartheid-era prison where he spent much of his 27 years behind bars until his release in 1990. He was hospitalized here on June 8, his fourth hospitalization since late last year.