Mardi Gras Indian, Edwin Harrison, dies

By Geraldine Wyckoff
Contributing Writer

Edwin Harrison, a kind and engaged man, was involved in many aspects of New Orleans’ Black heritage community traditions. His Mardi Gras Indians roots ran deep as he followed in the footsteps of his older brother, the late Big Chief Donald Harrison Sr. of the Guardians of the Flames gang. Long before 1958, when Edwin finally masked himself, he followed the Indians. “I would go to practices and everything,” he once explained. Edwin Ferron Harrison Jr. died on Thursday, October 13, 2016 at the age of 78.

As the uncle of jazz saxophonist and Chief Donald Harrison Jr. of the Congo Square Nation Afro-New Orleans cultural group and Cherice “Queen Reesie” Harrison-Nelson of the Mardi Gras Hall of Fame and the Young Guardians of the Flame, Edwin enjoyed life among the Black Indians. “He was always there for all of us,” says Cherice.

Harrison, who was also active in several social aid and pleasure clubs including a decade as a member of the Black Men of Labor, first masked with the White Eagles and once “brought out” the Creole Wild West as its chief taking over the position from his brother Donald Sr. Until 2014, when he joined up with his nephew’s Congo Square Nation, Edwin, who held the position of Counsel Chief, hadn’t masked Indian for 50 years. In a 2014 interview prior to that Carnival Day, Edwin’s excitement about sewing and putting on a suit and hitting the streets was obvious. Filled with memories, he talked about his old school Indian ways – ways he planned to uphold on his march.

HARRISON

“I promised Donald {Jr.} that before I ‘go home’, I would be an Indian with him,” Edwin said of his decision to go out with his tribe. “I masked with his Daddy a lot of times.”

Because of the expense of masking Indian, Edwin gave it up after 1964 though his love of the tradition and street culture remained. In the early 1970s, he joined the Men’s Jolly Bunch Social & Pleasure Club. After several years, Harrison became the club’s chief of directors that was a mounted group that rode horses. His two sons also rode with the Jolly Bunch.

He and his wife, the late Rose Harrison, reigned as the king and queen of the Money Wasters Social Aid & Pleasure Club, arriving via helicopter at Hunter’s Field where its anniversary parade began. On landing, four horses awaited them.

Even before masking with his nephew, Edwin held an advisory position with his niece Cherice Harrison-Nelson’s child-oriented Young Guardians of the Flame. He also received recognition – the Soaring Eagle and Cultural Icon awards — from the Mardi Gras Indian Hall of Fame that in 1998 Harrison-Nelson and Dr. Roslyn Smith founded.

A mass of Christian burial was held on Friday, October 21, 2016 at St. Peter Claver Catholic Church.

This article originally published in the October 24, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.