At Powwow, Friends Mourn Death of Respected Campus Leader

As the sky darkened over Radcliffe Yard, the mourners solemnly covered a ceremonial blanket with money, tobacco, and wampum destined for the family of Clarence D. “Duane” Meat ’05-’07, who died Wednesday after being shot in Minneapolis. One by one, they ran their hands over their faces and through their hair, miming the motions of cleansing that the Native American ceremony is meant to evoke. As four men wailed and beat a drum, the first raindrops fell.

For months, Native American at Harvard College (NAHC) had planned a Saturday filled with swirling dances and sweet frybread. But with Meat’s Minnesota wake planned for that evening and a traditional Ojibwe burial planned for today, the Harvard Powwow became a congregation of mourners. The event attracted far more people this year than the last, said NAHC Secretary April A.D. Youpee-Roll ’08.

Attendees delicately left silent the cause of the 24-year-old’s death. Meat was fatally shot Wednesday afternoon, and a 17-year-old suspected of belonging to the Sureno 13 street gang has been charged with second-degree murder, according to the Minneapolis Police Department.

The Harvard Powwow’s master of ceremonies, a director of Indian Education at Minnesota’s Bemidji Public Schools, taught Meat for two years in middle school. Vince Beyl also belongs to the Ojibwe tribe and lives just 12 miles down the road from Meat’s Leech Lake reservation.

“He had a few rough edges,” Beyl told the audience. “He was down in Minneapolis with a young friend. Typical, being in the wrong place at the wrong time. His life got taken away.”

The audience, which included graduate students and members of the Cambridge community, quietly listened as Beyl described the “blanket dance.” Mourners were to drop thoughts and money onto a blanket, then participate in “smudging” to cleanse themselves with smoke.

“This drum is a very, very, very powerful instrument,” Beyl said. “It will be a song that we want to send back home to his family.”

The twenties, fives, and ones collected in the black and red blanket on Saturday were destined for Meat’s family.

“I’m going to ask you to be generous,” said Leah R. Lussier ’07, NAHC president. Her family is friends with Meat’s. Lussier’s father told her of the death on Thursday morning. “Dancing is healing, and today I’m dancing for him,” she told the audience.

Leading the blanket dance, Lussier unfurled her magenta shawl, and the crowd—some who had known Meat, others who had simply been moved by the scene—followed and circled around her. As the blanket’s pile of cash grew, the four men continued to chant to the deep beat of their drum.

Randy K. Akee, who is pursuing his PhD at the Graduate School for the Arts and Sciences, also danced. He had known Meat since 2001, and recently met with Meat to plan the undergraduate’s senior thesis in economic development of underprivileged areas.

“He was here at Harvard not for himself. He was here for his community, his family, and himself,” Akee said. “We were expecting a lot from him.”

Meat, a past NAHC president and a leader in the campus Native American community, had been taking time off, but was hoping to study cash flows on his own Leech Lake Ojibwe Reservation—where cash typically streams out, not in.

“He was ready to sort of jump into it already,” Akee said. “He knew what the problem was on his reservation.”

On his Facebook profile, still online as of Sunday evening, Meat’s hometown is “Tha Rez.” Meat belonged to a group called “Find Clarence Duane Meat” with 19 others.

“Duane was lost, but is now found,” it now reads. “Rest in Peace my dear friend. We love you. Clarence Duane Meat 1982-2006.”

Meat’s Facebook profile shows Duane Meat in a relationship with Barkisu Cole.

She wrote on his Facebook wall Saturday at 9:03 a.m.: “You are the greatest person I’ve ever known in my entire life and thank you for having been part of it! I have more than 5 years of our memories to cherish for the rest my life!”

—Staff writer April H.N. Yee can be reached at aprilyee@fas.harvard.edu.