An American Indian Artist Speaks: Spirit of the Native American in America

Learn more about Native American culture through storytelling, drumming, and works of art by Mahed Wayanka, and enjoy a look at American Indian ribbon skirts and how cultural women use them to symbolize their identity.

Be sure to visit the museum’s Native American gallery while there.

A Mint Community Relations collaboration with the Metrolina Native American Association.

More about Mahed Waynka

Mahed Wayanka, also known as John Behler, is a member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe and currently resides in Charlotte. Mahed Wayanka is the Dakota name he received from his grandmother who understood the importance of “looking within” to paint the world more beautiful. Beheler grew up on the Crow Creek Reservation in South Dakota and has been painting since childhood. Beheler’s favorite medium is acrylic painting but he also enjoys traditional forms of art, such as hide and drum painting, featherwork, staffs, shields, and powwow regalia.

A Beheler acrylic original reflects Native American symbolism and surrealism of ceremony that provides a medium for storytelling. “Our greatest gift to mankind is our relationship with nature and through the language of Art, ancestral windows are opened for understanding.”

Beheler has served as a teacher or school administrator over the past 30 years and recently obtained his Education Specialist Degree. “Art teaches us attention to detail and importance of nurturing talent that helps us find success in other areas of life.” Beheler illustrated his adopted father’s book, “Mitakuye Oyasin – We Are All Related, by AC Ross. “He shares the oral history theory of the Sioux who came from the Carolinas instead of the Bering Strait.”