Native

Temples Gate offers many items relating to indigenous cultures, ethnic spiritual practices, Native American art and culture, and shamanism. From Australian didgeridu music and books on Aborigine beliefs to Zuni animal fetish carvings, we offer you a world of indigenous music, art, magic and spiritual practices.

We host drum circles, workshops, drum classes, practitioner groups, and Meetups, such as the monthly drum circle, the Peruvian shamanism group, the Houston Shamanism Meetup, and the West African Djembe Drumming Meetup.

For a complete schedule of events, see our Calendar.

Rainsticks, Didgeridus, Rattles, Drums

Indigenous cultures have given the world some of the most beautiful and evocative sounds and and sights, including beautiful art, haunting chants, and wonderful musical instruments.

We carry books, music, art, musical instruments of many indigenous cultures from around the world. The selection varies, so stop by often to see what we have.

Africa

African spirituality, whether indigenous or urban, inspires many of us today. We offer both authentic artifacts and art inspired by the spiritual and magical belief systems of many African-influenced cultures from around the world.

African music is the source of all the popular music that we consider distinctively American today, including ragtime, jazz, swing, bebop, rock, soul, gospel, and hiphop. The foundations for all those music styles are the intricate rhythms of Africa.

Every Thursday night you can come by and watch, listen, or join in the authentic West African djembe drumming class of Abubakr Kouyate, playing rhythms of Guinea and Mali in the traditional village style. The class also performs sometimes as Temple Gate Drummers.

We offer books, music, art, and artifacts from Africa and the African diaspora (former slave-holding) areas of North and South America, such as the priestess figure shown in the photo on the left. The selection changes constantly, so stop by soon. For more examples, see the Art section of this site.

We also offer the beautiful and inspiring art of Yvonne Fitch, who weaves her own African-American heritage with the spirituality of many other indigenous cultures into her mysterious and inspiring art. You can view some examples of Yvonne’s on the page dedicated to her work.

Native American
Painting, 'Mayan Dreams'

Native Americans include not only the 500 nations of what are now Canada and the United States. It also includes the many tribal peoples and the great urban civilizations of Central and South America, including the Toltec, Maya, Aztec and Inca cultures.

We carry an ever-changing array of Native American jewelry, books, music, smudge sticks, dream catchers, rattles, paintings and prints on Native American themes, painted and beaded feathers, leather pouches, and other Native American-related items.

Asian

Spirituality is intimately interwoven with life in indigenous cultures. Much of what we think of as folk art is spiritual, religious or magical art to the people who made it. And certain natural objects have great spiritual significance in indigenous cultures.

The ancient civilizations of Asia include many living indigenous traditions, just as the urban cultures often thrived ’side by side’ with the rich cultures of their tribal neighbors. Sometimes it is hard to separate the two.

We offer wood carvings of spiritual guardians from Indonesia, shiva lingam stones from India, carvings of temple dancers and spirits from many ethnic cultures of south and southeast asia.

Shamanism

The magical healing practice of shamanism has appeared in many animist cultures throughout the world. We host shamanism groups and carry supplies and tools used in shamanic healing.

We offer a great variety of shamanism-related items, including drums, smudge sticks, white sage, copal, books and CDs, feathers, rattles, animal figures, fetishes, jewelry, pouches, and so on.