Inty Muenala, owner of the recently opened Native Kichwa Arts on Main St., might not be the greatest speaker of English–it’s his third language after Kichwa and Spanish–but he can speak “artist” pretty well. Asked about a medicine bag around his neck, he starts talking about duality, like artists do everywhere. Muenala is a Kichwa (sometimes spelled Quechua) from Otavalo, Ecuador, a town famous for its indigenous crafts. “We travel around the world with our culture: Spain, Belgium, Korea …” Street musicians playing the pan flute are usually from Otavalo, and the town is famous for making the flutes as well as the music that floats from them.

Flutes are only one of Otavalo’s indigenous crafts. “Every Saturday we have a market, much like your market here,” he says (somewhat generously–our farmers market and Sunday artisan market are nothing to sneeze at, but the Otavalo market draws craft dealers from all over the world).

Muenala came to the U.S. not as a musician but as a painter and installation artist–the United Nations twice brought him to New York for exhibitions. Four years ago he opened a shop in Novi’s Twelve Oaks Mall, and this is his second.

Both are a virtual United Nations of Native American art and craft. His wife Lizbeth, also from Otavalo, makes beaded earrings. His father-in-law makes wool and alpaca scarves. Some of his own artwork is on display too, along with Aztec art from Mexico, Mayan from Guatemala, Tiwa from Ecuador, and Zuni and Navajo from the American Southwest. Muenala doesn’t invoke that fashionable buzzword “fair trade” but knows it by gut instinct: “I go to Gallup, New Mexico, and watch them make silver and turquoise jewelry,” he says. “I try to buy from the people who make it.”

Native Kichwa Arts, 315 1/2 S. Main, no phone. Mon.-Sat. 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m., Sun. noon-7 p.m. No website.