Based on the “tour de force” highly-researched “Beasts” essays in Edith Mirante’s new book, “Where the Mithuns Are: Essays on War, Art and Beasts,” this engaging talk examines the the curious histories of the Arctic muskox and the mithun, a little-known domesticated forest ox of highland Asia.

In Myanmar (Burma) and Northeast India, the gentle mithuns have been revered, cherished and ritually sacrificed. Across the Arctic, from Greenland to Alaska to Siberia, herds of muskoxen have been hunted, reintroduced and kept in captivity for valuable knitting fiber, while surviving from the Ice Age to new climate change vulnerability.