The Atlantic interviews Ranco about how warming winters conflict with Penobscot culture
The Atlantic interviewed Daren Ranco, chair of Native American Programs at the University of Maine, about how warming winters conflict with Penobscot culture. Ranco, also an associate professor of anthropology, said that Penobscot Nation members’ notion of seasons is tied to the 13 moons that make up each year. With Northeast winters becoming milder due to global climate change, the names of two moons — takwaskwayí-kisohs (“moon of crusts of ice on the snow”) and asəpáskwačess-kisohs (“moon when ice forms on the margins of lakes”), which roughly correspond to March and December — don’t “make as much sense,” he says.