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Footprints of the Red Men: Indian Geographical Names — Passage 63

Edward Manning Ruttenber (1906) 238 words View original →

[Edward Manning Ruttenber (1906)] rock on the top of the hill," called Mattasinck. In the surveyor's notes the rock is described as "a certain rock in the form of a sugar loaf." The name is probably an equivalent of _Mat-assin-ink,_ "At (or to) a bad rock," or a rock of unusual form. _Mattac-onck_ seems to be an orthography of _Maskék-onck,_ "At a swamp or hassocky meadow." Surd mutes and linguals are so frequently exchanged in this district that locatives must be relied upon to identify names. _Mattac_ has no meaning in itself. The sound is that of _Maskék._ Nyack, Rockland County, does not take that name from _Kestaub-niuk,_ a place-name on the east side of the Hudson, as stated by Schoolcraft, nor was the name imported from Long Island, as stated by a local historian; on the contrary, it is a generic Algonquian term applicable to any point. It was met in place here at the earliest period of settlement in application to the south end of Verdrietig Hoek Mountain, as noted in "The Cove or Nyack Patent," near or on which the present village of Nyack has its habitations. It means "Land or place at the angle, point or corner," from _Néïak_ (Del.), "Where there is a point." (See Nyack, L. I.) The root appears in many forms in record orthographies, due largely to the efforts of European scribes to express the sound in either the German or the English alphabet.