Opening from On This Site - Native Long Island

Asawsunce

A Brookhaven wetland placename where a Native personal name appears to remain attached to swamp and Yaphank Creek geography. Asawsunce appears to preserve a Native personal name connected with a swamp and Yaphank Creek locality in Brookhaven. Instead of only describing a landform, the name points toward a person or family remembered through place, showing how Native lives could become embedded in local geography. Wetlands and creek names can hold community memory, not empty space on a map. Asawsunce is a swamp and Yaphank Creek locality south of the village of Yaphank in Brookhaven. Later forms Oosunk and Oosence belong with this same place rather than separate map records. Asawsunce is treated as a personal name rather than a descriptive translation. Later forms include Oosunk and Oosence. Those forms should be kept with the same source record rather than mapped as separate places. Why...