Opening from On This Site - Native Long Island

Rugua Swamp

Rugua is recorded as a swamp in the Town of Babylon near Copiag Neck. The name appears in the 1698 Indian deed for the Baiting Place purchase, where a boundary ran eastward to the head of Rugua Swamp. The Baiting Place purchase covered a large tract southward toward present-day Merrick Road. Rugua is not translated as a landscape term. The source treats it as a personal name, explaining that the swamp took its name from the Indigenous person who lived on its banks. Why Place Names Matter “Indigenous peoples have the right to revitalize, use, develop and transmit to future generations their histories, languages, oral traditions, philosophies, writing systems and literatures, and to designate and retain their own names for communities, places and persons.” — United Nations General Assembly, United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Article 13(1)...