Description
Kitchaminchok, Mastic, NY, currently on view in
Living Conduit – Indigenous History and Present Day, South Ocean Gallery at South Nassau Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Freeport, NY, October 3, 2026 – November 21, 2026
Kitchaminchok is a recorded name for Moriches Island at East Moriches, within the wider Mastic-Moriches region of Long Island's South Shore. Historical descriptions place the island beside a narrow passage of water, with meadowland and a small pond. The name is interpreted as beginning island, a boundary designation. It locates land within a Native geography of islands, waterways, and authority.
Related spellings appear in records concerning whaling rights, Native leadership, colonial grants, disputes, and estates. The same place could be written differently by successive record keepers. Read together, those accounts show that rights to coastal resources were politically significant. A waterway or island was part of a community's livelihood and jurisdiction, not simply a piece of ground waiting to acquire an owner.
The artwork's recorded title uses Mastic, while the present place-name research points more specifically to Moriches Island at East Moriches. That distinction matters in a region where familiar modern labels can obscure older geography. Colonial property records often become the most accessible written evidence of a Native place, yet they center transactions and claims rather than the full relationships of the people involved. A grant or will cannot by itself describe everything Native communities understood about land, water, and continued use. Recovering Kitchaminchok means reading those records for the Native authority and resource relationships they contain, rather than beginning the story with colonial ownership. The island name keeps those connections present within a South Shore landscape transformed by later development and boundaries. Its history joins maritime knowledge with the struggle over who could speak for, use, and control a place.
Artwork Details
Title: Kitchaminchok, Mastic, NY
Year: 2016
Medium: Archival Inkjet Print
Size: 16 x 20 inches
Edition: Open Edition
