Sicomac is an
unincorporated community
An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
located within
Wyckoff, in
Bergen County
Bergen County is the List of counties in New Jersey, most populous County (United States), county in the U.S. state of New Jersey.[U.S. state
In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...]
of
New Jersey
New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...
.
The first known human inhabitants of the area were the
Lenni Lenape
The Lenape (, , ; ), also called the Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada.
The Lenape's historical territory included present-day northeastern Del ...
Native Americans who lived north of the
Raritan River
The Raritan River is a river of the U.S. state of New Jersey. Its Drainage basin, watershed drains much of the mountainous areas in the North Jersey, northern and Central Jersey, central sections of the state, emptying into the Raritan Bay near ...
and spoke a
Munsee
The Munsee () are a subtribe and one of the three divisions of the Lenape. Historically, they lived along the upper portion of the Delaware River, the Minisink, and the adjacent country in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. They were prom ...
dialect of
Algonquian. The Hackensack and Tappan Indians spoke the Unami Lenape dialect the distinct difference between Unami and Munsee us Unami used the letter R along with its sound such as Chief Oritam; the Munsee language did not have the letter R or sound in the language, according to the anthropologist Evan Pritchard. Sicomac, said to mean "resting place for the departed" or "happy hunting ground", is an area of Wyckoff that, according to tradition, was the burial place of many Native Americans, including Chief
Oratam
Oratam (or Oritani/Oratamin) was sagamore, or sachem, of the Hackensack Indians living in northeastern New Jersey during the period of early European colonization in the 17th century. Documentation shows that he lived an unusually long life (almo ...
of the
Ackingshacys, and many stores and buildings there are named after the area's name, including Sicomac Elementary School. Most Native Americans had left by the 19th century, although a small group lived near Clinton Avenue until 1939.
It has also been interpreted as ''black fish''.
The Lenape/English Dictionary
/ref>
References
{{Reflist
Unincorporated communities in Bergen County, New Jersey
Wyckoff, New Jersey