The name Aucocisco
comes to us from the Abenaki by way of the English explorer Capt. John Smith (1580-1631). test
On an expedition to this coast in the spring of 1614, Smith wrote; "westward of Kennebeke, is the country of Aucocisco, in the bottom of a large deep bay, full of many great Iles, which divides it into many great harbors."
In The History of Portland (1865) William Wills believed; "This refers to Casco bay and Aucocisco, may be supposed to express the English sound of the aboriginal name of that extensive and beautiful bay." Like most authorities of the time he believed that it meant heron or crane, since those birds were here in abundance.
In Indian Place-Names of the Penobscot Valley and the Maine Coast (1941), Fannie Hardy Eckstorm explores the origins more gingerly. She believes that Casco derived from the Abenaki Kasqu¢ (Great Blue Heron), and may have been a clipped form of Aucosicso. However she notes that the latter was at the bottom of the bay, or what we now call Back Cove. She sites various authorities noting Auco or wakw might be Maliseet or Micmac for "the head of the bay" and cisco or seskoo for "mud". "No name", writes Eckstrom, "could better fit the place (Back Cove) than this when the ebb-tide had drained it."
Like the word Machegonne (Machegony), another Native American name for the early Portland, the exact meaning of Aucocisco will continue to be argued. In recent years it has taken on new life as Portlanders have begun to re-examine their early heritage. During the 1990s Aucocisco became the name of the annual family celebration centered on the waterfront and now, most recently became the name of this gallery which showcases some of Maine's leading visual artists.
