" Whereby he intended to imply that some
allowance must be made for his not going perfectly straight to the
place. However, we got there all right, although I found it to be
useless. When asked concerning the country to the north, he declared
it was Cockata; the country to the west was also Cockata, the dreaded
name of Cockata appearing to carry a nameless undefined horror with
it. The term of Cockata blacks is applied by the Fowler's Bay natives
to all other tribes of aboriginals in the country inland from the
coast, and it seems, although when Fowler's Bay country was first
settled by the whites these natives attacked and killed several of the
invaders, they always lived in terror of their enemies to the north,
and any atrocity that was committed by themselves, either cannibalism,
theft, or murder, was always put down to the account of the Cockatas.
Occasionally a mob of these wilder aboriginals would make a descent
upon the quieter coast-blacks, and after a fight would carry off women
and other spoils, such as opossum rugs, spears, shields,
coolamins--vessels of wood or bark, like small canoes, for carrying
water--and they usually killed several of the men of the conquered
race. After remaining at this Paring for about an hour, we remounted
our horses and returned to the camp at Youldeh.
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