Coordaitcha, or Goditcha
,
a native term applied by white men to a particularkind of shoe worn by the aborigines of certain parts of CentralAustralia, and made of emu feathers matted together. The twoends are of the same shape, so that the direction in which thewearer has travelled cannot be detected. The wearer issupposed to be intent upon murder, and the blacks really applythe name to the wearer himself. The name seems to have beentransferred by white men to the shoes, the native name forwhich is interlin~a, or urtathurta.
1886. E. M. Curr, `Australian Race,' vol. i. p. 148:
«It was discovered in 1882 . . . that the Blacks . . . wear asort of shoe when they attack their enemies by stealth atnight. Some of the tribes call these shoes Kooditcha,their name for an invisible spirit. I have seen a pair ofthem. The soles were made of the feathers of the emu, stucktogether with a little human blood, which the maker is said totake from his arm. They were about an inch and a half thick,soft, and of even breadth. The uppers were nets made of humanhair. The object of these shoes is to prevent those who wearthem from being tracked and pursued after a night attack.»
1896. P. M. Byrne, `Proceedings of the Royal Society ofVictoria,' p. 66:
«The wearing of the Urtathurta and going Kurdaitcha lumaappears to have been the medium for a form of vendetta.»