“Turf-built Cots” 277 turf-covered gamine, or cota* of the Lapps, and its architecture is visibly the … In short, these turf-built wigwams are the dwellings of the Scoto-Picts, or Egyptian Moors, whether we look at these people in their latest individual form, or as they appeared in the Hebrides last century, or at an earlier date than that when they formed an important political entity in the British Islands (which their civilized and hybrid descendants still do). And their dwellings form one of the very numerous links that unite the painted “Moors” of Scotland with certain kindred races in Europe, Asia, and America.”
“Compare English cot, cote, and cottage: also Gaelic cot, cota, a cottage; cota, a coat, a petitcoat. The radical meaning of this word would seem to be “something that covers or encloses.” In its Gaelic sense of a covering for the body, it is found among the “Moors” of North America, as, for example, in the matchecota or principal female garment [referred to by Longfellow in a note to “the principal garment” and the under garment.” (There are other so-called “Indian” words, which are still to be found in English dictionaries, and where the resemblance increases to absolute identity.”