Dear FB: here's what I found:
The first element of the word, "cata," is probably related to "cater," also found in the related word "catercorner" (or, as many folks know it, "cattycorner" or "kittycorner"). "Cater" in these words is an Anglicization of the French "quatre," or "four," and "catercornered" originally just meant "four-cornered." To specify that something is "catercorner across" from something else is to stress the diagonal axis of an imaginary box, as opposed to saying "directly across" or just "across." Both "catercorner" and "catawampus" are native American colloquialisms dating back to the 1880's or earlier