Across Australia, water scarcity has shaped Indigenous culture, life, law and knowledge. While there were a range of water carriers, that which has most endured is the ‘coolamon’ — the word is specific to northern and western New South Wales, but has been adopted to describe wooden vessels across Australia. As well as carrying water, the shape of a coolamons reflects various adaptive uses. Flatter, shallower bowls were used like plates; slightly deeper dishes were used as food gathering containers, to grind pastes or for winnowing grains; and longer coolamons, with high sides or inward curving wings, were used as snug cradles for babies.