A shallow, oval wooden or bark container used traditionally by Aboriginal Australians for carrying water, food, or gathering items.
From Australian Aboriginal languages; the term entered English in the late 1800s. Multiple variant spellings (coolaman, cooliman) reflect different transliteration attempts of the Aboriginal word.
A coolamon could carry water without leaking because Aboriginal artisans understood wood movement and moisture—they used materials that would swell when wet to create watertight seals without glue.
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