Cheyenne family using a horse-drawn travois, 1890

A travois (from the French travail, a frame for restraining horses) is a frame used by Native Americans, notably the Plains Indians of North America, to drag loads over land. Sometimes dragged by hand, sometimes fitted with a shoulder harness for more efficient dragging, and sometimes dragged by dogs or horses (although horses did not exist in North America before introduced by the Spanish in the 1520s), the basic construction consists of two long poles lashed in the shape of an elongated isosceles triangle; the frame was dragged with the sharply pointed end forward. Sometimes the blunt end of the frame was stabilized by a third pole bound across the two main poles. Image File history File links Cheyenne_using_travois. ... Image File history File links Cheyenne_using_travois. ... Cheyenne lodges with buffalo meat drying, 1870 For other uses, see Cheyenne (disambiguation). ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Trinomial name Canis lupus familiaris The dog is a mammal in the order Carnivora. ... Binomial name Equus caballus Linnaeus, 1758 The horse (Equus caballus, sometimes seen as a subspecies of the Wild Horse, Equus ferus caballus) is a large odd-toed ungulate mammal, one of ten modern species of the genus Equus. ... Lashing can refer to: the infliction of lashes, i. ... For alternate meanings, such as the musical instrument, see triangle (disambiguation). ...

A travois could either be loaded by piling goods atop the bare frame and tieing them in place, or by first stretching cloth or leather over the frame to hold the load to be dragged.

Although considered more primitive than wheel-based forms of transport, on the type of territory where the travois was used, e.g. forest floors, soft soil, etc. rather than roadways, wheels would encounter difficulties which make them a less efficient option. A driving wheel on a steam locomotive. ...