travois

travoisnoun/tɹəˈvɔɪ/

• 1

  historicalA frame, often consisting of two poles tied together at one end to form a V-shaped structure with the vertex attached to a dog, horse, etc., or held by a person and the other ends touching the ground, which was used by indigenous peoples (notably the Plains Aboriginals of North America) to drag loads over land.

  • On the plains they will have horses dragging travoises, dogs with travoises, women and children loaded with impedimenta, […]
  • Riding out for wood he watched his shadow and the shadow of the horse and travois cross those palings tree by tree. Boyd rode in the travois holding the axe as if he'd keep guard over the wood they'd gathered […]
• 2

  A similar piece of equipment used to transport something by dragging; especially a stretcher dragged by a horse, mule, etc., used to transport an ill or injured person.

• 3

  datedbusinessforestryA sled dragged by a horse or ox to transport logs, with one end of each log on the sled and the other end touching the ground.

travoisverb/tɹəˈvɔɪ/

• 1

  To transport (someone or something) by means of a travois.

  • At White Sands, we found drag-marks made by the ends of wooden poles while excavating for fossil footprints. Sometimes these appear as just one trace, while at other times they occur as two parallel, equidistant traces. A pole or poles used in this fashion is called a travois. . . To help interpret these features, we . . . used different combinations of poles to recreate simple, hand-pulled travois . . . In our experiments the pole-ends dragged along the mud truncate footprints in the same way as the fossil example in New Mexico. . . . the footprints and drag-marks tell a story of the movement of resources . . . Adults pulled the simple. . . travois, while a group of children tagged along. . . Travois are known from historical documents and accounts of Indigenous peoples and their traditions. They were . . .associated with dogs or horses, but were pulled by humans in our tests. . . they represent early examples of the handcart or wheelbarrow, but without the wheel.
• 2

  rareTo use a travois to transport a load.