Travois

A travois (/ˈtrævwɑː/; Canadian French, from French travail; also travoise or travoy) is an A-frame structure that was used to drag loads over land, most notably by the Plains Indians of North America.
The basic construction consists of a platform or netting mounted on two long poles, lashed in the shape of an A-frame; 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 poles.
The travois was dragged by hand, sometimes fitted with a shoulder harness for more efficient dragging, or dragged by dogs or horses (after the 16th-century introduction of horses by the Spanish).
A travois could either be loaded by piling goods atop the bare frame and tying 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 (forest floors, soft soil, snow, etc.), rather than roadways, wheels would have encountered difficulties which would have made them less efficient. As such the travois was employed by coureurs des bois in New France's fur trade with the Plains Tribes.
It is possible for a person to transport more weight on a travois than can be carried on the back.
According to The Canadian Encyclopedia, "The dog travois of pre-European times was small, capable of pulling not more than 20 to 30 kg." Travel by dog travois was slower in hot weather, which is tiring for dogs. The dog travois can be seen in the paintings of Karl Bodmer.
By the mid-18th century, the dog travois had given way to the horse travois. According to The Canadian Encyclopedia, "When dogs were replaced by horses, the greater pulling power allowed tipis to increase in size and household goods to multiply." The Native Languages of the Americas website relates that:
When traveling with a travois, it was traditional for Salish people to leave the tipi poles behind at the camp "for use by the next tribe or family to camp there."
A horse travois can be made with either A-frame or H-frame construction.
The travois served the Native Americans in a number of ingenious ways. Before the use of horses, Blackfoot women made a curved fence of dog travois’ tied together, front end up, to hold driven animals enclosed until the hunters could kill them. When the women put up a tipi, they placed an upright horse travois against a tipi pole and used it as a ladder so they could attach the two upper sides of the lodge cover with wooden pins. A travois leaned against a branch of a tree functioned as a simple burial scaffold for a dead Crow baby tied to it.
What today is known as the Lewis and Clark Trail-Travois Road, and Montana's Lewis and Clark Pass were areas heavily traveled where travois "were dragged over the trail, causing deep, parallel tracks to mark the earth," which are still visible today. Remains of travois tracks can also be seen at the Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site.
There is archeological evidence to support the thesis that travois were used before the invention of the wheel. Travois tracks have been found in New Mexico dated to 22,000 years ago.