Travois
{{Short description|Load-dragging structure}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2023}}
Image:Cheyenne using travois.jpg family using a horse-drawn travois, 1890.]]
A travois ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|t|r|æ|v|w|ɑː}}; Canadian French, from French {{lang|fr|travail}}; also travoise or travoy) is an A-frame structure used to drag loads over land, most notably by the Plains Indians of North America.{{r|smith}}
Construction and use
{{multiple image|perrow = 2|total_width=300|align=right
|image1 = Blackfoot travois 1.jpg
|image2 = Blackfoot travois 3.jpg
|footer = Travois designs used by the Blackfoot people
|footer_align = center
}}
The basic construction consists of a platform or netting mounted on two long poles, lashed in the shape of an A-frame; the frame is dragged with the sharply pointed end forward. Sometimes the blunt end of the frame is stabilized by a third pole bound across the two poles.
The travois is 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 can 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.
Dog travois
File:Dog with travois. Detail of Karl Bodmer painting - A Skin Lodge of an Assiniboin Chief.jpg camp on the upper Missouri River]]
{{quote|The basic dog travois consists of two aspen or cottonwood poles notched and lashed together at one end with buffalo sinew; the other ends rest splayed apart. Cross-bars are lashed between the poles near the splayed ends, and the finished frame looks like a large letter A with extra cross-bars. The apex of the A, wrapped in buffalo skin to prevent friction burns, rests on a dog's shoulders, while the splayed ends drag over the ground ... First Nations women both built the travois and managed the dogs, sometimes using toy travois to train the puppies. Buffalo meat and firewood were typical travois loads.{{cite web | url= http://www.native-languages.org/travois.htm | title= American Indian Travois| website= native-languages.org| date= | publisher= | accessdate=}}{{Cite encyclopedia
| title = Travois
| encyclopedia = The Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan
| access-date = 2013-10-24
| date = 2006
| url = http://esask.uregina.ca/entry/travois.html
| via = esask.uregina.ca
| archive-date = 2017-07-06
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170706084136/http://esask.uregina.ca/entry/travois.html
| url-status = dead
}}}}
According to The Canadian Encyclopedia, "The dog travois of pre-European times was small, capable of pulling not more than 20 to 30 kg."{{Cite encyclopedia
| last = Gadacz
| first = Renee R
| title = Travois
| encyclopedia = The Canadian Encyclopedia
| access-date = 2021-06-10
| date = 2012
| url = http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/travois
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120419125642/http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/travois
| archive-date = April 19, 2012
| url-status = dead
}} Travel by dog travois was slower in hot weather, which is tiring for dogs.{{Cite journal
| volume = 39
| issue = 148
| pages =145–159
| last = Henderson
| first = Norman
| title = Replicating Dog Travois Travel on the Northern Plains
| journal = Plains Anthropologist
| date = May 1994
| jstor = 25669259
| doi = 10.1080/2052546.1994.11931719
}} The dog travois can be seen in the paintings of Karl Bodmer.{{Cite web
| title = Dog Travois
| work = Women of the Fur Trade
| access-date = 2013-10-24
| date = 2007
| url = http://www.womenofthefurtrade.com/wst_page16.html
}}
Horse travois
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:
After horses were introduced to North America, many Plains Indian tribes began to make larger horse-drawn travois. Instead of making specially constructed travois sleds, they would simply cross a pair of tepee poles across the horse's back and attach a burden platform between the poles behind the horse. This served two purposes at once, as the horses could then simultaneously carry the tepee poles and some additional baggage. Horses, of course, could pull much greater weight than dogs. Children often rode in the back of horse travois.{{Cite web
| title = Native American Travois (Indian Drag Sleds for Dogs and Horses)
| work = native-languages.org
| access-date = 2013-10-24
| url = http://www.native-languages.org/travois.htm
}}
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."{{Cite web
| title = Salish culture
| work = Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes
| access-date = 2013-10-24
| url = http://www.cskt.org/hc/salishculture.htm
}}
A horse travois can be made with either A-frame or H-frame construction.{{Cite web
| last = Henderson
| first = Norman
| title = Replicating Horse and Travois Travel
| pages = 137–147
| access-date = 2013-10-24
| url = http://iportal.usask.ca/docs/Prairie%20Forum/Replicating%20Horse%20and%20Travois%20Travel%20%28v21no2_1996_pg137-147%29.pdf
}}
Other ways to use a travois
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.Ewers, John C. (1988): A Blood Indian’s Conception of Tribal Life in Dog Days. Indian Life on the Upper Missouri. Norman and London. Pp. 7-13{{rp|9}} 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.Point, Nicholas (1967): Wilderness Kingdom. Indian Life in the Rocky Mountains: 1840-1847. The Journals and Paintings of Nicholas Point, S. J.. New York, Chicago, San Francisco.{{rp|xi}} A travois leaned against a branch of a tree functioned as a simple burial scaffold for a dead Crow baby tied to it.Riebeth, Carolyn Reynolds (1985): J.H. Sharp among the Crow Indians, 1902-1910. Personal Memories of His Life and Friendship on the Crow Reservation in Montana. El Segundo.{{rp|57}}
Travois tracks
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.{{Cite web
| title = Lewis & Clark Trail-Travois Road--Lewis and Clark Expedition: A National Register of Historic Places Travel Itinerary
| access-date = 2013-10-24
| url = http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/lewisandclark/lew.htm
}} 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.{{Cite book|title=The Western European Loess Belt: Agrarian History, 5300 BC - AD 1000|last=Bakels|first=Corrie|publisher=Springer Science & Business Media|year=2009|isbn=9781402098406}}{{Cite web|url=http://musee-archeologienationale.fr/sites/musee-archeologienationale.fr/files/un_travois_pour_les_dieux.pdf|title=Un Travois pour les dieux. Lac de Chalain 31ième siècle avant J.-C. |language=fr |trans-title=A Travois for the Gods}} [https://www.canal-u.tv/chaines/cerimes/films-du-crava-archeologie-ethnologie/un-travois-pour-les-dieux-lac-de-chalain-31e The film] Travois tracks have been found in New Mexico dated to 22,000 years ago.{{Cite web| title = Scientists Find Evidence of Vehicles From Tens of Thousands of Years Ago| access-date = 2025-03-03| url = https://futurism.com/evidence-vehicles-tens-thousands-years-old}}
Gallery
File:Two Klondikers with dogs packing supplies along the Chilkoot Trail near Dyea, Alaska, 1897 (LAROCHE 111).jpeg|Dog-travois, Alaska 1897
File:Kainai travois.jpg|Packhorse and travois, Canada 1910
File:Native American baby transport; Travouis at Lake Windemere. Wellcome L0003105.jpg|Riding horse with travois, Canada 1922
File:Travois or Indian ambulance, U.S. Army LCCN2014680130.jpg|US Army mule and travois "ambulance", circa early 1900s
File:35541 purilaat Rukajarvi 15081941.jpg|A workman's travois, Finland 1941
See also
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Notes
External links
- [http://www.cartingwithyourdog.com/ctravoisplans.html Dog Travois Plans]
- [http://nmai.si.edu/exhibitions/horsenation/travel.html Travois photos], A Song for the Horse Nation, National Museum of the American Indian
- [http://www.art.com/products/p13251395-sa-i2341816/horsedrawn-travois-crow-indian-fair.htm Horse-Drawn travois] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190805234909/https://www.art.com/products/p13251395-sa-i2341816/horsedrawn-travois-crow-indian-fair.htm |date=2019-08-05 }}, at Crow Fair
- [https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/89714087/ Atsina Indian on horse pulling travois], photograph by Edward S. Curtis
- [http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/search/searchterm/travois Travois photographs], from Denver Public Library
- {{Citation
| title = Imataa Manistsi: How to Make a Blackfoot Dog Travois
| access-date = 2013-10-24
| url = http://web.prm.ox.ac.uk/blackfootshirts/attachments/028_Imataa%20Manistsi-%20Blackfoot%20Dog%20Travois.pdf
}}
Category:Native American tools
Category:Indigenous culture of the Great Plains