any freight- or passenger-carrying device that is dragged or pushed without the aid of wheels. The travois of the North American Indian was a sledge consisting of two transversely connected wooden shafts dragged at an angle to the ground. Sledges date back to antiquity; Assyrian and Egyptian reliefs depict huge statues being pulled by sledge. The arrival of the wheel and axle ended the use of the sledge except in its snow-and-ice surface form of sled—a body mounted on runners. See also litter.