Wata-deka

The Wata-deka were the Watatikka, the Ryegrass Seed Eaters of the Western Shoshone, whose winter home was Ruby Valley in north-eastern Nevada. Their country adjoined those of related Western Shoshone bands, including the Tipatikka or Pinenut Eaters and the Kuyatikka or Bitterroot Eaters.

Numic-speaking foragers entered the Great Basin around the fourteenth century, and by 1500 Shoshone speakers occupied most of Nevada. Like other Western Shoshone bands they took their name from their staple food, moved in small family groups between seasonal camps, and harvested pine nuts in the autumn mountains, returning to the same winter villages year after year.