Kuzedika

The Kuzedika are a Northern Paiute people of the Mono Lake country, east of the Sierra Nevada. Their name recalls a food gathered along the salty lake: the pupae of the alkali fly. Families spent part of the year in the Mono Basin hunting and gathering, and carried dried fly pupae, pine nuts and other goods across the mountain passes in trade. The lake and its shores thus provided both sustenance and a connection to neighbouring peoples beyond the high Sierra.