The Northern Paiute people of Nevada's Walker Lake area were known as the Agai Diccutta (Trout Eaters); they called themselves the Numa, or the People. For as long as anyone could recall, they had lived in the area, catching the huge trout from the lake and harvesting the pinon nuts and other foods from the surrounding desert. In the 1820's the first contacts were made with the white intruders, and when gold was discovered in California in 1848, a large wave of white immigrants struck. Food and hunting sources were destroyed; the people were attacked by the intruders and the diseases they brought with them. By 1859 two reservations were set aside, one at Pyramid Lake and the other at Walker; but, within ten years the Nevada legislature was pushing Congress to open up this land to whites. The People tried to live peacefully on the reservation, but their attempts at farming were thwarted as white farmers diverted the irrigation water supplies. The Ghost Dances of 1870 and 1890 reflected the Indians' despair as they sought to implore God and the Dead to return and dispel the intruders. Efforts by whites continued to reduce or abolish the reservation, and finally in 1906 the People lost most of their reservation lands. By 1909 government policy sought the destruction of the People's culture. This history of the Walker Lake Paiute, told from their point of view, continues to 1974 as it documents the People's struggles to regain lost lands, retain their culture, and establish the rights so long denied them. (DS)