1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Mono Lake Kutzadika a Tribe Recognition Act . 2. Findings Congress finds as follows: (1) The Mono Lake Kutzadika a Tribe has existed for time immemorial in the Mono Basin of east-central California and adjacent Nevada. (2) The Mono Lake Kutzadika a people were first encountered in 1825 by early trappers in the area, but were officially documented by the Federal Government in June 1852 by Army Lieutenant Tredwell Moore, who was in pursuit of hostile Indians in the Yo-Ham-i-te (today Yosemite ) Valley, and tracked them through a previously undiscovered pass through the Sierra Mountains that lead to Mono Lake. The pass was later named Mono Pass also known as Tsadoba , after the Indians of that name . (3) The Tribe, like all tribes in California, was not the beneficiary of a reservation through the treaty process and remained landless and without Federal protection in the wake of the California gold rush and other non-Indian encroachment into the Tribe’s aboriginal lands. (4) In 1904, the plight of the Tribe was brought to the attention of the Committee on Indian Affairs by the Northern California Indian Association through a petition and extensive, but not exhaustive, study documenting the landless Indians in California. The study identified the numerous tribal communities in California who were in desperate need of land, as well as Federal support and protection, and the Mono Lake Kutzadika a community was among those surveyed. As a result of the petition, Congress began to appropriate funding for the purchase of lands in California for the homeless Indians . (5) In 1907, historical members of the Tribe were issued individual allotted lands near Mono Lake under the General Allotment Act. In accordance to the General Allotment Act, allotted lands were only provided to Indians shown to be recognized or entitled to be recognized members of an Indian tribe . The Federal Government determined that Mono Lake Kutzadika a members met this criteria. (6) In the early 1920s, the