If this was in the late 80s / early 90s than I’m familiar with it as my dads family hails from there and I spent some time there newar Salamanca where my uncle lived. Salamanca was a town on indian land and they took it back. I believe after some massive discontent they determined that you could own your house but the land under it belonged to the tribe so you had to pay them something for use of it. And life went on.
There is some law in WA where the tribal lands are held in common. You could buy a house there, but you only own the house. Even Indians of the tribe don’t own their own land. Hence the tradition of leaving the junk cars/boats/garbage in the tall grass. For that matter, not mowing the grass is quite common.