‘Tribal Rights’ are a legal concept having nothing to do with language, ‘dead’ or otherwise. But they do have the Right to tell you what to do, and how high to jump should they find something they want which you have. So ruled SCOTUS three times.
I did not write well.
Intended to make a smart remark about how could the Feds ‘make’ Native Americans ‘decode’ their language, such as Navajo.
Or what if it is a dead/dying language that no one knows anymore?
Maybe they threaten them with smallpox blankets. (Or today that would be Resistant TB, Zika, Ebola, etc.)