Lessico Cherokee. Storia, spiritualità e dizionario italiano-cherokee
The first Italian- English-Cherokee dictionary together with the history, rituals and traditions of the proud Native American people. The Cherokee, infamous for walking the Trail of Tears: a march of deportation from their lands in the name of the White Man’s greed. Believing in justice to the last, the Cherokee people invoked the laws of the Whites against the Whites themselves, thus losing their freedom and their beloved lands. But through a proud path, today the Cherokee Nations have risen again. The first Italian-Cherokee dictionary ever produced also contains the basics of grammar and English translation: a true reference point for a language declared endangered by Unesco. The preface is by Oddist Lambrecht, a member of the Four Winds Cherokee Tribe, to which Raffaella Milandri also belongs as an honorary member, who has edited the history and traditions of the Cherokee people. ‘Our language is not only irreplaceable, like life, but it is truly a treasure. Like our elders,’ say the Cherokee. Only thanks to them, perhaps, in a couple of generations, will a Cherokee language still exist.
Writer and journalist, Raffaella Milandri is a human rights activist for Indigenous Peoples, an expert scholar of Native Americans and a graduate in Anthropology. She is an honorary member of the Four Winds Cherokee Tribe in Louisiana and the Crow Tribe in Montana.
Myriam Blasini, of Canadian descent, is a passionate scholar of the history of religions and multicultural and multilingual traditions.
