"Remember the people whom you come from"

 is a Gaelic proverb. It was written into the family Bible, possibly by my great-great-great grandfather.  We will never know that for certain, can only guess at it. 

Did he write it there to be a reminder or a command or a prayer or something else? We will never know. 

It is a proverb which will resonate with many people in Downunder. Yes, there were and still are indigenous people who know their ancestry goes back many generations in this country. There are many more whose ancestry goes back only a short way to the arrival of the First Fleet.

And there are families like my own whose ancestors go back only a few generations. It was my great-grandparents who came here from Scotland. Rightly or wrongly we still feel closely "attached" to our Scottish roots and the culture arising from it.

Quite some time ago now we had a large clan reunion. It brought together many members of the clan. Others who could not be with us participated in more distant ways. It could not have been held at a better time because almost all the grandchildren of the first arrivals were able to be there...and it was and still is a very large family. 

The generations which spread out from there have become much more aware. Indigenous people talk about an attachment to country, of being custodians of the land around them. They also see it as a responsibility to care for it and for their culture.

I believe those of us whose ancestors came from other places have a responsibility to remember too - remember where our ancestors came from.  We have two Gaelic words on our father's funeral notice "fois dhut" - "rest in peace".  It is to acknowledge his ancestry - of which he was very proud. I know there are people who will find this strange. They will tell me Scots Gaelic is a dying language. It isn't. It may be very slow but it is growing again and we now recognise that losing any language means losing an entire culture and way of thinking.  That may well keep Gaelic alive and growing. I hope so, just as I hope for the truly indigenous languages of this country.

 Cuimhnichibh air na daoine bho'n d'thainig sibh - remember the people whom you come from.