I have made you an assayer and tester among my people
That you may know and assay their ways
They are bronze and iron, and they act corruptly
The bellows blow fiercely, and the lead is consumed by the fire
In vain the refining goes on; refuse silver they are called
For the Lord has rejected them
Jeremiah 6:27-30
The process and the metaphor come to us from ancient history. Long before Jeremiah. Assaying as testing. As establishing the content of something precious from its surrounding dross. The testing of ore to find gold and silver. The testing of blood to sieve out antibodies or antigens. The testing of faith and spirit by a god that sends his subjects into a furnace. The several steps, the magical, surely secret alchemies to render out base metals and find in their wake that which is prized.
And through the millennia, not just a science. But a study. A painstaking series of trial and error examinations. Empirical. An art never fully learned but always tested and retested, refined
Montana Historical Society photograph
White man’s history of Montana settlement began with the rapacious search for gold. With the hope that our mountains and streams would cough up riches beyond anyone’s wildest imaginings. We’d already trapped and hunted and fished the waters and forests and plains of this high plateau. And while that yielded beaver hats and adventurous tales, the next crop of men wanted more. And so they brought little beyond their greed and hope, pouring into our gullies and gulches. And assay offices followed them: Bannack, Virginia City, Elkhorn, Argenta, then Helena and Butte.
Had, of course, all those early miners learned that the ore they dug and blasted from our hills was worthless, they wouldn’t have stayed. Or attracted the next generation of settlers to overpower and destroy our real treasure: our native peoples.
Essays are cousins of assays. Their Latin roots share the intent of trying and weighing and testing and measuring. But in words rather than fire and chemicals.
In Montana tradition then, with just the credentials of living here 40 years, being at home here, laboring to preserve something of our past, let me try some assaying of Montana’s treasures, of our mettle. In essays, of course. And as with any assayer, forever working to hone my skill, to temper the analysis as I learn more. ©
