It was the turn of the (last) century that le Danse Oriental captured the interest of the Western world. The poems of Colette, the novels of Flaubert, and the "Orientalist" paintings of Gerome all wetted the Western appetite for more of the mysterious, exotic and sensuous, Dance of the East .

     When Little Egypt performed at the 1893 Chicago Expo her audiences were surprised, often shocked--but always filled to capacity.

     Another of the "founding mothers" of oriental dance in the West rocketed to stardom, only to fall victim to the cruelty and deceit of men at war. She, and her reputation, were senseless casualties; causing her to be remembered today not as a dancer but as a notorious spy.

     The problem with this mysterious and innocently sensual temple dancer was that she was an absolute fake. While the media praised her as the most innovative dancer of the day, only a very few were aware of Mata Hari's two serious flaws: First of all, she had not the slightest hint of Eastern heritage but was born in Holland of Dutch parents. Her dusky-hued flesh was regularly and carefully dyed. Her Brahmin father and priestess mother were, of course, total fabrications. Secondly, although she had rapidly made a name for herself in the dance world, she had never studied dance and really knew nothing about it.

     In 1905 Mata Hari was the talk of the European dance scene. In a society hungry for anything from the exotic East, newspapers from London to Milan carried her fascinating story: A dusky-hued daughter of a Hindu Brahmin, her mother a priestess and temple dancer, Mata Hari's earliest years were spent in the incense-scented temple of Kali where she was initiated into the deepest secrets of sacred dance.

     Before each show, Mata Hari explained to her upper-class audiences that although nudity was a component of her performances, this was an ancient religious ceremony expressing her devotion and submission to the gods' of the East. Thus educated, her audiences appeared to accept her dance as a sensual yet innocent cultural diversity -- rather than scandalous behavior. Ladies and gentlemen who wouldn't be caught dead at a strip show felt fascinated yet comfortable watching the high-cast temple priestess swirling naked across the stage. The East was a whole new world, and open-minded Westerners were eager to learn its ways.

     As the daughter of a "Duke", the child Margaretha attended private school, arriving in her own shinny red goat-drawn cart. Her classmates might of been happily impressed by this extravagance, but they and their parents were clearly aware that Margaretha and her family were no more of royal blood than the baker or blacksmith. It was simply an accepted fact that Adam Zelle enjoyed pretending to be a "duke" and aside from that one eccentricity was a honest shopkeeper and a good neighbor.

The family troubles began when her father's aristocratic airs began to drastically exceed his shopkeepers income. Over- spending eroded his business until the

     After a scandal at the teacher's college involving Margaretha and the headmaster, she gave up thoughts of teaching and moved to The Hague to live with her uncle.

     A beautiful seaside city, The Hague abounded with cultural and recreational opportunities. But in spite of her surroundings the now exotically beautiful Margaretha found herself lonely and confused. She knew she couldn't live with her uncle forever but she had no idea of how to earn her own living.

     On March of 1895 an ad in the newspaper caught her attention: "Officer on home leave from Dutch East Indies would like to meet girl of pleasant character -- object matrimony." Filtered

through her imagination, the few terse words became a golden gateway to romance, adventure -- and of course the security she was so desperate to find.

     In reality the ad was nothing but a practical joke placed in the paper by friends of the officer mentioned. He was thirty-eight year old captain Rudolph MacLeod. A tough, career military man who had worked his way up through the ranks. It would be difficult to imagine a person anymore the opposite of the pampered daydreaming teenage Margaretha.

     Margaretha had longed for a life of exotic adventure, and her wishes were certainly fulfilled. At age twenty she found herself halfway around the world, living in the village of Ambarawa on the Indonesia Island of Java; wife of a rugged military man and mother of an infant son.

     Several peaceful years passed. Captain MacLeod became Major MacLeod, as he busied himself protecting European interests in Indonesia. Margaretha, vivacious and colorful, found herself warmly welcomed into the Dutch military community. She had another child, a daughter, and seemed comfortable with her life as a homemaker in the exotic tropics.