At a Dance in Circle City.

Otago Witness, Issue 2319, 11 August 1898, Page 59

At a Dance in Circle City.

I opened a school in Circle City, on the Yukon, in October of 1896, and had been there scarcely three weeks before I was invited to a dance. I declined, with thanks, on the plea that I did not dance. "But this is a school dance, and you must go," said the chairman of the school board. " More miners will go if it is known that the teacher will be there ; and we are anxious to raise the money to pay the debt on the schoolhouse." So I pocketed my prejudices, and attended a dance in a mining camp.

The ball waa held in the " Opera House "—" — built of logs — and the " gentlemen " were miners, dressed in a variety of clothing— moccasins, blanket suits, overalls, flannel shirts ordinary woollen Buits, and four or five wore black suits and white shirts. The " ladies " were white women and squaws, who danced at the same time, but not in the same sets. Littlo half-breed children ran about among the dancers, and their baby brothers and sisters slept or cried in a corner. I eat and looked on, enjoying tho novel scene. The same men danced with both while and Indian women;' but the floor was sharply divided off, three sets in which were white women occupying one half of the floor, while three corresponding sets with squaws occupied the other side. While resting, _ the women sat on backless benches on their respective sides of the hall, while the mon crowded together in one end. The majority of the squaws were dressed about as well "as their white sisters, wearing silk waists and satin or nice wool > dresses. The squaws were Eskimos and Indians, including all degrees of mixture, and hailed from all parts of Alaska. A few were rather good-looking, and others wore nearly black, and oxtremely ugly. They knew the popular dances of the whites* and for thfl moat nart

were very graceful. No native men were milted.After the r.jidnifciit rofre™.nienls T slipped away homo, uhile the rest danced until 3 o'clock. The mim added to the school fund by that festivity was 276d0l 50c. I soon dif-'covt'ied that money was raised in this way for a miners' hospital, library, and other public purposes.— ANNA FULCOHEK. in The Century.