New fishing methods could easily enable greater hauls and reduce work, but at the same time, increase the risk of overfishing and damage the delicate ecosystems that supported life for these coastal towns. ( FPCJ)Īs technology progressed, the Ama communities were faced with decisions – adopt new tools and equipment or retain traditions? One of the most important parts of the decision-making was consideration of sustainability. Of those, 973 (nearly half) work in either Toba or Shima city, Mie prefecture. In 1956 there were 17,611 Ama in Japan but as of 2010 only 2,174 remained. Numbers have dropped to just 1/8th of what they once were. With lack of young women to succeed their elders and modernisation of Japan’s fisheries however, this ancient practice is dwindling. Most Ama are elderly women (some even surpassing 90 years of age) who have practiced the art for many, many years, spending much of their life at sea. Perhaps most surprisingly however, is the old age to which these women are able to keep diving. Another reason is the self-supporting nature of the profession, allowing women to live independently and foster strong communities. One of the reasons Ama are largely female is said to be their thicker layer of fat than their male counterparts to help them endure the cold water during long periods of diving. Since his website is now offline, I’m gathering up as many vintage pictures as I can for posterity that I’ll post as its own separate article soon. Thanks to his efforts, we can take a step back in time and have a glimpse at what life was like working as an Ama diver, and also see his progression as a photographer moving into nude portraits. He was given a gift of a small Kodak camera when young and found his muse in the beautiful mermaids of the tired, coastal regions of Japan. His name was Yoshiyuki Iwase (1904-2001). One photographer in particular stands out with his photographs of the Ama. Since the Meiji era, divers wore goggles for clarity and from 1964, rubbery, black wetsuits were introduced. They were connected to this buoy by a rope and would use it to rest and catch their breath between dives.Īlthough the tradition is still maintained across many parts of Japan, the skinny-dipping practices of old have largely been lost. While traditional ama divers wore only a fundoshi (loincloth) to make it easier to move in the water and a tenugui (bandanna) around their head to cover their hair, Mikimoto ama wore a full white diving costume and used a wooden barrel as a buoy. Upon surfacing, the ama opened their mouths slightly and exhaled slowly, making a whistling sound known as ‘Isobue’. In order to successfully complete this process, each diver would have to hold her breath for up to two minutes at a time in often freezing cold waters. Once this critical process was completed, the ama then carefully returned the oysters to the seabed – in a place where they were protected from external dangers (such as typhoons and red tide). The role of the Mikimoto ama was to collect the oysters from the seabed so that the pearl-producing nucleus may be inserted. He observed how surprised the foreign tourists visiting his pearl island were when seeing the Ama diving naked wearing only their traditional loincloth. Another little-known fact is that the ‘traditional’ white attire we often see Ama divers wearing was also created by Mikimoto. This business was the main reason for the strong association between Ama and pearl diving among foreign observers that continues to this day. Mikimoto used Ama divers to look after his cultivated pearls on Mikimoto Pearl Island, near Toba city. That changed when Kokichi Mikimoto, founder of Mikimoto Pearl, began his enterprise. Traditionally for Ama, finding a pearl inside an oyster was akin to receiving a large bonus while they went about their ancestral practice of collecting shellfish. The most profitable pursuit however was diving for pearls. Utilising special techniques to hold their breath for up to 2 minutes at a time, they would work for up to 4 hours a day in order to gather abalone, seaweed and other shellfish. These women specialised in freediving some 30 feet down into cold water wearing nothing more than a loincloth. Ama (海女 in Japanese), literally means ‘woman of the sea’ and is recorded as early as 750 in the oldest Japanese anthology of poetry, the Man’yoshu. One of the lesser-known but fascinating parts of Japanese culture is that of the Ama pearl divers.
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