Clear Nude: The Lens + the Nude, Issue IV, Summer 2015 ClearNude: The Lens + the Nude, Issue IV, Summer | Page 65
Ama
The Pearl Diving Mermaids
of Japan
By Michael Gakuran
O
ne of the lesser-known but fascinating
The most profitable pursuit however was diving for
parts of Japanese culture is that of the
pearls. Traditionally for Ama, finding a pearl inside an
Ama pearl divers. Ama literally means
oyster was akin to receiving a large bonus while they
‘woman of the sea’ and is recorded as
went about their ancestral practice of collecting shell-
early as 750 in the oldest Japanese anthology of poetry,
fish. That changed when Kokichi Mikimoto, founder of
the Man’yoshu. These women specialised in freediv-
Mikimoto Pearl, began his enterprise.
ing some 30 feet down into cold water wearing nothing more than a loincloth. Utilising special techniques
Mikimoto used Ama divers to look after his cultivated
to hold their breath for up to 2 minutes at a time, they
pearls on Mikimoto Pearl Island, near Toba city. This
would work for up to 4 hours a day in order to gather
business was the main reason for the strong associa-
abalone, seaweed and other shellfish.
tion between Ama and pearl diving among foreign observers that continues to this day. Another little-known