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