300px|thumb|upright=1.5|right|An diver.

are Japanese divers famous for collecting pearls, though traditionally their main catch is seafood. The vast majority of are women.

Terminology

There are several sea occupations that are pronounced "ama" and several words that refer to sea occupation.

  • – a sea-diving fisherwoman
  • – a sea-diving fisherman
  • , – a sea-diving fisherperson of either gender
  • uminchu () – a sea fisherperson of either gender in Okinawan

While one definition of ama specifically refers to divers, another definition refers to fisherpersons in general.

History

Japanese tradition holds that the practice of may be 2,000 years old.

thumb|Pearl divers in white uniforms, 1921

Records of female pearl divers, or , date back as early as AD 927 in Japan's Heian period. Early were known to dive for seafood and were honored with the task of retrieving abalone for shrines and emperors. traditionally wear white, as the colour represents purity and also to possibly ward off sharks. Traditionally and even as recently as the 1960s, dived wearing only a loincloth, but in the 20th century, the divers adopted an all-white sheer diving uniform in order to be more presentable while diving. Even in modern times, dive without scuba gear or air tanks, making them a traditional sort of freediver.

Pearl diving were considered rare in the early years of diving. However, Mikimoto Kōkichi's discovery and production of the cultured pearl in 1893 produced a great demand for . He established the Mikimoto Pearl Island in Toba and used the 's findings to grow his business internationally. Nowadays, the pearl-diving are viewed as a tourist attraction at Mikimoto Pearl Island. The number of continue to dwindle as this ancient technique becomes less and less practiced, due to disinterest in the new generation of women and the dwindling demand for their activity. In the 1940s, 6,000 were reported active along the coasts of Japan, while today practice at numbers more along the scale of 60 or 70 divers in a generation.

Activities

Women began diving as as early as 12 and 13 years old, taught by elder . Despite their early start, divers are known to be active well into their 70s, with extreme examples of divers in their 90s. In Japan, women were considered to be superior divers due to the distribution of their fat and their ability to hold their breath. which have the function of bringing luck to the diver and warding off evil. The are also known to create small shrines near their diving location where they will visit after diving in order to thank the gods for their safe return.

  • Ama: Women of the Sea, an award-winning 2019 documentary film by British-Japanese filmmaker Georgie Yukiko Donovan, explores the last of Japan's 'women of the sea' and their fight to preserve their 3,000 year old way of life. She was one of five filmmakers awarded a grant of £20,000 to make the film, as part of the Female Film Force, an initiative created to actively address the gender imbalance within the film industry.
  • Tampopo, a 1985 dramatic comedy film by Jûzô Itami includes a series of vignettes about the erotic and cinematic passions of a gangster in a white suit and his moll, one of which is a reminiscence about eating a fresh oyster from the hand of an ama girl at the seashore.
  • Ama no Shima, a photography exhibition and eponym book made after the work of photographer Kusukazu Uraguchi. Using the first Nikonos camera released, Uraguchi documented the daily life of the Ama community in the Shima region until the 1980s. His works were displayed in France and the Netherlands.
  • Violated Paradise, a 1963 film by Marion Gering, presented as a cultural documentary. The film picture a modern geisha traveling through Japan trying to find a job as entertainer, and who ends up by finding love and a job as ama.
  • Paranormasight: The Mermaid's Curse, a 2026 video game, features Ama divers as a major plot point.

See also

  • – Female occupational divers in the Korean province of Jeju

References

Further reading

  • Martinez, D. P. (2004). Identity and Ritual in a Japanese Village University of Hawaii Press.
  • Mishima, Yukio (1994). The Sound of Waves. Vintage.
  • English: United Nations University (2009) digital video "Where the sea whistle echoes": Ama, legendary women divers of Japan facing climate change and an uncertain future <small>Accessed 1 December 2009</small>
  • Ama Cultural Village in Japanese
  • at the Rubicon Foundation
  • The Mysterious Ama (Uminchu) Divers of traditional Japan (nudity)
  • Ama Girls (Aka Japan Harvests the Sea) (1958)
  • Japan: Ama divers 60 years ago
  • Pearl Divers of Japan, from "Women of the World" (nudity)
  • Ama Women of the Sea (nudity)
  • Yoshiyuki Iwase (Japanese, 1904–2001) (nudity)
  • Yoshiyuki Iwase (nudity)