Ama are Japanese pearl divers. Japanese mermaids Japanese pearl diver
Few people know that underwater pearl hunters, who are called ama in Japan, are not strong men, but very fragile women with a flexible body, dexterous hands, and unusually hardy. They are able to stay in cold water for a very long time, looking for precious pearl shells at the bottom.
In Japanese, the word "ama" means "woman of the sea". This profession is ancient and has more than 2000 years. Ama for their exceptional abilities can be called people out of this world. They can hold their breath for a long time and sink into the abyss of the sea, we note, without special equipment to a depth of 30 meters! Given that pearls are not found in all shells, one can imagine how difficult this work is.
There are only two places on the globe where you can get pearls of very high quality - the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. For several centuries, excellent pearls have been mined in the waters of the bay. The prosperity of many villages for centuries depended entirely on the successful hunting of the ama.
Where does it all begin?
A good diver among the locals, as a rule, was considered one that was able to dive to a depth of at least 15 meters and be able to stay under water for at least a minute. Each woman was entitled to ammunition: a purse woven from wire and fishing net, a split bamboo stick that was supposed to hang around her neck, and leather gloves.
The purse was intended for collecting pearls, the diver pinched her nose with a bamboo stick so that water would not penetrate there, and gloves were needed to protect the pickers' fingers from injury.
“Our service is both dangerous and difficult…”
From endless diving into the depths of the sea, the body of divers wears out a lot, and even young women of 30-40 years old look like frail old women: constantly watery eyes, almost complete lack of hearing, trembling hands.
Under water, these women are in danger. One of them is to be eaten by some marine predator. Sharks, snakes - but you never know them, all sorts of sea reptiles that would like to feast on a fresh catcher. That is why the young ladies-catchers must swim perfectly, show miracles of ingenuity, so as not to endanger their lives once again.
One of these chips was used by divers when saving from a shark. Only by raising clouds of sand from the bottom, it was possible to avoid sharp shark teeth. With a constant risk of being eaten, a diver must make no less than 30 dives, during which she does not eat or drink.
What you need to know and know
Just 200-300 years ago, few people knew about the outlandish ama divers. They did not know that they worked, as a rule, without clothes, at best - in a loincloth - fundoshi and a hair band. They were depicted as such in countless engravings by artists of that time who wrote in the ukiyo-e style (a trend in the visual arts of Japan).
Until the 1960s, many divers, especially those who lived in the villages that stretched along the Pacific coast of Japan, continued to dive in the same fundoshi.
In the villages, the Ama live in their own communities. For a long time, when no one knew about underwater ammunition, the ama dived, holding a load weighing 10-15 kilograms in their hands, or attached small lead bars to their waists.
Before diving, the diver was tied to the boat with a long rope, the end of which was pulled through the block. Having reached the bottom, the woman freed herself from the load, which was lifted to the surface by a rope, and immediately began to collect her prey. When the time spent under water expired, she pulled the rope, again lowered into the depths, and she was lifted up.
The modern technique of spearfishing for pearls has not seriously changed, except that the ama now began to dress in isothermal overalls and fins.
By the way, experienced ama-oidizodo, professional divers, are able to dive an average of 50 times in the morning and 50 times in the afternoon. Between dives, they rest and breathe as deeply as possible, ventilating the lungs.
The season begins in May, when sea water does not yet have time to warm up properly, and ends in early September. For half a year, while the precious pearls are being mined, women are released from all cases.
The income from the mined pearls of the am has always been quite good. Working in shallow water, where almost everything is selected, the diver earned about $ 150 a day, and at a depth of 20 meters - three times more. It is easy to calculate that divers earned tens of thousands of dollars during the season. So it turned out that the ama was often the only breadwinner for the family!
Now it is almost impossible to find those who want to do such a job. At Shirahama, where 1,500 divers worked half a century ago, there are now less than 300 left. Yes, and their age is very respectable: the youngest is 50, the eldest is 85 years old!
Every year, fewer and fewer beautiful "mermaids" go out to fish for pearls - technological progress has come to such godforsaken places. The industrial production of pearls has become more profitable and efficient than the work of the ama.
At present, it is difficult to imagine that there are still places where pearl divers work in the old fashioned way, diving to great depths without any wetsuits and other underwater equipment, carrying, as before, only a bag and a knife.
One such place has actually survived to this day. This is the city of Toba, which is located on the island of Mikimoto Pearl. This place is really special: to this day, divers work here according to the old method. Toba has become a tourist mecca. Hundreds of tourists come here to stare at the beautiful divers.
The hard, but at the same time not devoid of romance, work of pearl seekers has earned its “honor board” in the form of museums and numerous exhibitions, which also found regular visitors. Currently, there are several such places in the world with expositions dedicated to the fearless Ama women.
How about others?
Paying tribute to the brave Japanese women, one cannot fail to say a few words about pearl mining by other peoples. For example, in Vietnam, pearls are grown on special water plantations. A grain of sand is placed in each shell, with which the mollusk then begins to “work”.
When the time comes to check the shells for pearls, workers come up in boats and pull nets with shells out of the water. Vietnamese pearls grown in this way can be bought on the market without any problems. Its price is relatively low. The price of Thai pearls is even lower than Vietnamese. It is grown on special farms.
Jewels from the Middle Kingdom
The country of the Great Wall and fire dragons is considered the first place where they began to look for pearls. They got it from the bottom of the sea, not only in order to string it on a thread, make beads and sell it, but also for medicinal purposes. Ancient Chinese medicine is wise. The principle of using everything that nature gives as a medicine has always been at the forefront of Chinese healers.
In China, pearls are still used as the basis for special ointments and face creams. There are no professional fishermen in the Celestial Empire, since pearls have long been grown artificially. The difference with Vietnamese technology is very small. Here, nets with pearls are tied to bamboo poles and kept in fresh water.
Scattered pearls of Russia
Once upon a time, Russia was among the first ranks of countries rich in pearls. Everyone wore it, including the poorest peasant women. It was mainly mined on the northern rivers, but there was also Black Sea pearl, the so-called Kafsky (Kafa is the ancient name of Feodosia).
Especially a lot of pearls were obtained from the shells of the Muna River on the Kola Peninsula. The monasteries were mainly engaged in the organization of fishing. Round, without protrusions and outgrowths, pearls were especially valued. They were called "sloping", that is, easily rolling down an inclined surface. Pearl mining acquired such a scale that Peter I in 1712 by a special decree forbade private individuals to fish.
Unfortunately, the barbarian mining gave its results: it led to the depletion of the stocks of pearl shells. And now Russian pearls can only be seen in museums.
The profession of divers appeared in Japan over 2000 years ago. Women, for twenty centuries now, have been working the way mother nature taught them. There is nothing superfluous in their costumes. No special equipment!
The first written references to Ama can be found in the Chinese "Legend of the Wa People" (Jap. 魏志倭人伝, ぎしわじんでん) of the late 3rd century.
“They know how to catch fish and shells. The water is not deep, and in shallow places everyone dives and takes them (shells, fish)"
Women catch various marine life under water: sea urchins, trepangs, Japanese lobster, etc. But the fishery became famous not only because of the nakedness of the diving girls. In ancient times, they mined pearls, which were very much appreciated by wealthy buyers. Now pearl mining is also not forgotten, but it causes much less trepidation among potential buyers.
Ama means woman of the sea in Japanese. As a rule, among the divers there are only young women, and this is what attracted and still attracts tourists. Female beauty, sung by millions of men - in unity with the sea element.
This craft, for obvious reasons (Japan these days is far from being such a backward country as it was, say, back in the last quarter of the 19th century), has become less popular among the fair sex. But perhaps it is in this century that it will cease to exist.
However, in Japan there is even a professional holiday dedicated to the beautiful and brave Ama.
MAXANTO invites you to watch a short film about Japanese divers, as well as rare prints and photographs. Happy viewing!
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In Japanese cinema in the second half of the 20th century, there was a trend that has been somewhat forgotten today, which can be called the mixed Japanese-English term "ama-exploitation". About this unique sub-genre, which combined thriller, eroticism and national exoticism, - Dmitry Komm.
The story begins in 1954, when famed Italian photographer, anthropologist and poet Fosco Maraini returned to Japan after an absence of nearly a decade. Sincerely in love with Asia, having served as a professor in Hokkaido and being a prisoner in a Japanese concentration camp in Nagoya, Maraini professed the principle: “There are no races, there are only cultures” - and considered it his duty to help the whole world better understand Asians. Italy and Japan at that time had much in common: the countries that lost the Second World War with a destroyed economy, they carried out a radical restructuring in all spheres of public life and sought to fit into the new world order. In the field of culture, this was expressed in the strengthening of market relations, the Americanization and commercialization of popular arts. Apparently, therefore, Maraini, who already had monographs on Tibet and Japan on his account, chose exotic material for the new book and could interest the widest possible audience - ama divers.
Ama villages were scattered around the cities of Toba and Shima, on the Izu Peninsula and small islands, the most famous of which is Hegura (sometimes spelled Hyukura). Fosco Maraini went to him. By this time, ama was an old and well-known profession in Japan, but Europeans knew little about them. Maraini divers were attracted by the fact that traditional gender roles were reversed in their villages. The heads of the family here were women who chose their own husbands and were the breadwinners, daily making difficult and dangerous dives to the seabed for pearls and oysters. Legends say that men used to do this kind of fishing, but they could not compete with the ladies, who, thanks to the layer of subcutaneous fat, could dive deeper and stay in the water longer. Since then, the role of the men in these villages has become a support one, consisting in taking the am to the dive site, insuring her during work and helping her to warm up after finishing.
The commercial potential of the ama story was that these women used to dive almost naked, wearing only a loincloth and a large knife. Working hard at sea from a young age, the Ama were tall (by Asian standards), well-developed physically, with broad shoulders, strong legs, and mahogany-colored skin. Not having a model appearance, they nevertheless looked very impressive in the photographs.
Ama at work. Photography by Fosco Maraini
Soon Fosco Maraini publishes a lavishly illustrated book, The Island of the Mermaids. Staying among the ama stimulated his poetic fantasy so powerfully that in the text they are called "daughters of Neptune", "companions of Odysseus", "sea valkyries" and "bare-breasted goddesses". Maraini even dived into the sea along with his heroines, and one of the main advantages of his book are underwater photographs, in which the ama really look like the mythical inhabitants of a bizarre mermaid kingdom. Not surprisingly, his book became a bestseller and was soon reprinted in the US and England under the title "Hekura: The Diving Girls' Island".
In Japan itself, no one considered the ama to be supernatural beings, but even there they had their own poet. Yoshiyuki Iwase has been photographing ama since the 1930s, and in his work he combined shooting real diving girls with photographs of invited models posing picturesquely on the seashore. As a result of his activities, ama villages have become a fashionable tourist destination. Jasper Sharp in his book Behind the Pink Curtain notes that by the mid-50s in the village of Toba, the ama business was highly commercialized, the “daughters of Neptune” themselves felt like stars and, in their free time from their main work, willingly took pictures with numerous tourists. Thanks to Yukio Mishima's novel The Sound of the Surf (1954), the images of ama conquer literature, after which their conquest of cinema becomes only a matter of time.
The first Japanese film studio to pay attention to ama was Shintoho. A spin-off from film giant Toho (Shintoho literally means "new Toho"), this small independent company lasted just over a decade, but in that time it managed to significantly change the face of Japanese cinema. Dynamic, commercially oriented and not afraid of risky projects, the studio laid the foundations of Japanese noir (with Akira Kurosawa's Mad Dog) and horror (with a series of films by Nobuo Nakagawa), discovered directors such as Kon Ichikawa and Teruo Ishii. Well, the cycle of films about ama, launched by Shintoho in the second half of the 50s, is considered the first Japanese experience in the field of erotic cinema - a genre in which Japan is today a recognized world leader.
Still from the film "Revenge of the Pearl Queen" (1956)
It all started with the film "Revenge of the Pearl Queen" (Toshio Shimura, 1956). His heroine, played by the curvaceous fashion model Michiko Maeda, was not yet a professional ama - she became a diver by chance, finding herself on an abandoned island in the company of shipwrecked sailors. In essence, Revenge of the Pearl Queen was a loose variation on Joseph von Sternberg's Japanese film The Anatahan Saga (1953), only in a more commercialized thriller package. The film was a great success, which director Shimura hastened to develop in his next film, Ama Trembles with Fear (1957). In this crime story about beautiful divers kidnapped by a gang of gangsters, long, choreographed underwater footage appears for the first time, a bit reminiscent of Busby Berkeley's famous musical number By a Waterfall.
Then the Japanese filmmakers were illumined by the realization that they had stumbled upon a gold mine, and the production of films about divers was put on stream. Shintoho continued the theme with the now considered classic thrillers The Haunted House Divers (1958) and The Phantom Ama (1959); pioneering Japanese exploitation producer Mitsugu Okura released Ama and the Mysterious Pearl (1962); the Sotiku studio supported the theme with a painting with the phantasmagoric title "Shell Girls" (1965); film adaptations of Mishima's "Surf Noise" were released one after another (about half a dozen of them were filmed in total). In these films, the Ama went through the most incredible adventures, finding treasures at the bottom of the sea, fighting smugglers, ghosts and each other - the latter, as a rule, took place in the mud - and in The Clam Girls they even provided escort services to tourists like real geishas. . Even a film called “Ama the Cannibal” (1958) was filmed on Shintoho, but it, unfortunately, is considered lost.
The main attraction of these paintings remained original underwater ballets, from time to time becoming longer and more ingeniously filmed. An additional erotic effect was achieved due to the premonition of danger threatening the divers - here Japanese filmmakers were strongly influenced by the famous underwater scene from Jack Arnold's "The Beast from the Black Lagoon" (1954). The combination of athleticism, self-confidence, and unexpected vulnerability made the ama the ideal male fantasy, confidently exploited by Japanese film producers. In fact, these were the first Japanese erotic films, despite the fact that they rarely featured sex scenes.
Trailer for The Divers in the Haunted House (1958)
In the West, the ama have also become cult figures and have made their way into cinema. In 1963, our former compatriot and, concurrently, Hollywood classic Marion Goering filmed the rollicking Italian mondo "Desecrated Paradise", presenting the audience with a complete set of orientalist myths. A fair amount of the film was devoted to Japanese divers. Goering filmed his quasi-documentary exploitation on the same island of Hegurah as Fosco Maraini, and therefore among the ama appearing in it, one can easily recognize the same girls who posed for the already legendary album “Mermaid Island”. In 1964, Ian Fleming made a diver named Kissy Suzuki a Bond girl in You Only Live Twice. Kissy was a former movie star turned ama; she also became the only Bond girl who gave birth to a son from him - James Suzuki. In the film adaptation of this novel, released in 1967, it is Kissy (Mie Hama) who in the finale leads the Bond army to storm the residence of the supervillain Blofield in the mouth of a volcano.
James Bond and Kissy Suzuki. "You Only Live Twice" (1967)
With the development of the sex film industry in the early 70s, ama films finally migrated into the sphere of "pink-aiga". In 1975, the oldest Japanese film studio Nikkatsu, as part of its new project "romantic porn", launches a series of films that have become known in the West as Lustful Ama. Ten years before 1985, six films were released that told about the love affairs of divers. In these films, there was no longer tabloid romance with treasures and pirates; they were glamorous sex movies with plein-air erotic scenes on the seashore, and their modest budgets made complex underwater ballets impossible. The decline of the genre coincided with the disappearance of the ama profession itself. In a modernized, high-tech Japan, there was no longer a need to obtain pearls in such an archaic way. And the reorientation of commercial cinema to a teenage audience that took place in the 90s completely turned the naked ama into persona non grata on the big screens.
Films about ama left the cinemas, remaining only in film catalogs and video collections of fans. But it is hardly worth writing off these underwater Amazons completely. After all, the fact that there are no more musketeers in our world does not mean that they cannot make films about them. For example, last year in Turin there was an exhibition of photographs by Fosco Maraini called "The Charm of Sea Women". Sooner or later, common sense will return to cinema, and then we will definitely see something great-tabloid again, something like “Ama vs. Killer Octopuses from the Underworld” in 3D and IMAX.
This is the name given to female divers in Japan, who get shells with pearls, edible mollusks, algae from the bottom of the sea - everything that cannot be obtained with ordinary fishing equipment. Ama dives to a depth of 15-20 meters with the help of a heavy load, and harvests the “harvest” with her hands or spatulas. This is a purely female profession, since the subcutaneous layer of fat in women is larger than in men, and allows them to stay in the water longer. The men stay in the boats, help to load the prey on board, in case of danger they pull the diver out of the water with a rope. The Japanese have preserved the craft of ama for at least two millennia. Fish women were reported in Chinese chronicles of the 3rd century BC. e.
Written sources are confirmed by archaeological data: human bones were found on the islands, deformed due to frequent immersion in water. A long stay under water has a detrimental effect on the body: the chest expands, the eardrums noticeably weaken. But, despite the difficulties, the Ama do not use technical inventions designed to facilitate their hard work. The introduction of scuba gear and wetsuits would lead to an expansion of the fishery, and as a result, a reduction or complete disappearance of marine mollusk populations, therefore, from the entire arsenal of divers, the ama use only light clothing to keep warm longer, and underwater goggles to protect their eyes from sea salt.
Nowadays, a whole world of divers and divers is scattered along the coast of Japan, whose traditional occupation is the underwater collection of oysters, pearl shells, sea urchins and algae. These divers are called - Ama.
They live in communities in their villages and practice professional apnea diving using traditional methods dating back to ancient times. Although the word Ama is used for both a male diver and a female diver, it evokes more of a feminine image. The idea of a female diver, especially a naked one, was always both seductive and poetic. Ama divers traditionally dived without clothes, except for a rope belt with a kaigan - a metal tool in the shape of a pig's hoof for tearing out shells and cutting off edible algae. They were brought to the dive site in a boat. The Ama dived without fins, holding a 10-15 kg weight in their hands, or using small lead bars attached to the belt (the prototype of the modern weight belt). They were tied to the boat with a long rope passed through a block.
Having reached the bottom, the woman removed the ballast, which was immediately pulled to the surface by her friend, and quickly began to collect; at the right moment, she pulled the rope, and the man in the boat literally pulled her out of the water as quickly as possible. Today's technique has not changed, except that the ama wear isothermal overalls and fins. The apnea time ranges from 45 to 60 seconds, but can reach two minutes if necessary. The most experienced ama-oidizodo makes an average of 50 dives in the morning, followed by another 50 midday dives. Between these dives, she rests lying down, ventilating her lungs, which is accompanied by a long whistle heard from afar. A kind of brazier is installed on the boat, near which the diver warms up and drinks hot tea when it really gets cold.
Amy earn quite decently. The working season lasted from May 1, when the sea water is still riddled with winter cold, until the beginning of September. Each of the am dives daily to a depth of 13-22 meters more than a hundred times. This is approximately 250-280 minutes (4-5 hours) in water daily. When working in shallow water, where the stocks of fishing objects are largely depleted, a diver earns up to $ 150 a day, at depths of 20 meters - 3 times more. For a season of such work, you can earn several tens of thousands of dollars. But there are fewer and fewer people who want such work. Is it any wonder that, for example, in Shiraham, where 1.5 thousand divers worked 40 years ago, now less than 300 people are engaged in this trade. Their average age is 67, the youngest is 50, the oldest is 85!
The formation of a pearl is truly a miracle of nature, since it is born in the shell of a mollusk by getting foreign bodies there. As a result of a protective reaction, a foreign body is enveloped in mother-of-pearl material and a stone of incredible beauty is formed.
What are they - pearl divers?
"Pearl divers" - that's what they call people who are engaged in this unsafe fishery. The first shellfish hunters appeared around 4,000 BC. on the territory of China. No less common pearl places are also Sri Lanka and Tahiti.
Pearl divers are courageous and courageous people who put their lives at risk every day. To get jewelry from the depths of the sea, you need to have the ability to dive to a depth of 30-50 meters, as well as hold your breath for more than one minute.
During the catcher must be extremely careful, because in the depths of the sea he can lie in wait. Many years ago, to protect themselves from toxic bites, some catchers used special linen suits and gloves, and rubbed the exposed skin with oils. To collect shellfish, a net was hung around the neck, and the nose was clamped with a split bamboo stick.
The necessary skills to hold the air and sink to the depths of the catchers acquired in childhood. Prolonged exposure to salt water and a sharp drop in pressure during diving adversely affected the health of divers, as evidenced by the high mortality rate among representatives of this profession.
The thirty-year-old diver looked much older than his years and had significant health problems, such as hypoxia (oxygen starvation), deafness, rheumatism.
Pearl mining in different countries
In Japan, women have been mining gemstones for centuries. Their skill is due to physiological characteristics, which allows Japanese divers, or ama, as they are also called, dive to a decent depth and adapt to low water temperatures.
Even some 100 years ago, Japanese women dived only with a mask and a loincloth. Their amazing endurance allowed them to stay under water for about two minutes at a depth of at least 20 meters. This difficult craft allowed them to earn decently enough and become financially independent.
To date, there are very few representatives of this ancient profession. Most ama live in the city of Toba on the island of Mikimoto Pearl. Here you can see divers in the process of work, and without any equipment and equipment.
The championship in pearling in Korea since the 18th century also belonged to women. have high performance and endurance, because not everyone can hold out for about two minutes at a depth of 30 meters under water.
In connection with the development of industrial production of pearls, the old craft is slowly becoming a thing of the past. This is also evidenced by a small number of Korean divers living on Jeju Island. Some of them are about 80 years old.
No less mysterious pearl divers are, or bajo, who surf the seas of Southeast Asia. This nomadic people cannot imagine their life without the sea, and land for them is only a temporary refuge for replenishing food supplies and fresh water, as well as selling pearls.
Living on their boats, dwellings, they become gemstone seekers at a very young age, and quickly learn to dive to a depth of about 30 meters, without any equipment. Their free sea life is full of adventure and danger, but, strangely enough, this is what makes them happy.
Pearls and Modernity
Currently, natural pearls are mined in the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea and in the waters of Sri Lanka. Its value is much higher than cultured pearls, which require less willpower and stamina than pearl divers.
These superhumans have truly incredible abilities and stamina that has been cultivated over the years. And for this the sea pays them with its incredible jewels.
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