JULIE SPENCER, PEARL DIVING MERMAIDS OF JAPAN (DOCO 2024)

One of the lesser-known but fascinating parts of Japanese culture is that of the Ama pearl divers. Ama literally means ‘woman of the sea’ and is recorded as early as 750. These women specialised in free diving some 30 feet down wearing nothing more than a loincloth. They could hold their breath for up to 2 minutes at a time and work for up to 4 hours a day gathering abalone, seaweed and other shellfish. However, the most profitable pursuit was diving for pearls. Kokichi Mikomoto, founder of Mikimoto Pearl used Ama divers to look after his cultured pearls on Mikimoto Pearl Island, near Toba city. The role of the Mikomoto Ama was to collect oysters from the seabed so that the pearl-producing nucleus may be inserted. Once this critical process was completed, the Ama then carefully returned the oysters to the seabed. Mikimoto Ama wore full white diving costumes and used a wooden barrel as a buoy. They were connected to this buoy by a rope and would use it to rest and catch their breath between dives. Surprisingly, most Ama are elderly women who have practiced the art for many years spending most of their life at sea. Although they no longer gather pearls this way, demonstrations are given so you can witness how they performed this physically demanding work. This series depicts one such demonstration on Mikimoto Pearl Island, Toba, Japan.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.