The women divers – ama – have been diving along the Japanese coast for centuries. Free-divers, they dive without underwater breathing devices.

The Ama- The Woman Divers of Japan

The Ama: The Women Who Dive Beneath the Sea

The 1967 James Bond movie, You Only Live Twice did a lot to romanticize the image of the ama divers in the popular imagination.

For older American males, the first awareness of the Japanese women divers came in the 1967 James Bond movie, You Only Live Twice. When Kissy Suzuki emerged from the water in her diaphanous white cotton dive costume, she sensationalized and romanticized the image of the hard-working women who continue to make their living diving for shellfish along the Japanese coast. What follows is a brief overview of the history of the ama and their diving equipment.

The Ama

This Edo-era woodcut shows a crew of ama harvesting abalone.

The Japanese word ama was first used in the 12th century to mean “fisherman.” Originally it had no gender connotation as both men and women made their livings from the sea. These groups of coastal fishing colonies moved from west to east along the Japanese coastlines, and as they did so, the men moved into other shore-side professions (such as whaling), leaving the women to do the diving for shellfish that were dried and sold all across East Asia. Over time, the word ama was used to describe the women who dove for shellfish in the coastal waters of Japan.

Though there have been a number of theories put forth as to why women dominate (and continue to) the free-diving fishing industries in Japan, the one that seems to make the most sense to anthropologist Bethany Grenald is that “women are able to conserve heat better in the severe cold stresses faced in the ocean.” Ms. Grenald spent a year and a half in the mid-1990s living and diving with the ama on Minamiboso coast. She wrote one of the best analyses of the history and evolution of the ama for the University of Michigan magazine, Michigan Today, cited below.

Bethany Grenald and the ama of Shirahama, 1997. Two of the ama pictured here will be reuniting with Bethany at the Abalone Symposium for the first time in almost ten years.

Why Lungs and not SCUBA? Restricting the Technology to Protect the Resource

One of the first questions that comes up when discussing the ama is why do they continue to free dive without SCUBA gear or diving helmets? Very early on, because of the importance of their ocean resources, the Japanese developed a conservation ethic designed to ensure that their coastal marine resources would not be depleted. Under the legal definition that the rights to the sea accrued to those living on the adjacent shore, by the late 19th century the Japanese government had imposed a series of laws restricting access, seasons, limits and gear. Those rights were transferred to Fishing Co-operative Associations in 1901 and these organizations continue to assume responsibility for coastal fisheries.
As underwater technology improved with the advent of the diving helmet, the FCAs (and the ama themselves) recognized that the unrestrained use of helmet diving would quickly decimate their resources and they imposed restrictions against the use of this higher technology along the Japanese coastline.

The early Japanese dive suit and helment, Awa Prefectural Museum.

These restrictions (together with some local disasters) forced helmet divers wishing to harvest abalone to look for other venues, and some of them came to California.

The ama, however, continued to free dive, pursuing their living without the advantages of increasingly sophisticated and accessible underwater technology. It was the individual strength, skill and endurance of the ama that determined their success. Even now in the 21st century, the only concession they make to modern diving technology is the use of thin wetsuit tops. Other than that, their equipment is traditional. As Ms. Grenald writes, “The divers, proud of their strength and skills, have legislated that it is the limits of endurance of each individual, unassisted with any but the most rudimentary of equipment, that determine how long each person stays in the water, how successful each diver becomes.”

Emiko Yoshida dressing for her daily abalone dive, c. 1980.

The word “ama” is never used to describe Japanese recreational divers. Ama is an honored title reserved for those most skilled of those who make their living beneath the sea.

Their Gear

The round barrel-like hanzo with two abalone pry bars.

The ama use the hanzo to support them while they rest between dives. A net hanging below the hanzo holds the abalone until they can be transferred to the mother boat.

The ama are taken to the fishing grounds by modern motor-driven mother boats that have staff on board to act as safety personnel and collect the catch throughout the working day.

Powered by their legs, arms and lungs, the ama pursue their underwater quarry with the simplest of gear. The largest piece of equipment is the wooden bucket-like float called a hanzo. The hanzo is used as their on-the-water headquarters. It announces their underwater location while they are beneath the surface and provides a place where the ama can rest between dives. They sometimes place their catch of shellfish on the top of the hanzo to sort them before transferring them to shore.

Japanese fisherman using a hakomegane. Holding a spear in one hand, the sculling oar in the other, he holds the glass-bottomed box in his teeth.

In the early years up to the 19th century, the ama would seek out their quarry using a glass-bottomed viewing box called a hakomegane. Fishermen and divers used these viewing boxes to locate fish and shellfish and sometimes a single fisherman would hold the box in his teeth and the boat’s rudder in one hand and a spear in the other. The first evolution from viewing box to goggles was made in the 1880s and apparently came to Japan via Hawaii. Goggles were extremely hard on the eyes of the divers, however, so the evolution of the facemask in the 20th century was welcome relief. It also provided a way for the diver to equalize the internal pressures in their head by blowing through their nose into the mask. Contemporary divers use simple facemasks.

They carry several tools down with them to pry the stubborn abalone off the rocks. They are called awabigane, one being short and small for the easier picks while the other is longer handled to reach into those deep crevices and crannies. They hang a net basket sukari beneath the float and each time they surface they place that dive’s catch in it.

The Amagoya: Social Life of the Ama

Emiko Yoshida (left) and Reiko Miyamoto in their amagoya, September 2005. Driven off the ocean by a typhoon, the ama invited our group into their headquarters and entertained us with stories about their diving. Emiko and Reiko will be coming to Monterey in late April to free dive at Point Lobos.

The diving cooperatives are much like extended families, with the women spending a good part of each year together. The center of their above-water lives is the warming hut/headquarters on shore called an amagoya. Usually a low structure with a corrugated roof sitting above high tide on the shore, the amagoya acts as equipment shed and social center for the ama. In the afternoon, after a long, cold day of diving, the women gather around a warming fire in the center of the building and discuss the day’s work and anything else that interests them. One ama told me that they mostly talk and joke about their husbands.

One of the most distinctive features of the ama is their loud speaking voice and their laughter. Honed over years of shouting over wind and wave, their voices are deep and brassy. And, in testimony to living a life of danger and hard work, they have very well developed senses of humor and burst into laughter at the slightest provocation.

A somewhat fanciful caricature of an ama diver in wood in a local restaurant that celebrates the local divers in its décor.

Further Reading:

Bethany Grenald. “Women Divers of Japan,” Michigan Today, Summer, 1998, p. 2-4.

Joe Hlebica. “The Enduring Ama: Japan’s Venerated Breath-Hold Divers Still Ply Their Trade” Historical Diver, Vol. 8, Issue 2, Spring 2000, p. 18-22. s

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Ama divers • Maiwai jacket • Blue-eyed doll