The '' woman sirens '' fishing with bare hands in the Sea of Japan in 1962

dobro88888888 (48)in #jap • 7 years ago (edited)

The Ama villages were scattered around the towns of Toba and Sima, on the Izu Peninsula and small islands, the most famous of which is the Hegura.

Ama were an ancient and well-known profession in Japan.

In their villages traditional gender roles were turned upside down. The heads of the family were women who chose their husbands and were the breadwinners of their daily subsistence, making complex and dangerous dives to the seabed for pearls and oysters.

Legends say that men used to do this kind of fishing before, but they could not stand competition with women who, thanks to a layer of subcutaneous fat, could sink deeper and stay in the water longer. Since then, the role of men in these villages has become auxiliary and consisted in delivering the ama to the dive site, insure it during work and help keep warm after the end.

Women used to dive practically naked, having on themselves only a loincloth and a large knife. From a young age doing hard work in the sea, ama were tall (by Asian standards), well-developed physically, with broad shoulders, strong legs and mahogany skin.

Not possessing model appearance, they, nevertheless, looked very impressive in the photographs.

In 1964, Ian Fleming in the novel "You Live Only Twice" made a Bond girl a diver named Kissi Suzuki. Kissy was a former movie star, re-qualified as Ama; She also became the only girl Bond, who gave birth to his son - James Suzuki.