The Ama Divers - What are the men doing?

[Phil C]

An odd question? Maybe.

I'm a believer that most things don't happen randomly, culture develops for a reason.

So why are the Ama divers all women, what are the bloke's doing while their women are freediving. Down at the local having a warm Saki?

Is it body fat - they can stay warm in the water?

Anyone seen a credible answer to this question?

Phil C
Looking for the answers to the really Big Questions!

 

[Bill]

Hi Phil

At last someone asks a question in a subject that I know a little bit about and researched over the years. I'll give you my somewhat biased opinion and since this is the internet it will be offered as indisputable fact.

First fact is that constant cooling of the male body for long periods of time reduces the chance of him producing male offspring.

Second fact is that pressure change does the same thing.

Third fact is that the more often a couple tries, the better the chance of female offspring and everyone knows the affect that diving has on that part of the equation.

Before you start laughing at all this let me assure you that the above facts can be proven. The only thing that can't be, is how much affect they have but I suspect it's between 5 and 75% after you factor in the hundred or so other variables.

Bottom line, if there are no male offspring and you want to keep the family business going, you teach your daughter to dive and if you want to keep the family name going, you keep the man of the house out of the water.

What a great question.

 

[shrek]

as a freediver and father of two daughters i'll buy into that

 

[kat]

Fascinating subject area, I have been reading up on this lately too, just out of interest. I have read that the men in the family do other associated tasks e.g. boat-driving etc. although that doesn't explain why the majority of divers are women. Could it also be possible that physiological adaptations which benefit the ama pass down through the female side only? Like greater tolerance to cold and so on - perhaps a certain level of body fat.

Interested to read Bill's reply to this, I had no idea about any of that (although it makes sense, now I think about the fairly obvious reason for the first two facts)!

 

[trux]

Yes, generally the thermal insulation is given as the main reason for having more ama female divers than male ones (though they existed too). The quote from the document Changes in Body Temperature and Basal Metabolic Rate of the Ama—A Commentary shows that the core temperatures at amas fell rather deep, so Bill can be well right.

Economic necessity provided a strong motivation for these subjects. The ama had to work in the cold water as long as they could tolerate it. However, nondiving women and men probably could not have tolerated this degree of hypothermia voluntarily. Therefore, the authors suggested that the Korean diving women experienced a hypothermic type of adaptation. Furthermore, the authors suggested that the Korean pearl divers are similar to the Aborigines, because they develop a tolerance to the cold that allows them to maintain lower core temperatures than their nondiving counterparts could withstand. For example, the mean body temperature for the ama was as low as 30°C in January and remained low (34.6°C) even in August. By comparison, the naked Aborigines rarely demonstrated a rectal temperature that fell below 35°C.1 Furthermore, the lowest recorded oral temperature of the English Channel swimmers was only 34.4°C at the end of the cross-channel swimming.1 It therefore appears that the Korean ama performing intermittent dives in cold water experience a greater degree of thermal stress than either the Aborigines who are exposed to cold air or the English Channel swimmers who underwent a single bout of cold water exposure. Therefore, the authors suggest that this metabolic response experienced by the Korean ama provides the first unequivocal data that repeated cold exposure can stimulate an elevation in resting metabolism in humans.

And another quote from this document:

From these historical considerations one may speculate that the people of Cheju Island began to engage in the diving profession as early as in the 5th century or before for the purpose of harvesting pearls Moreover it is clear that both men and women were engaged in diving work at the beginning but somehow men dropped out later From the physiological point of view women have not only greater subcutaneous fat but the shivering threshold is also elevated as compared to men 10 16 and thus women are distinctly in a better position than men to work in cold water Undoubtedly there could be many other reasons However these facts would lead us to postulate that men could not compete successfully by virtue of their poor tolerance to cold Physiology of breath-hold diving and ... - Google Books

Texts in some other documents gives some ideas what amas' husbands did. Amas did often diving as their second job, otherwise being farmer workers. So the husbands might have been farmer workers too. In some texts you can see husbands were sometimes making the surface support. Other documents speak about the husbands as sailors and fishers. And then, you can also read, that amas had a very nice and solid income, and had therefore wide choice and a lot of offers for marriage from socially well established men.

Some links with interesting info:
Japan's Ama Women Divers : ThingsAsian
Ruth Linhart - Modern Times for Ama Divers
Physiology of breath-hold diving and ... - Google Books

BTW, I have a daughter (no son) too

 

[DeepThought]

I thought that the men's job was to pull up the divers - in that case physical strength is the reason...

 

[demasoni]

I think it was it the Ocean Men documentary that I watched that stated the divers are women because back in the day people thought because women have breasts they have bigger lungs.

Men stayed on the boat and pulled the female divers up as they seemed to use some type of variable weight setup.

 

[rxcnc2]

About the article comparing Ama's body temperatures with those swimmers in the british channel, it is overlooked that body temperatures of Eurasians and east-Asians are different to start with. If you are japanese and have 37.5C body temperature, you probably have a fever.

The point about pressure changes and cold temperature influencing sex offspring is interesting, any references? I note that in other cultures (mediterranean, arab, and polynesian) sponge and pearl divers were mostly male, so the argument doesn't hold very well - at least for pressure. And I think people have known for a million years or so that women's breasts are not full of air - Oceanmen must have had pretty bad script writers.

I think that one should take into account society and tradition as a main factor. For example, today amasans still dive but they wear wetsuits (except for tourist shows), and there is absolutely no reason why men couldn't do the same task with similar results. Only, it's a "woman's job".

As a possibly related fact: sushiyasans are only male, because it is thought that women's hands are too warm. Of course, in the house it's the housewife that makes sushi.

 

[apneaboy]

The Ama Divers - What are the men doing?

They are in the kitchen cooking the dinner for when the wife gets home, and don't come out until you have finished!

 

[Chrillepille]

It has also been reported that since they started wearing wetsuits, their tolerance to cold water decreased.

 

[apneaboy]

It has also been reported that since they started wearing wetsuits, their tolerance to cold water decreased.

I bet that is what happened to all the Southerners in the UK!

 

[vivien]

hi,

I ve been diving with the Amas the whole last month.
I did the underwatercamera for a 60min 360°GEO report for arte (German/French TV). will be broadcasted in November/Dezember in all german and french speaking countrys...

So, of course we interviewed them about this topic,
they say in former times when they didnt had wetsuits, women simply did the better catch cause they could stay longer in water than the men.
the water temp can go down to 12 degress there.
so the men usually did and do only the support (boatman f.ex.)
(most Ama husbands are fisher by the way)
now, you have to imagine that japan is a very traditional country in some ways, so it is on the other hand very modern and trendsetting.
this also explains why they still using this antiquated diving equipment.
It is simply tradition, a 1000 years old tradition.
But nowadays more and more men become Ama with more modern equipment. especially the last 2 years. Japan is also in crisis and as Ama one can still make good money. 200-300 euros per day they say.
In some villages 50% of the Ama are men.

Have a look on DBs Friendforum Mediterranean Fishing • Index page in Fishtales section . there i ve uploaded some photos and I invite you join the discussion about their techniques ...
it would be very helpful for me. Thank you.

 

[sross]

So why are the Ama divers all women, what are the bloke's doing while their women are freediving?

Is it body fat - they can stay warm in the water?

Phil C

In the late 1950's Fosco Maraini, an Italian fellow who was fluent in Japanese, made his way to Hekura, an Island in the Sea of Japan that still had a very traditional Ama culture at the time. He lived with the people and documented their lives with still & movie cameras.

The men had various jobs to do, including tendering the women when they were freediving, and fishing. The men fished both from boats and from shore using hand spears (they didn't have spear guns then)

When the women were diving from boats they attched a rope to their waist and their tenders pulled them up on a tugging signal.

The Ama told Maraini that women dove because they had better endurance in the water, and that men were better at tendering because of their strrength. Tendering was done mainly by men, but also by women, depending on the divers' family situations.

This was documented in a book: "L'Isola delle Pescatrici" (1960) English translations were published in 1962 as "The Island of the Fisherwomen" in the USA and "Hekura: The Diving Girl's Island" in the UK

Everthing has changed now. The wetsuit was a relatively recent invention in the USA in Maraini's time, and the technology hadn't yet reached the Ama. The wetsuit was a great equalizer that enabled men to perform as well at freediving as the women, as described by Vivien, above.

 

[vivien]

The documentary will be broadcasted on arte a german and french tv culture channel

Sat. 24.Oct.2009 at 20:15 pm CET (short version 43 min)
and
Sun. 01.Nov.2009 at 18:05 pm CET (long version 55min)

a preview trailer is out now: (I dont like how they edited the trailer but anyway not my job..)

Die Meerfrauen von Japan - ARTE

or

360° - GEO Reportage - Die Meerfrauen von Japan - ARTE


If you are interested even the language is german/french/japanese...
The whole documentary will be online for free after broadcasting for 7 days!
I ll give a link then.