Beyond the familiar sights of Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka, Japan has a wonderful way of revealing some of its most fascinating traditions in unexpected places. Along the beautiful Ise-Shima coastline, one such tradition has endured for over 2,000 years. Here, the Ama, Japan’s legendary female free divers, have for generations plunged into the sea without oxygen tanks, harvesting abalone, shellfish and seaweed from its depths.
During an October 2026 visit to Mikimoto Pearl Island and its museum in Toba, TransIndus MD Amrit Singh watched a demonstration of their remarkable diving skills. From the shore, she observed the women slipping beneath the water, disappearing for what seemed an astonishing length of time before resurfacing, offering us a glimpse of a tradition that once played an important role in the region’s celebrated pearl industry.
In 1893, Kokichi Mikimoto successfully cultivated the world’s first hemispherical pearl, revolutionising pearl production. Ama divers subsequently helped collect pearl oysters and tend the underwater farms, contributing to an industry that made Mikimoto pearls famous worldwide.
Yet their original livelihood was harvesting seafood, particularly the prized abalone, a delicacy much enjoyed throughout Japan. Further along the Ise-Shima coast, visitors can enjoy a more intimate encounter with these remarkable women, learning about their work and joining them in traditional Ama-goya huts, where freshly caught seafood is prepared over charcoal fires and stories of life beneath the waves are shared.
Many Ama continue diving well into their seventies and even eighties, preserving skills and knowledge passed down through generations.
For Amrit, the Ama embody something particularly profound about Japan: the quiet determination to preserve ancient traditions, not merely as museum exhibits, but as living, breathing expressions of its extraordinary cultural heritage.
