JAPANESE WOMEN DIVERS

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 140, 10 December 1929, Page 17

JAPANESE WOMEN DIVERS

For centuries past the Japanese have employed women as divers iv the pearl industry. Formerly, whole families were divers, but the prerogative gradually became more and more that of the women, and now at least 90 per cent, of Japanese pearls are gathered by them, says a correspondent. Most of the womej. have their homea along the shores of Ago Bay, in the Shinia province, and Kokasho Bay in the Ise province, and here oysters abound. The water is the girls' playground from their earliest years, so that, when they reach the age of 13 or 14 and can leave school, most of them can dive. Indeed, a mother in. these places will superintend the diving exercises of a daughter with all the care that most other mothers in Japan, expend on instruction in household tasks Once a diver, a girl's life" becomes part oi a well-ordered machine until she is too old to continue her work Prom eight to ten hours a day, for 10 months in the year, she dives into from lo to 45 feet of water. January and February are usually too cold for much diving, but even then a few hours are spent in collecting pearl oysters. A woman does not reach the point of greatest efficiency as a diver until she is about 25. The pay she receives 13 small —30 sen to two yen a day (a yen is about 2s). The con tinuar exposure to wind and water destroys her beauty, and so it is every girl's ambition to marry early. After marriage the husband becomes a drone, leaving his wife to support the family. While diving, the women wear special dresses" made of white muslin or grass cloth. Their hair is twisted into I a light knot on top of the head with a cloth wound through it. Glass goggles protect their eyes. Each diver has a small tub attached to her waist, in which to carry the oysters.