Pearl fishing
Pearl fishing is the extraction of pearls from shells on the seabed. Pearl fishing was an important industry in Persia, Sri Lanka, Japan and the Philippines until the industrial production of cultured pearls began in the early 20th century.
General
Before the beginning of the 20th century, the only way to obtain pearls was to collect pearl shells . This was done on a large scale, including in the Persian Gulf , in an area that was formerly called the Pirate Coast and which today belongs to the United Arab Emirates , in Ceylon, now called Sri Lanka , and in Japan .
The pearl divers, e.g. B. in the Persian Gulf, worked without any technical aids; a dive could only last as long as you could hold your breath. They usually dived 10 to 30 m deep and removed the mussels from the bottom with a knife. The expression “pearl fisherman” is therefore misleading (as well as English “pearl hunting” and French “pêcheurs de perles”). The yield was very low.
A contemporary account of pearl fishing in the Persian Gulf
The doctor and physiologist Karl Theodor von Heßling (1816–1899) wrote:
“At present the pearl fisheries of the Persian Gulf are owned by the Sultan of Muscat and the pearl trade is almost exclusively in the hands of the big Banian merchants, who form their own trading guild in Muscat… It is in the… stretch from Sharja westwards to the Biddulph's group Everyone free to fish. The boats are of various sizes and constructions, on average from 10-18 tons. It is estimated that during the fishing season, from June to mid-September, the island of Bahrain will deliver 3,500 boats of all sizes, the Persian coast 100, and the land between Bahrain and the mouth of the Gulf, including the Pirate Coast, 700. The boats carry eight to forty men, and the number of people engaged in fishing during the favorable season may be over 30,000. Nobody receives a certain wage, but everyone has a share in the profits. The sheikh of the port, to which each ship belongs, levies a small fee of 1–2 dollars. During the fishing season, they live on dates, fish, ... rice. Where there are many polyps, divers wrap themselves in a white dress, but are usually completely naked, with the exception of a cloth around the loin. When they go to work they are divided into two compartments, one of which remains in the boat in order to pull up the other, which is submerged. The latter provide themselves with a small basket, jump overboard and put their feet on a stone to which a line is attached. At a given signal you let go of it and they sink to the ground with the same. If the mussels are stacked close together, they can get rid of eight or ten at a time; then they pull on the line and the people in the boat pull them up again as quickly as possible. ... the time they stay under the water ... is usually 40 seconds on average ... Accidents caused by sharks are not often, but the sawfish (Pristis) is very much feared. Examples are told where divers were completely cut in two by these monsters ...
Diving is considered to be very detrimental to health, and it certainly shortens the lives of those who do it often. Bad consequences can also be seen in the disease of the eyelids, from which almost everyone suffers ... In order to be able to hold your breath better, you put a piece of elastic horn over your nose, which is thereby held tightly together. The diver does not go back into the boat every time he comes to the surface, but holds on to the ropes hanging on the side of the boat until he has drawn his breath again; usually after 3 minutes of recovery it plunges down again. "
Pearl fishermen near Mannar (Sri Lanka) , 1735/1744
As described by Hessling: pearl diver standing on a stone and attacking sawfish (1876)
The end of pearl fishing
It was initiated by the invention of pearl cultivation, which the Japanese Kokichi Mikimoto successfully realized.
Reception in art
In the sculpture
In the following 'gallery', the first picture is a sculpture by the American sculptor Benjamin Paul Akers (1825–1861). The artist was probably inspired by the fact that - as K. Th. Von Heßling writes - pearl diving was life-threatening and the divers were almost naked. The sculpture (from 1858) is in the Portland Museum of Art , in Portland, Maine. The second picture shows a modern sculpture that stands in front of the National Museum in Bahrain ; it corresponds to the mistaken idea that pearl divers would dive head down, through their own effort, into the depths.
The Dead Pearl Diver, by Benjamin Paul Akers
“Pearl divers” in front of the Bahrain National Museum
In literature,
pearl diving is seen in the fine literature of the 19th century as an almost idyllic affair ... as if one could collect the pearls on the seabed:
- Achim von Arnim has Lysander say to Olympie in his double drama “ Halle and Jerusalem ” ( Hall , Act 2, Appearance 4): “And I will soon see the pearl fishermen diving into the depths on India's coasts, returning with full hands and me pour the round pearls at your feet ... "
- With Jean Paul , one of the characters in the novel Flegeljahre (Fourth Volume, No. 61) says "A person has as little time for the good in life as a pearl fisherman to pick up pearls, about two minutes ...".
In the opera
Les pêcheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers) by Georges Bizet , the setting is about “pearl fishers” on the Ceylon coast; Their work is hardly expressed, but the aspect of the dangerousness of their work is shown in the opera in the fact that the priestess Leïla is called, who asks the gods to protect the pearl fishermen.
In the 2015 Metropolitan Opera production (in which Diana Damrau sang Leïla), an “underwater ballet by divers” was shown during the overture to commemorate the earlier pearl diving. The dancers hung on thin ropes and performed their “underwater” dance movements while they were floating, sometimes being lifted and sometimes lowered. You could see this through a gauze curtain, which softened everything a little so that you couldn't notice the ropes.
In
1978, the band Puhdys released an album entitled "Perlenfischer" in rock music .
Remarks
- ↑ see article about Akers in the English language Wikipedia
- ↑ see article about the Bahrain National Museum in the Engl. Wikipedia
See also
Ama (divers) , apnea diving , pearl fishing in Australia , diving medicine
Web links
- Benjamin Akers. In: Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon - International artist database online (by subscription or through large libraries).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Pearl mussels . In: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon . 6th edition. Volume 15, Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1908, pp. 595–597 .
- ^ Theodor von Heßling: The pearl mussels and their pearls scientifically and historically, with consideration of the pearl waters of Bavaria . Engelmann, Leipzig 1859 (especially p. 53/54; digitized version of the Bavarian State Library)