These women are magnificent. I was introduced to them during one of my sociology lectures last year. The lecturer had carried out some field research, living with the divers for a few months. These particular photographs though were taken circa 1960 by another anthropologist who also studied them. These women are part of an all female community of abalone divers from an island just off the coast of Japan. Even today, the women still free dive (as in without any diving gear, but yes also in the sense that they dive nude too) so that they are limited in the amount of abalone they can harvet, thus preventing the abalone population in their area from becoming depleted. Bless their sustainability conscious little hearts.
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