Gulf of Mannar Pearl Fisheries
Remembering the Gulf of Mannar Pearl Fisheries, and a Tribute to Their Divers...!
Where the ocean is as tender as a river... Separating India from the island of Sri Lanka, the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait have been an important source of natural pearls for several thousand years, and a source of inspiration in art and music, too.
No surprise then: references to the pearl fishery appear in the majority of the ancient descriptive accounts of the country. Yet over 3000 years ago, from the time of the known history of the Tamils, pearl trading became one of the principal sources of revenue of the Tamil kings. In ancient Rome, in the days of author-philosopher Pliny the Elder (23/24-79 AD), pearls from this part of the Indian Ocean were highly valued, and he himself referred to this fishery as the most productive in the world. Romans, Greeks, Venetians, Genoese - all sought after the beautiful specimens harvested from those waters.
Many legends and stories are wrapped around them: most of the pearls used by Cleopatra (69-30 BC) were imported from the island. It is said there were very strong ties between Sri Lanka and Rome in 45 AD. King Claudius (10 BC-54 AD) received pearls as gifts from the king of Sri Lanka.
Even the ancient Italian globetrotter Marco Polo (1254-1324) arrived in Sri Lanka after his long stay in China, thus giving him the opportunity to witness the pearl fishery off the Mannar coast. And the method of pearl fishing had slightly changed for a long time since then!
Pearl fishing was such an important industry that it was a government monopoly from the earliest times. There were two distinct fisheries, one on the South Indian coast, the other one on the Sri Lankan coast, in Mannar. The fishery off Mannar was considered the most important. Megasthenes (350-290 BC), the ancient Grecian historian and ambassador to the court of Emperor Chandragupta Maurya in the third century BC, had visited many regions of India. While in southern India, he also learnt about the neighbouring island of Sri Lanka which he called 'Taprobane', and about its valuable resources, such as pearls and a variety of gemstones. Subsequently, in his famous work 'Indica' he asserted that Taprobane was an important source, producing the larger, better quality pearls.
The island's first colonial rulers were the Portuguese, and they took control of the pearl fishery in 1524 until they were expelled by the Dutch in 1658, who then took over and set out with characteristic thoroughness to develop the fishery under the supremacy of the Dutch East India Company. From 1746 the fishery was rented out, a system which proved most successful and effective. Yet the British did not adopt it after they annexed the island from the Dutch in 1796.
The underwater pearl banks stretching from Mannar Island south to the coastal town of Chilaw are located in depths ranging from five to ten fathoms. Under the British administration this area was examined twice a year. If pearl oysters were sufficient in number, a fishery was called for the following year. Advertisements were published allover to attract divers and pearl merchants to come and join, as the indigenous population was rarely involved in the industry.
To house the newly arrived, cosmopolitan population, numbering up to 50,000 sometimes, a temporary town was set up, arisen from the windswept coastal sands at Silavatturai - 'the port of the pearl fishery'. It included a court, a police station, customs, a post office, a prison and a hospital. Even entertainers such as snake-charmers and dancers flocked to the location, and some simple fairground equipment was installed.
'Dhow' boats from the Persian Gulf were used in the fishery. They could carry a crew of 14 people each, together with ten divers. The whole fleet of c. 400 vessels left for the pearl banks just before dawn, and by sunrise was anchored in position at the centre of the fishing ground. A gun fired an hour after sunrise gave the signal for diving to commence.
The divers were mostly Indian Tamils or Arabs. Some of them plunged head first from a springboard, but the majority descended to the bottom in an upright position, carried down rapidly by a stone weight up to 50 feet below the ocean’s surface to gather the oyster shells.. They operated in pairs, one of whom was always on the surface, and each diver was attended by a manduck. His duty was to take care of the ropes attached to the weight and the basket in which the oysters were collected underwater.
When ready to descend, the Tamil diver closed his nose with his fingers, while the Arab invariably used a horn clip. On reaching the bottom the diver stepped off the sinker, slipped the noose of the basket over his head, and swam slowly over the bank collecting the oysters. Meanwhile his manduck hoisted up the sinker to prepare for the next dive.
After about 60 seconds, sometimes even longer, the diver below gave a tug on the basket rope indicating his readiness to ascend. Instantly, two manducks hauled the rope up along with the diver, and the contents of the basket were emptied into the boat.
Following a few minutes rest the diver descended once more. He would only allow his comrade to take his place when he had completed about eight descents over a period of half an hour. In such manner, a single diver was able to harvest 3,000 oysters a day.
Towards midday a signal was made to cease work. The boats headed back for the coast and lined up close to the shore in front of a large enclosure known as the 'kottu', or oyster store, which consisted of nine open huts divided into compartments. The divers carried their catch into the kottu and deposited it in three equal heaps - a division of ancient origin - inside a compartment.
A British official then chose two of the heaps as the Government's share, leaving the remaining one to the diver. After the divers took their oysters away to open or sell, the Government's share was counted and auctioned off to the merchants. The oysters were then placed in small pits by the sea where they were allowed to decompose - an extremely malodorous process. Finally, the remains were rinsed and the pearls picked out and graded. The bulk of the pearls, which were valued for their golden hue, found their way to Bombay in India where most were perforated and strung into ropes, and thereafter sent off to brokers and dealers throughout the world.
While the early period of British rule was characterised by rich pearl harvests, a series of failures occurred later. The decision was made to revert to the Dutch system of leasing out the fishery, but this proved unsuccessful. And then Japanese entrepreneur Mikimoto Kōkichi (1858-1954) dealt the final blow to the industry in Ceylon - with his creation of the cultured pearl and its introduction to the world.
Since then the pearl banks have remained largely undisturbed. There is little physical evidence left to indicate the fisheries were held for centuries along the desolate coast. However, under certain conditions - in the right light and with the sun at a low angle - the long shore still glitters with ancient, abandoned shards of oyster shell.
